Green MP dismisses Reform UK as ‘cynical opportunists’ in call to nationalise water sector

A Green MP has dismissed Reform UK as “cynical opportunists” as she reiterated her party’s call for the water industry to be brought into public ownership.

The intervention came in an urgent question on Thames Water’s financial situation, after private equity firm KKR pulled out of a rescue plan for the heavily indebted company.

Late last year, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK committed to nationalising the water sector – a longstanding position of the Green Party.

Ellie Chowns, the Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, hit out at Thames Water’s “obscene and fundamental failure”.

She told the House: “The Green Party has campaigned for public ownership of water since the year dot, unlike certain cynical opportunists on the bench behind me [Reform UK MPs], because we know that if you allow privatised monopolies to control our water – it’s left infrastructure crumbling, waterways running with sewage, sky high bills and shareholders laughing all the way to the bank.

“So can I ask the secretary of state [Steve Reed], given this obscene and fundamental failure, why is it that the government will not even consider bringing water back into public hands where it belongs?”

Reed, the environment secretary, suggested Chowns was referring to “imagined” problems as he rejected calls to bring the water industry into public ownership.

He said: “The problems facing the water sector are to do with failures of governance and regulation, and we need to tackle the actual problems, not the imagined ones.

“If we were to seek to nationalise the water sector, it would cost in excess of £100 billion. That would have to be taken away from services like the National Health Service or education.”

Reed added: “We are going to make sure that our priority is pure water, not the purity of her ideology.”

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.