How Labour minister's attack on quality of Scotland's water backfired badly
SNP Cabinet minister sets Labour straight over their attempt to use the quality of Scottish water as a reason not to nationalise privatised supplies in England
Westminster went into recess this week, a time of year when MPs can take a breath, undertake summer surgery tours and constituency visits, and generally catch up with work back home that can be difficult with the weekly commute to London.
It is also historically when we enter what is known as ‘silly season’, described in the Collins dictionary as “the time around August when the newspapers are full of unimportant or silly news stories because there is not much political news to report”.
This week it arrived a few days early as a Labour Cabinet minister sought to make the case against water nationalisation using inaccurate figures about Scottish water quality. A Labour politician, Environment Secretary Steve Reed no less, arguing against a successfully nationalised public utility and showing a courageous streak by criticising Scots over the quality of their tap water.
Swimming in sewage
Now, there are times, when stories that the political bubble, politicians and journalists alike, think are terribly serious fail to capture the public imagination. The quality of Scotland’s water is not one of them. People in Scotland, of all political persuasions and none, take some pride in the quality of Scotland’s water – not least those of us who drink London tap water during our weekly London commute!
The Secretary of State was swimming in sewage of his own making and gave Scottish Government Cabinet minister Gillian Martin ample opportunity to rebut his claims in a pointed letter. Sixty-six per cent of Scotland’s water bodies are of good ecological status compared to 16 per cent in England and 29 per cent in Wales.
Whilst there is always more that can be done and Scottish ministers are right to focus on areas for which they have responsibility, Scottish water is improving with 87 per cent assessed as “clean or good”, up from 82 per cent in 2014.
There is always work to be done in Scotland, and in fairness Scottish ministers have the benefit of being answerable to the public rather than shareholders, but nonetheless the intervention was ‘courageous’ by the British minister.
£78bn in shareholder dividends
A recent report by the UK Environment Agency showed serious pollution incidents in England were up 60 per cent compared to the previous year with “consistently poor performance from all nine water and sewage companies” in England. The Environment Agency put this down to “persistent underinvestment in new infrastructure, poor asset maintenance and reduced resilience due to the impacts of climate”.
The Secretary of State even conceded on Sky News this week that most of the £104 billion investment needed in the water industry in England would have to be paid back by bill payers. What’s more, since privatisation by the Tories in the 1990s, water companies have paid out £78bn in dividends and millions in bonuses to water company bosses, a system that a Labour minister was now seeking to defend. One might say that the UK Government has found itself up a rather polluted creek without a paddle.
No wonder so few voices are calling for Scottish water to be privatised given the unfolding disaster south of the Border. Bill payers in Scotland gain from successive devolved administrations managing water better. Since 2010 for instance, average charges to Scottish customers have reduced by over 10 per cent with average prices significantly lower than in England and Wales.
Given all of this you might have expected the Secretary of State to be more focused on keeping to past Labour commitments that might help voters down south. In the 2020 Labour leadership race, one of Keir Starmer’s ten key pledges was to “support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water”. That commitment appears to have been one of many dropped by Labour in office.
Scottish Labour’s favourite tactic
Labour finds itself politically rudderless in stormy waters, pun absolutely intended. No wonder, the party has won power and doesn’t know what to do with it. The Secretary of State was left gasping, a fish out of water. When he was interviewed, unable to defend his own record, he did what Labour MPs are getting rather good at, talk about something else entirely.
It’s a favoured tactic of Scottish Labour MPs to talk about anything but their own Westminster government. At the most recent Scotland Office question time, supposed to be Scotland’s voice in the UK Government, only my Dundee colleague Chris Law and I seemed to be bothered to ask about issues pertinent to the UK Government. Labour MP after Labour MP stood up to talk about the Scottish Government, telling us something of who is setting the policy agenda – and it isn’t this Labour administration.
The lack of Labour MPs’ curiosity about the work of their own government and the Secretary of State’s brazen deflection tells us of a Westminster government and UK ruling party without much of a political compass, holed below the water line by their own lack of purpose.
My experience of speaking to voters tells me that people want to know what you are for, rather than what you are against. Even where voters disagree with you, and plenty do, they respect parties who are clear on their beliefs.
Things could always be better and Scottish ministers should continue to keep up their work to ensure that Scottish water is cheaper, less polluted and more sustainable than elsewhere. The same goes the other way, and given the state of England’s waters maybe, just maybe, Labour ministers could do with focusing on areas over which they have responsibility.
Water is a precious commodity, and it has rightly grabbed a bit of attention this week. It’s certainly more deserving than this week’s early silly season but we shouldn’t let that wander into September. Time for some serious politics about a serious resource – time for Labour ministers to focus on the day job?
Stephen Gethins is the MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry
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