In September, I came fourth in the Private Members’ Bill ballot. This gives me the opportunity to introduce my own bill to Parliament, with guaranteed debate time.

Today, I am introducing my Water Bill to Parliament.

The bill will:

• Set new targets and objectives relating to water, including in relation to the ownership of water companies and to climate mitigation and adaptation
• Place requirements on the Secretary of State to publish and implement a strategy for achieving those targets and objectives
• Establish a Commission on Water to advise the Secretary of State on that strategy
• Require the Commission to set up a Citizens’ Assembly on water ownership

Why water?

The bill will promote a national conversation about the future of water management and ownership in the UK. It comes in the context of the climate crisis threatening the UK’s water resilience, as well as growing public anger at ongoing sewage scandals and mismanagement by private water companies.

Unlike most other countries in the world, England has a fully privatised water system. Research by Professor David Hall at the University of Greenwich found that since privatisation, shareholders have extracted a net total of £85bn from the water and sewerage system in England and Wales.

According to research by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the East of England is “the UK’s most vulnerable region to the impacts of climate change”.

Adaptation of water management to account for climate change impacts, in addition to mitigation measures, is of critical concern to our region. The Tyndall Centre has set out how the region has “the lowest average rainfall and highest average temperatures in England. 20% of the region is below sea-level, in some areas up to 25% of properties are at risk of flooding and the coastline is eroding rapidly.”

Full statement on the launch of the Water Bill

This bill’s primary purpose is economic democracy. It’s about creating an open conversation in Parliament, which involves the public through a Citizens’ Assembly, about how our water is managed.

Water is a critical national resource. It is something on which all life and ecological health depends. It belongs to all of us. Water access and our water system are set to come under tremendous strain as the result of climate change.

This bill establishes a blueprint for democratic practice: for creating an open conversation about the state of our water and its future management – particularly in respect of the deep climate adaptation required – drawing on all expertise and ideas available to us, and which leaves no rock unturned in examining the root causes of the current failure so mistakes are not repeated. This bill does not presume a particular end point, and aims to push the public debate beyond simplistic and unhelpful narratives of privatisation vs nationalisation.

This bill puts the conversation about the future management of water where it should be – in the hands of parliament and the public. This is a conversation that must take place in broad daylight, not behind the closed doors of boardrooms, or through opaque industry lobbying. Water belongs to all of us, so how it is managed is a question of economic democracy. This should not be difficult for any government to grasp.

Half a century ago, Margaret Thatcher’s revolution ripped up and rewrote the rulebook for economic management. It was an ideology that assumed that profit-maximisation would deliver public good, even when it came to our common resources and public services. Whether or not you agree with her ideology, Thatcher proved that the world could be made differently, and that rules were there for the changing. We need to apply that same mindset now. As John Maynard Keynes said: “anything we can actually do we can afford”.  That is what democratic and responsive adaptation to the climate crisis demands.

Politicians need to be honest, that we are struggling to find a way out of this mess. The dominant political and economic orthodoxy of what is possible has come to its limits. We have blocked ourselves on every avenue – whether that is through arbitrary fiscal rules, or failing to confront the plain reality that the profit-maximisation motive is undermining good public resource management. This is a cage we have built for ourselves. It is also one we can let ourselves out of, if we so desire.

There’s clear public outrage about how our water is being mismanaged. There’s also a clear public consensus that the current system does not work. If government fails to act, this will further undermine people’s faith in democracy. With the rise of the far right, the failure of democracy is not something we can afford.

We have to stop water mismanagement, and that can only be done through systemic change. The answers do not lie in failed regulators or tinkering. We must have the courage to change the rules and create a new political reality. This is, to some degree, already happening in other areas, whether that is rail or energy.

Let this bill be the starting point for a national and democratic conversation about water, and how this integral part of our commons is managed in the 21st century, with all the democratic, climate and ecological challenges that lie ahead.