The Prime Minister told regional reporters from ITV that he would put greater public control of water companies at the heart of his set-piece speech later. Shareholders and consumers are watching carefully…
Burnham said: “There’s a lot of feeling about how we’ve gone wrong with water in this country, and I share it. What we need to do is start to lay out a programme for reform, and we will, and we can expect to hear an answer to that in a conference. I think it’s been a pretty disastrous privatisation that has led to a situation where the shareholders never lose, the billpayers never win, and we have sewage in our rivers and our seas. It can’t clearly carry on like that. Change is needed and we’ll start to lay out this week what that change looks like.”
It’s easy rhetoric but Burnham’s claim about shareholders in water companies is obviously false. In May 2024, Thames Water’s largest shareholder, the Canadian pension fund Omers, wrote its stake down from about £990 million to £0. That’s quite a big loss…
Others who’ve lost include:
Burnham said in his main conference speech: “For the historic victory he achieved for us, I am here to say: thank you, Keir.”