Water bosses could face up to two years in jail as govt launches crackdown

LONDON: Water firm bosses could face up to two years in jail for obstructing regulators under sweeping new laws proposed by the Government to crack down on the pollution of England’s rivers, seas and lakes.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill, introduced to Parliament on Wednesday, will hand new powers to Ofwat and the Environment Agency to take action on companies damaging the environment and failing customers.

The Government said the current enforcement system is insufficient to hold firms accountable for widespread illegality in the sector, citing that only three individuals have been criminally prosecuted by the Environment Agency without appeal since privatisation.

Under the Bill, harsher penalties for law-breaking will be introduced, including jail sentences of up to two years for executives who fail to cooperate or obstruct Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate investigations.

The burden of proof in civil cases will be lowered so that the Environment Agency can bring forward criminal charges against bosses more easily.Regulators will also be empowered to ban bonus payments to water bosses if they fail to meet high standards to protect the environment, their consumers and their company’s finances.

Years of under-investment by the privately-run firms combined with ageing water infrastructure, a growing population and more extreme weather caused by climate change have seen the quality of England’s rivers, lakes and oceans plummet in recent years. Sewagespills have contributed to a situation in which no single river in England is considered to be in good overall health, and beauty spots including Windermere in the Lake District have been polluted.

Some water utilities are also creaking under high levels of debt or face criticism over dividends to shareholders and executive bonuses.The new Labour Government has already announced initial measures to tackle pollution but this is its first major move to deliver on its manifesto pledges to reform the broken water system.

It comes as part of plans for a broader reset of the sector over this parliament, including legislation to speed up sewage infrastructure upgrades and to address how the water industry is run so that it can still attract investment and talent, officials indicated.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: “The public are furious that in 21st century Britain, record levels of sewage are being pumped into our rivers, lakes and seas.“Under this Government, water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth.

“If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time.”Under the proposed laws, regulators will be able to issue severe and automatic fines without having to direct resources to lengthy investigations, the Government said.

Currently, the regulators cannot impose fixed financial penalties for most offences and the current maximum fine is just £300, meaning it is not cost effective for them to penalise frequent, more minor offences.

The legislation will also require independent monitoring of every sewage outlet and the reporting of discharges within the hour of the initial spill.Currently, some 14,000 storm overflows across England are monitored so that any discharge of untreated sewage during periods of heavy rain can be reported.

However, water firms will now be required to fully monitor the 7,000 emergency overflows, which are only permitted to discharge raw sewage as a last resort from the network in the event of issues such as power outages or pump failures.

The firms will then be required to publish real-time data for all emergency overflows to ensure transparency and alert the public.To ensure regulators are properly funded, the Bill will expand powers for the watchdogs to recover costs from water companies for enforcement action taken in response to their failings.