Water should be nationalised

We have a not for profit Water Company in Wales, no shareholders. It works really well, meets more targets than the rest do. I believe it’s a unique model.

Welsh Water is a not for profit company, so I suppose it's halfway to being a nationalised company.

Water in Scotland is nationalised. I find the idea of such a basic necessity being privatised is a terrible idea. It opens it up to such abuse

Scottish water is just that ..Scottish owned by us and thats how its staying .I know I've said this before on here and I'm not popular but we have a very different "take" on privatisation north of the Rio Tweed ,as we say .
Utilities should never have been sold,nor should the post office or the multiple other things the WM government let their mates have first dibs at .
Why are private companies making a fortune while the majority cant afford to heat their homes?
Greed,sheer greed and all with the help of teh WM government who pocket large donations to enable these transactions .
Why in the name of any god you choose do England vote these cretins into power time after time ?
It always end the same way .
Not our circus not our monkeys we haven't voted them in power since the mid 1950's for goodness sake do yourselves a favour and take off the rose tinted specs...voting Tory doesn't "make you a better class of person" as one gran said on here .It makes you a gullible fool .Sadly we get dragged down with you !

Interview in Radio 4 this morning and apparently they are thinking of new reservoirs. When you consider the house building going on in all parts of the country.........

paddyann54

Scottish water is just that ..Scottish owned by us and thats how its staying .I know I've said this before on here and I'm not popular but we have a very different "take" on privatisation north of the Rio Tweed ,as we say .
Utilities should never have been sold,nor should the post office or the multiple other things the WM government let their mates have first dibs at .
Why are private companies making a fortune while the majority cant afford to heat their homes?
Greed,sheer greed and all with the help of teh WM government who pocket large donations to enable these transactions .
Why in the name of any god you choose do England vote these cretins into power time after time ?
It always end the same way .
Not our circus not our monkeys we haven't voted them in power since the mid 1950's for goodness sake do yourselves a favour and take off the rose tinted specs...voting Tory doesn't "make you a better class of person" as one gran said on here .It makes you a gullible fool .Sadly we get dragged down with you !

After saying how wonderful Scotland is, I’d be interested to know why you specifically think the public ownership model for water is better than a not for profit company paddyann54?

Casdon

We have a not for profit Water Company in Wales, no shareholders. It works really well, meets more targets than the rest do. I believe it’s a unique model.

It is a good model to follow.

However, we're still having huge problems with discharges into the River Wye which has become very polluted.
It's a long way from satisfactory.

Totally agree with you Whitewave. I live in the south where hosepipe bans are in force or being discussed. I’ve just returned from a visit to family in the north. It was raining two of the days, hard rain too, not just drizzle. We desperately need a national policy to deliver water all the time to all the people. This ridiculous situation with drought in the south goes on year after year but there plenty of water in this country. We need a national infrastructure to move water to where it’s needed. And we need the leaks fixed.

I forgot to post tht, yes, I agree with you Whitewave

I had hoped that Tony Blair might reverse the selling off of our water industry before it was too late and was disappointed when his government did not.

There were faults in the system then but no-one should be making such huge profits from that ost essential of commodities.

It's absolutely ridiculous how everything has been privatised and people have suffered.

My biggest concern is losing the NHS.

Imagine a day when people need medical insurance and something so simple as a redundancy means someone can't afford medication like insulin to stay alive.

Terrifying

Yes, of course it should be nationalised, but that is against Tory ideology, so I don't suppose either of the main parties will do it.

I heard that radio 4 interview with a rep from Southern Water. They had her on the back foot justifying all the things done wrong (dumping sewage in the sea for profit) or not done at all (repairing leaks) in the past.
Tragic really. I wish people could own up properly and refuse to work for evil, profiteering companies.
I agree Whitewave

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019rr3
Katie Taylor from Southern Water interview, 2hrs 35mins in.

paddyann54

Scottish water is just that ..Scottish owned by us and thats how its staying .I know I've said this before on here and I'm not popular but we have a very different "take" on privatisation north of the Rio Tweed ,as we say .
Utilities should never have been sold,nor should the post office or the multiple other things the WM government let their mates have first dibs at .
Why are private companies making a fortune while the majority cant afford to heat their homes?
Greed,sheer greed and all with the help of teh WM government who pocket large donations to enable these transactions .
Why in the name of any god you choose do England vote these cretins into power time after time ?
It always end the same way .
Not our circus not our monkeys we haven't voted them in power since the mid 1950's for goodness sake do yourselves a favour and take off the rose tinted specs...voting Tory doesn't "make you a better class of person" as one gran said on here .It makes you a gullible fool .Sadly we get dragged down with you !

Agree, Paddyann54 I too have no idea why people keep voting these clowns into power. Time for a radical change, I think. This lot have run out of steam.

NO public utilities should be run purely for profit.

paddyann even when we voted in a Labour Government, the privatisation of utilities carried on down its relentless path regardless.

No wonder Ireland became independent of England, and Scotland is about to become independent of England!

What exactly is the matter with poorer Englishmen who vote Tory ?

Callistemon21

paddyann even when we voted in a Labour Government, the privatisation of utilities carried on down its relentless path regardless.

Which utilities did Labour privatise, Callistomen?

This is talking of privatisation in the 1970s - 1990s

The major privatisations in the UK during that period were Rolls Royce motors (1973) BP (stakes sold off between 1977 and 1987), BA (1987), Steel (1988) and Coal (1994), and the utilities: gas (1986), electricity (1990-1995), telecoms (1984-1993) and water (1989).

I'm hard put to think of any other utilities remaining to be sold 1997 -2009. Which ones did you have in mind?

Of course, all essential utilites should be. And selling them to foreign businesses is even worse. As we can see now, when those foreign concerns are in conflict with us, and even at risk of war and politcal, even nuclear, blackmail.

Daisymae

Interview in Radio 4 this morning and apparently they are thinking of new reservoirs. When you consider the house building going on in all parts of the country.........

I don't see much point in building more reservoirs while the water companies are still wasting 25% of their supply through leakages.

In one turbulent decade, the Tories sold off most of Britain’s public utilities: water systems in England and Wales in 1989; electricity utilities in 1990; the natural gas network in 1995; British Rail in 1996

They also dramatically replaced public employees with private contractors. In 1997, when Tony Blair and the Labour Party regained power, they embraced outsourcing with surprising ardor. Blair has no regrets. Indeed, in 2015 he warned the Labour Party not to regress. “So let me make my position clear: I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it. ”

I know, MaizieD but it was not too late to reverse the privatisation of the water industry.

Is it in the Labour manifesto to re-nationalise anything? Water and the rail network?

I know, MaizieD but it was not too late to reverse the privatisation of the water industry.

That's a different matter from what you originally claimed.

NfkDumpling

Is it in the Labour manifesto to re-nationalise anything? Water and the rail network?

Here’s Labours latest position NfkDumpling
www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/25/starmer-says-he-wont-be-ideological-labour-renationalisation-row

New Labour did consider privatisation of the Royal Mail. Changed their minds later.