Time to take back greedy water firms

McDonnell’s public ownership vow for ‘broken system’

THE water industry will be a top target of Labour plans to crack down on greedy private firms, John McDonnell said yesterday.

The Shadow Chancellor vowed to fix “broken” water companies in a drive to put major industries back into public ownership. In a speech in London he said this was an “economic necessity” that would cost taxpayers nothing.

Research from Labour reveals that water firms have given billions to shareholders while receiving more in tax breaks than they have paid in tax. Since 2010 they have paid £13billion in dividends, almost the entire amount they made in pre-tax profits. In 2017 alone dividends totalled £1.6billion.

Mr McDonnell said: “These figures reveal that our water system is broken. The next Labour government will call an end to the privatisation of our public sector, and call time on the water companies who have a stranglehold over working households.

“Labour will replace this dysfunctional system with a network of regional, publicly-owned companies.”

He added: “We will put democratically owned and managed public services in the hands of workers and of those who rely on their work. We will do this not only because it’s right, but because the most important protection of public services is for everyone to feel ownership of them.”

IT is accepted across the political spectrum that certain public services should not be privatised – the NHS, the police, the fire service and the BBC.

Yet if you want to get a Tory frothing at the mouth suggest that transport and public utilities should be renationalised.

These are also essential public services. We need to move around the place, and water, gas and electricity are some of life’s most valuable commodities. That’s why this newspaper believes they should be in public ownership.

That they are not is the lasting legacy of Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher believed that these industries would perform better in the private sector. This was based on the fact that they could not perform any worse. British Rail was a national joke, a creaking, inefficient basket case. The utilities were not much better.

But what may have been true decades ago no longer holds today. Just ask Southern rail passengers, or those who use Southeastern, Thameslink or Great Northern.

Today Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell reveals how water firms have paid £13billion to shareholders since 2010 while receiving more in tax breaks than they paid in tax.

They fund reports by right-wing think tanks to rubbish Labour’s nationalisation plans. That sound you can hear is fatcats squealing because they fear they might lose their cream.

The ability of an industry to serve its customers has nothing to do with whether it is private or public, only that it has good management.

And the principle must be right that a public service is there first and foremost to serve the public, not to make a fat profit out of it.

The Tories say Labour must borrow to take industries back into public control. They are right. But Mr McDonnell counters that it is no different from borrowing to buy a house. You own the house which becomes an asset which, all being well, will grow in value.

The Tory Party argument against nationalisation is rooted in a past long since gone.

Labour’s refreshing new thinking shows it is the party of the future.