Minister Reed attended unminuted meetings with water bosses

Our environment correspondent, PAUL LUSHION, reports on how the tide of support for one local MP in government is going out very quickly

Steve Reed, the Croydon MP promoted to environment secretary in Keir Starmer’s government, is rapidly finding himself out of his depth in a sea of sewage… and worse.

Devoted townie Reed was quickly found out by the farming lobby, who are ready to march on Westminster after changes in inheritance tax announced in last week’s Budget.

But he is also being deserted by celebrity supporters, who spotted Reed on the anti-pollution bandwagon before the General Election but have since discovered the Labour MP for Streatham and Croydon North is really doing next to nothing over the dumping of sewage into our rivers, lakes and along our coastlines.

Reed has been found out enjoying corporate hospitality at the expense of… companies that own one of the worst polluting water firms.

Now Reed has been exposed as having attended a series of meetings with the water bosses, which were all kept secret and strictly “off the record”. Which some might think an odd way of using public officials’ time. And others might suggest is downright suspicious…

Tens of thousands of people from more than 130 of the country’s most prominent environment, nature, fishing, water sports and community organisations, representing 10.1million supporters, flooded the streets of central London yesterday for the March for Clean Water.

Greenpeace, one of the organisations who helped co-ordinate the march, said, “Environmental advocates, community leaders and citizens from every part of the UK – from Scotland to Cornwall – marched to call an end to the pollution caused by multiple sources, including water companies and intensive agriculture.”

The marchers had three main demands:

Stop pollution for profit

Reform our failed environmental regulators

Actually enforce the laws that already exist to deter and punish illegal pollution

“Campaigners remain deeply concerned that despite multiple commitments made during the recent General Election campaign to take resolute action to address the issue, they do not go nearly far enough to address the root causes of water pollution,” Greenpeace say.

An intervention last week by Reed, who wrote to activists saying they could trust him with persuading the water industry to change, was met with anger by campaigners who said he was avoiding the key issue – that water privatisation has failed.

The latest move by the privatised water industry is a huge hike in the bills paid by households to pay for remedial improvement works – effectively another massive public subsidy for their shareholders.

Ash Smith, of Windrush against Sewage, one of the speakers at yesterday’s rally, said, “There is massive public support to end the scandal that privatisation has brought. Reed’s refusal to face the facts and to rely on water company-funded fiction about costs is setting captive bill payers up to bail out private equity and keep the unforgivable exploitation going on for another five years.”

Today, Greenpeace said: “The measures that have been published in the government’s Water (Special Measures) Bill do not address the chronic failure of regulation in recent years, where environmental laws and regulations have failed to be enforced by environmental protection agencies, allowing polluters to regularly break the law and poison our water with impunity.”

Giles Bristow, the chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, one of the bodies who organised the march, said, “We’re marching because we’re sick of surfing in shit, it’s that simple.

“No more cover-ups, no more excuses, no more delays, we are here to reclaim our rivers, lakes and seas from the profiteering fat cats of the water industry and to demand an end to sewage pollution, for good.”

None of the people on yesterday’s march will be impressed, therefore, to hear that Reed and senior civil servants have been attending a series of meetings with water bosses where there were never any minutes taken.

The Good Law Project reports that since the General Election in July, “Labour policy on the water industry has gradually softened.” They appear to be surprised…

They report that senior officials at the environment department met with water companies nine times between July and September. But no minutes were taken.

“Responding to our Freedom of Information request, the department told us that the environment secretary…”, meaning Reed himself, “… ministers responsible for water and flooding and other officials have attended these meetings. The department gave no details about which firms turned up, and declared that, ‘We do not hold any minutes of the meetings you have asked about’.”

Since becoming environment secretary, Reed has ruled out re-nationalisation of the water industry. Some tougher measures that were expected to be included in Reed’s water bill have also been quietly dropped.

The Good Law Project reports, “A clause in the bill could allow costs of bailing out underperforming companies to be transferred to bill-payers… [Reed’s] department was relying on analysis paid for by the water industry to push back against public ownership – analysis that was deemed ‘economically illiterate’ by leading economists.”

Tamara Walters, of the Good Law Project, said, “For all their talk of clearing up the Tory sewage scandal, ministers seem determined to make exactly the same mistakes.

“So it’s both shocking and all too familiar to find that they’ve been meeting water bosses off the record. If ministers talk to big business, we need to know what they’re saying. We need to know they’re working for us, and not for shareholders.”

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