Privatisation allowed to go much too far

WONDERS never cease! In his recent column, right-wing Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger says in relation to the woeful performance of privatised water companies: “...What I and a lot of others need to know is not merely how we have allowed environmental standards to fall so dramatically over the last 20 years or so, but what part a privatised water industry has played in that process. To my way of thinking, there can only be one answer to the last point: a very large one.” Further on, he continues: “The shareholders have done remarkably well out of their investments but the environment has paid a dreadful price to allow that to happen.”

Surely privatisation and shareholder profit is the very heart and soul of Conservative policy and by giving the lie to it Mr Liddell-Grainger confirms what many of us suspected, as we can all remember other instances where shareholders have prospered at the expense of the public. Off the top of my head, I can think of the banks, the health service, forensic services, contracts for PPE during the pandemic, security services... I’m sure your readers can recall numerous other cases. Of course, it is right that much industry should be privately owned but equally it is right that some should be stateowned and run entirely for the public benefit, and it seems that the water industry is one of the latter. In the same category I’d include the health service and probably energy, telecommunications, railways and the prison service – everyone will have their own views.

Meanwhile, we must be grateful to Mr Liddell-Grainger for his candid criticism of one of the central tenets of Conservatism – privatisation – which has been allowed to go much too far. Will he now cross the floor of the House to the Labour benches?!

Justin Robbins Yealmpton, Devon