Water provision shouldn’t be for profit
IT was only the costs related to last year’s floods and a record fine for lying about its performance to the regulator that has eaten into Seven Trent Water’s £469.5 million trading profit last year, a whopping rise of 15.8%
Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water company with 8.5million customers, saw its profits jump by more than a third to £419.2million.
Water companies in Britain today are solely driven by the need to post a profit for shareholders and the service it provides to its customers is of secondary concern and must be tailored by whatever means necessary to ensure that maximum return.
In April, Severn Trent was fined £35.8m by the regulator, Ofwat, for “deliberately misreporting” some key customer service data and using them to justify increases in household bills and yesterday that punishment was upheld after regulators spent three months consulting on the fine.
This came just 24 hours after the company, the fourth largest privately owned water supplier in the world, was fined another £2million for lying about water leaks.
Ofwat has stipulated the cost of the fine must be borne by shareholders and not passed on to customers but quite how it will regulate this demand remains to be seen as Severn Trent customers already face the prospect of higher water bills from 2010 when soaring energy costs are factored into the next pricing round.
Despite the £38.5 million fine, Severn Trent’s share price rose 28p to £13 yesterday as investors breathed a sigh of relief because the £2million fine for lying about water leaks was significantly below the £56 million valuation of the charge in the company’s accounts.
It’s all a sordid state of affairs and illustrates just why the British National Party would bring the provision of water to our people back under Government control. That is because it is an essential service and supplying it to every household in Britain at the lowest possible cost is the duty of any elected Government. It is what we pay our taxes for - not for bailing our failing banks like Northern Rock.
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I said it was theft at the time of privatization and I still think so!
I seem to recall that it was Frau Thatchler who privatised what was a public service and made it into a business, much as she tried to do with the NHS and it’s so-called “internal market”. However, if she hadn’t devised this particular means of enabling big business to rob the British people, Tony B. Liar would undoubtedly have done so.
The BNP will take it back, and must do so WITHOUT COMPENSATION being paid to any of the reptilian money-grubbers currently enjoying their rake-offs from this Mafia-style racket.
With no more money being poured into the Swiss bank accounts of African warlords, there will be more cash available to invest in improving the water supply infrastructure.
Speaking of Africa and water, I’m old enough to recall Oxfam in the mid-1950s beginning its appeals to
the British public for money to spend on supplying Africans with clean water. Last night on the TV, half-a-century on from those first appeals, there is the same scene, Africans drinking muddy water infested with parasitic protozoa and pathogenic bacteria. Fifty years on and absolutely NOTHING in Africa has changed.
Time to put an end to what is clearly a complete waste of millions of pounds and, instead, invest in our own water supply infrastructure. At least we are capable of maintaining it in good working order and will stop all the leakage, beginning with that of money into fat-cat shareholders ‘pockets.
This is another reason I support the BNP. It puts the interests of the common man and woman above those of greedy big business. A country’s basic infrastructure should be in the hands of the government, which can provide an affordable service for its citizens, rather than let private companies rip them off. It’s a vibrant middle class that makes a country economically strong, not a plutocracy.
The rest of the world CONTROLS our essential industries now- gas, elec and water - thanks for nothing labour and cons!
Certain industries are ‘natural monopolies’ where no real competition is possible, and privatisation brings no benefits to the consumer, only disadvantages. Examples are…
- Water and sewerage.
- Rail infrastructure maintenance(though not necessarily train operation)
- Electricity and gas distribution (though not necessarily electricity generation)
- The Post Office
Anyone think of any more?
I wrote to Severn Trent and told them that I would only pay an increase,for their services,in line with the current inflation rate so I sent my payment off less £9.15.
I stuck out for as long as I could but eventually when threatened for the third time by court action I paid.
My point is that no utilities should be allowed to increase above the Government’s inflation rate which is the one that sets wages and pensions.This would be fair.However it would probably force the government to reveal the true inflation rate because if it was affecting their share portfolios they would quickly act.
Because I’m a business man I believe that business should be free and unregulated so it can operate in the most profitable manner. However, the essentials of life are for the benefit of everyone and should never be subject to profit and loss by a small number of people. Apart from the necessary investment there should be no charge for water.
Artorius, The prison service I would add to your list.
What gets me is, when the water companies etc are fined, it’s still of no benefit to the customer.
The fine ends up in who’s hands? Who pays Offwat and the like in the first place? You can bet your bottom dollar the “fines” will be made up in next years bills.
So in effect, the way I see it is, you are paying the water bill, and you are paying someone to “regulate” the bill, and when the regulator “regulates” you end up with a higher bill next year, in the guise of inflation and higher costs.
I’ve never seen the point of fining these organisations either. Putting some of the company directors in prison would be more effective.
The BNP policy I believe is:
All of the Utilities. Water, Gas Electricity. Sewage, should be under public ownership.
They were stolen from public ownership by the snake-oil saleswoman, M Thatcher, just as in the great gold rushes of the nineteenth century. Get the little man to do the work and then the big guys come along and consolidate. Who owns them now, 70% are not even owned by British companies?
People say that when the country did own these utilities they ran them into the ground. True I cannot disagree. That was before a BNP government. Read our manifesto. Whether or not these utilities make a profit or loss should never be the bottom line.
Off-topic, please post again in an appropriate article, thanks. -Ed
Renationalising Water - music to my ears!
Thatcher was taken in by the ideas of an American financial guru who convinced her (perhaps didn’t take much convincing) that Greed is Good. I understand that even that guru now doesn’t believe he was right. I firmly believe that all the privatisations that have taken place under both Cons and NuLiebour have been an utter disaster for the country. They all benefited a few immensely but the rest of us continue to pay the price. How many of us had our small shareholdings, maybe acquired as workers in those industries, compulsorily taken off us because the privatised company was then being bought up by some other outfit, invariably foreign owned, much of any profits then flowing out of this country. How many of us had our small shareholdings in, say, British Energy (originally a part of the CEGB) devalued dramatically as it reconsituted itself and the boss then retired with the now customary huge payoff? Thatcher & Co kidded everybody on that competition was the buzzword. What competition in natural monopolies, I ask you! What on earth did our government do with all the billions that were raked in in these privatisions? The same that they did with all the revenues from North Sea oil I expect - squandered it all away. (I remember a time when we were told we would be able to have such as new hospitals coming out of our ears paid for by these oil revenues and there would be untold amounts of leisure time available to be variously filled - some hopes now!) Thatcher used it as a way to increase government income without putting up taxes. Bliar/McBroon also used it and invented new taxes as well! (Have you heard their latest wheeze for those of us with trees in our gardens to have to pay £70 per tree to have them inspected every three years? all that lovely VAT - same with home information packs - that lovely VAT - but I digress)
In the case of water, Thatcher sold off things that were not owned by the state and that she had no right to sell, such as the Birmingham reservoir which was paid for and owned by the people of Birmingham.
I would suggest another candidate for your list Artorius - The Defence Research Establishment, known under various names since WW2, now known as Qinetiq. It’s been in the news recently since Precott sold it off too cheaply and the bosses are now multi-millionaires. John Major and the brother of Osama bin Laden figure in its new ownership.
Employees had very stable employment in the Nationalised Industries and they often accepted less pay than in some outside industry for that stability. People are now conditioned to think that this was wrong and that people must now accept instablity in their jobs as the norm.
What a terrible, terrible mess the country is in and what tremendous obstacles the BNP, the only party with the will and the balls, have got to overcome to get us anywhere near back to sanity.
Rainwater tastes nice–maybe we should circumvent these Companies. Your average drain pipe diverts plenty. Why not use it?
Is it any surprise that Thames Water wants to sink our beautiful Oxfordshire countryside beneath a massive new reservoir! They don’t want to be running out of such precious, expensive stuff !! As an aside - who is the foul-mouthed ‘lady’ on Simon Derby’s blog? What a real eye opener!
THELMA H,
An explosive video clip of an apparently drunk ex-Labour MP hurling abuse at hotel staff has been posted on YouTube.
The former “Blair babe” Helen Clark is seen and heard screaming: “Why was I treated like a c*** in here?”
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=202960&in_page_id=34
bertie bert- Because she IS ! Good luck to all BNP candidates standing today-March on BNP
Bertie Bert: Yes that’s the one! Good Heavens! Are these people really running our country? No wonder it’s in such a state!
royalecraig: A friend of mine came up with the idea of manufacturing & distributing a rainwater recycling “plane” for home use where rainwater was collected off the roof via down spouts, pumped up into the loft, filtered & used for household use. I believe, if I have my facts right (it’s been a few years ago) that the local water authority told him that you would still have to pay water rates, etc. for the collection & drainage of all the rainwater that falls on your property (garden). If my memory serves me correctly they adopted an attitude of “it’s our rainwater so you would still have to pay us”!!!
Absolutely beyond belief. When we get into power (as we undoubtedly will sooner or later) I hope these parasitic foreign-owned companies are made to pay dearly for the disgraceful way they profit from a basic human need. This sort of thing is on par with the disgraceful American health care/insurance fiasco.
Also I fully agree with NOEL. I too have watched the “caging paw” guilt trip commercials for poor ol’ Africans under some sort of plight year after year. After decades of government, (or should I say public tax pounds being given out hand over fist?) nothing EVER changes. Africa has some of the richest natural resources on the planet. Gold, diamonds, oil etc. If they will not organize themselves enough to exploit these natural resources then why should it be up to the taxpayers of England to subsidize their existence? It’s like having to hand feed fish & chips for someone that won’t reach out to unwrap the portion he had in front of him. ALL FOREIGN AID SHOULD BE BY VOLUNTARY DONATION ONLY. Tax money should be spent on the people of the country from where it is collected. Plain & simple!
Pop Larkin
I have just had some dealings with a water board in Wales. It seems they can earn huge amounts of profits from the consumer, keep all the profit for their shareholders, and stuff the land owners by legally taking their land. After laying their pipes and building a pumping station on my land, they have given me to date 6 reasons why they don’t have to pay me!!! Modern Britain, don’t you just love it?!
Talking of money going down the drain, I heard on the news this morning that our wonderful Foreign Secretary is to give £500 MILLION of aid to Pakistan!! Well, well, now that is nice to know.
Water is life itself and I would never deny any human being of it. However, these fatcats run it to make a profit so they can feather their own nests. Well, there is a exception to my rule, they are not human, they are a breed bought in by that wicked woman they call THATCHER.
All utilities necessary for life should be nationalized and not run by private companies who just want a profit. Why isn’t someone doing something like they are doing in Canada with thinkfree.ca. Okay, we have tpuk, but although John Harris seems to have the knowledge to do it he does not have the penetration that Mr Menard seems to have. Thinkfree.ca are having lots of success and maybe we should try to do it here. Maybe sending bills of exchange back to the utilities with accepted for value written on them and endorsed with your signature we could start to get our money back.
Just a thought.
Utilities can pass all of the fines on to the customers in higher bills, therefor a form of indirect taxation. The utilities were given a cast-iron guarantee by TONY BLAIR in 2006 that if any government wants to re-nationalise them, then the government would have to give 25 years’ notice, or 25 years’ compensation.
A rip off and license to print money.
Here’s a couple more possible re-nationalisation suggestions for your list Artorius - All Private Finance Initiative (PFI) hospitals; and all our armed forces housing (sold off to a Japanese company). Electricity generation and distribution would definitely be on my list for re-nationalisation, with provision for small private generators to sell their surplus capacity into the grid as was the case before privatisation. Some nationalised industries worked very well indeed, contrary to what was and is still bandied about. Electricity was one of them. The Germans and the French now own much of it. The taxpayer is still paying into the railways despite them being privatised - in other words, we the taxpayers are in effect paying the shareholders their dividends. Any profits from nationalised industries should be ploughed back and not paid out as dividends. The government has an insatiable appetite for ever more money, and has gotten used to the corporation tax levied on these private companies. One way or another, they’ll take the money from us.
If you lot want State control then so be it. Hope there are no regrets on, to borrow from Friedrich Hayek, your road to serfdom. We’re way down that road already, don’t you think?
I thought water boards were non-profit making concerns. I’m with Welsh Water. I had occasion to complain about something, a year or two ago, and one of their employees told me that they were not a profit-making business!?
@ bertie bert
I saw that video on Youtube as “Helen Clark MP Pi***d and Abusive”. Now there’s someone who probably doesn’t make much use of water on a regular basis.
Best not to fine the public utilities companies - the cost of the enquiry and the the fine only get passed on to the consumer so we’re “whim shafted” at both ends!