that they should have been spending on the sewerage system. so, my question becomes, is we ve provided you with the funding, the regulators confirmed that, the water companies have confirmed it. what happened to the funding? where has it gone? it clearly was not spent on the sewerage system, and can we now have a refund? you seem to believe these days that renationalisation of the water industry is the answer. are you sure about that? actually, i haven t said that at all. he laughs ..as it happens. my perspective. well, forgive me, but when i think thames water announced this massive debt, and it looked for a while as though they might, frankly, default on their debts and collapse, you said, we shouldn t pay a penny to bail out thames water. correct. we should, in essence, renationalise it. no, there s a qualification on that, and let me make two points. 0ne, if we nationalise those companies, we let those shareholders and those bondholders and those people who ve made off with
here s what a former chief of the water industry sort of broad collective group, the water uk chief exec, michael roberts, said now, he said this admittedly three, four years ago, but i m sure the industry would say that the fundamentals still apply. he said, when privatisation came to the uk, water quality was poor, rivers were polluted, our beaches were badly affected by sewerage, and since privatisation, investment of nearly 160 billion has seen improvement. he laughs let me put some qualifications on all of this. when water companies engine the word investment , it s not in the sense that you and i and most people think of it, that the shareholders have taken cash out of their back pockets. any money spent by the water companies has actually been funded by bill payers. now, when they come up with the figure, what they forget to mention is they ve also taken out £72 billion in dividends
people who ve made off with £72 billion worth of our money, instead of investing it in the sewerage system, instead of investing in making sure london is supplied with water, because london s now on the verge of running out of water for the same reason lack of investment in infrastructure. what i said was the legislation already exists for the secretary of state to actually resolve and move this forward this afternoon with nothing more than a stroke of a pen. government in the secondary state has the power and authority to issue what s called enforcement orders, which allows government to effectively take control of those companies whilst they remain in private ownership, and government can order those companies this is what you re going to invest in infrastructure, and this is what you re going to pay your shareholders, this is what you re going to do to pay down your debt, and this is what you re going to do to pay your chief executive. government has the power to do that this a
when they come up with the figure, what they forget to engineers they have also taken out £72 billion in dividends out £72 billion in dividends out of those companies, they have left the company sitting on £60 billion with a debt to such an extent that one of them almost toppled a metal of weeks ago. almost toppled a metal of weeks auo. ., ., almost toppled a metal of weeks am, ., ., ., ~ almost toppled a metal of weeks ago. you are talking about thames water, ago. you are talking about thames water, which - ago. you are talking about thames water, which will. ago. you are talking about - thames water, which will serve 15 million customers and has a debt of forced £14 billion. if you look at the balance sheet, just 1a, but if you go looking through the broader of companies, you will come to kangawalla financing and i think you will find they are sitting on 21.7 billion pounds worth of debt. when it comes to the water quality. there are two stretches of river in england right
points. 0ne, if we nationalise those companies, we let those shareholders and those bondholders and those people who have made over 72 billion pounds worth of our money, instead of investing in the sewerage system, that investing in making sure london is supplied with water, because blunder is now on the verge of running out of water, because of lack of investment in infrastructure. what i said was the legislation already exists for the secretary of state to actually resolve and move this forward this afternoon with nothing more than a stroke of a pen. government in a secondary state has the authority to issue what is called enforcement orders which allows government to effectively take control of those companies while they remain in private ownership and government can order those companies, this is what you are going to invest in infrastructure and this is what you will pay your shareholders, this is what you would do to pay down your debt and this is what you do to pay your chief ex