Neil Coyle

“I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and I commend him for the passion with which he introduced the debate. I believe that I serve the best community in the country, and I am aware that I have constituents in the Public Gallery, but I do not play to the gallery. My community is shaped by the River Thames, literally, because the constituency’s northern border is the river. My constituents are subject to only one water operator, Thames Water, and I come here to serve my constituents by seeking pragmatic solutions. They want safe, affordable water, and problems fixed when they arise. I very rarely find constituents who obsess over who provides it. Let us not beat around the bush: there is no doubt that Thames Water has been run into the ground. Customers in Southwark have a right to be angry. They have faced higher bills, leaks and sewage—it has been a disgrace. The great promises of privatisation have failed to materialise over 35 years. Sadly, the promise of lower bills and a more efficient industry has turned to dust. The figures speak for themselves. It was reported last year that, since 2020, there have been at least 72 billion litres of sewage discharges into the Thames—I say “at least” because not all outlets are monitored. We should thank River Action and others, including wild swimmers, for their work on the issue. Wild swimmers are welcome at Greenland dock in my constituency. I am yet to take the plunge—literally. Prosecutions of Thames Water by the Environment Agency for pollution incidents led to fines of £35.7 million between 2017 and 2023. Earlier this year, Thames Water was fined £3.3 million after it killed more than 1,400 fish by discharging millions of litres of untreated sewage into rivers. The company admitted four charges in an Environment Agency prosecution. That is unacceptable. It is prosecutable under existing law, and the company needed to do more. Change is required; it was promised in our manifesto, and I believe that the Government intend to deliver it. I want to give a few examples from my constituency of how Thames Water operates. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) spoke about standpipes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) said, we see people affected by outages, as companies like to call them, and in that case, bottled water is meant to be provided. Too often, that is pushed on to councils to provide, rather than it being dealt with by the company responsible for failing to deliver such a basic essential. I have had to intervene to support constituents in some frankly bizarre cases. In Stevenson Crescent, a constituent came to me who had a leak from a pipe by her front door for 15 years, leading to higher water bills. There was a dispute between Thames Water and her landlord, Hexagon Housing Association, and neither would take responsibility. Both said that she owed money and should pay. It should not take a Member of Parliament’s intervention to get companies and landlords to sort out a problem that had been going on for so long that it was causing damp and mould in this woman’s home. It is a disgraceful state of affairs, and the Government should seek to change it through legislation on how these companies operate. On Welsford Street, Thames Water stored equipment, blocking emergency vehicles and causing disruption for about 18 months, which was unbelievably callous and disrespectful. In Janeway Street, near my constituency office, builders damaged kerbing and paving without care for how people used it, and they fenced off pavements, which caused disruption for people with pushchairs and wheelchairs. When Thames Water attended a flat above my constituency office, opposite Bermondsey tube station, it removed the gate at the back of my office and did not bother to put it back. I do not know why it thought I would not be on to it. In Oakville House, there was a sewage leak into the boiler room, which meant that residents were left without heating or hot water in December, when temperatures were below zero. That was completely unacceptable, and it was not fixed fast enough. At Bermondsey village hall—yes, there is a village hall in Bermondsey in central London—there was a leak in the car park. Thames Water refused to accept responsibility. The water meter in this community facility was going like a desk fan. The hall is run by Chris Parsons, a wonderful community stalwart who runs the policing and ward panel; the last time I was in the village hall was to run a community safety forum. She is also involved in St Olave, St Thomas and St John United Charity, a historic charity providing education support and funds to people in difficult circumstances in my constituency. It does tremendous work, although there are issues that need sorting out, and Chris is working with me before the Charity Commission has to formally be involved. Chris runs the community hall. It is a genuine community facility reliant on the good will of volunteers and people like Chris. The owner of the building—Leathermarket JMB, a co-operative—and Chris came to me because Thames Water would not acknowledge that it was responsible. It took months to sort this very basic problem. It took bailiffs turning up for debts that they claimed were thousands of pounds, and the threat of legal action. It was incredibly heavy-handed, and it was symbolic of the company’s attitude and uncaring model. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Norwich South referred to the excesses of the sector. This is a good example of its lack of care for the customers it is meant to serve, and about the leak, which was pouring gallons of water underground, potentially damaging the foundations of other buildings. Then there are the roadworks on Brunel Road. Two weeks ago today, Thames Water began work on Brunel Road. That has directly caused the loss of two bus services: the 381 and the C10. Brunel Road is in Rotherhithe. The constituency is shaped by the river. Rotherhithe is an Anglo-Saxon name that means “a landing place for cattle”. Rotherhithe is the docks. That means shipping—not just shipping of goods and trade, but shipping of people. Other Members might claim credit for the Mayflower, but we know in Rotherhithe that the Mayflower set sail for the United States in 1620 from Rotherhithe. The master of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, is buried in St Mary’s Church in Rotherhithe. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South talked about democracy. The reason the Mayflower set sail, crewed and was boarded by pilgrims in London was that they were seeking democratic and religious freedom. Americans claim the Mayflower as part of their democratic history. There is an amazing book on this written by a constituent in Bermondsey called Graham Taylor, “The Mayflower in Britain: How an icon was made in London”, which came out on the quatercentenary of the Mayflower journey—that is in 2020, for anyone struggling with the maths. It is about how the investors and the people boarded in London, rather than anywhere else. I was talking about Brunel Road. Rotherhithe is a peninsula of 20,000-plus people. The 381 and C10 buses being cut off is hugely disruptive, forcing some people to walk more than a mile to get an alternative bus. Two weeks ago Thames Water used an emergency process to seek permission for its works, sending an email after council officers had left the building. There is a legitimate question about whether Southwark council should have had better access to emails over the weekend to see that emergency email pointing out works, but Thames Water used that emergency process and dug up the road. It could have done one side and then the other, but it chose to shut off the whole road—underhand and uncaring about the impact of the works. The works are supposed to finish today, and I hope they do, but if they do not, I hope Ministers will consider new powers for councils to block the misuse of emergency procedures, such as in that case. Brunel Road is not named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Better than him, it is named after his father Marc—this is perhaps linked to the debate. Marc fled left-wing revolutionaries in France who were scrapping private ownership, not just without giving compensation but by taking off the heads of anyone who opposed it. More importantly, Marc Brunel designed and built the Thames tunnel, just a stone’s throw from the King’s Bench debtors prison, where he was locked up until the Duke of Wellington as Prime Minister funded a grant to release him so that he could build that tunnel, which was a feat of engineering at the time. Drilled from Rotherhithe to Wapping, it was the first subaqueous tunnel in the world, and for many years the largest soft-ground tunnel. Invented in order to achieve that engineering feat was the tunnelling shield, one of the basic tools of modern civil engineering. The tunnel was completed in 1843. Originally it was just for pedestrians, but it has developed over time. It was unforeseeable at that time how it would go on to be used, at one point becoming part of the London underground. I am digressing, but if Members want to know more about Brunel history, the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe is amazing and they should go. The museum actually sells Isambard Kingdom Brunel socks—though other Brunels are available. Coming back to my point, the modern contrast with the Thames tunnel is the Tideway tunnel. Thames Water should have been in a secure place to deliver the modern tunnel that has gone under the Thames, but because it was mistrusted and because of the debt it had already accrued, it was not in a place to be able to deliver the new engineering feat that we have seen in my constituency. This engineering feat of the 21st century will improve the environment, take in storm overflow, prevent environmental damage and take some of the excess sewage away from London. It is 7.2 metres wide, which is the equivalent of three London double-decker buses, for those who measure things by double-decker buses. The two connection tunnels are 5 metres and 2 metres in diameter respectively—5 metres being roughly the size of a London underground tunnel. One of the vertical shafts for the engineering tunnel is in Chambers Wharf, next to my constituency office, and came with a cofferdam—not without its detractors—that went right up close to people’s homes behind my office. That project was run well and gave compensation to the people directly affected, including those affected when the piling for the tunnel got stuck and there was drilling throughout the night until 5 o’clock in the morning. Members can imagine the complaints I got over that issue. A cofferdam could have provided a new park for the community, with views back to Tower Bridge where people like to take selfies, but no one was willing to take on the maintenance and cost, and Thames Water was not in a position to be trusted. Instead of diverting to a new company to build this tunnel, Ministers under the last Government should have acted to address the problems that led Thames Water not to be trusted. As usual, the last Government left problems of that nature to be dealt with by a more responsible alternative, and here we are today talking about this Bill. I make no bones about it; I am unconvinced that the state taking over is a solution, partly for the reasons I have stated. It is not a permanent solution on any grounds. I have serious doubts that making Thames Water a state-owned body would make the situation any better, given the faults it has. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know you will be interested to know what my constituency party thinks. It debated this issue just last week, and out of more than 1,000 members, eight supported the nationalisation of Thames Water as an emergency motion. I thank those members for contributing, including Karen, Andy, Richard and others. It was useful to hear why they felt it was important. There were a lot of shared concerns about how the company is run, for the reasons I have outlined. I would like to thank Mike, Julie and other members who did not believe that simply nationalising it is a solution. They believe that state-owned does not necessarily equal better, cleaner or cheaper water, and there is no guarantee that things would be cheaper under a state-owned model. We should look at evidence from other state-owned institutions. Nationalisation is not a magic bullet. Civil servants have many qualities, but running utility businesses is not necessarily in the Whitehall skillset, especially after 14 years of degradation. With Ministers such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, it is no wonder people were working from home. We have criticised the degradation of the civil service, but some supporters of the Bill suggest that civil servants have the skills and expertise to run a utility business.”