Steve Reed vows Thames Water bosses will face criminal charges for sewage dumping under a Labour government

Shadow environment secretary Steve Reed vows Thames Water bosses will face criminal charges for sewage dumping under a Labour government

Transcript

00:00Well the water bosses will face criminal charges if we have a Labour government and they continue

00:05to allow the illegal dumping of record levels of sewage into our rivers. That is the quickest

00:12way to focus the minds of the people who run these companies on cleaning up our water.

00:18If we were to look at nationalising, not only would it cost tens of billions of pounds,

00:22which the country can't afford, but it would take years to do because you'd have to buy

00:26out the existing owners and during that time levels of pollution would get even worse.

00:31My objective is to get the water cleaned up as quickly as possible. So you do that by

00:36putting the water companies, including Thames, under tough special measures, make the water

00:41bosses face criminal charges if they don't get on and clean up their act, clean up their

00:45toxic filth.

00:46Oh, here's for me the simple fact of all of this. The day after the election's announced,

00:51the leader of the Labour Party gets up in public and mentions the words rivers, the

00:55environment, Windermere and getting this sorted. Bingo, on the spot, I'm sold. Not

01:01that I wasn't sold before that, but I was. And suddenly Keir Stammer's the man in play.

01:06And for me, we now move on to the next really important bit. It's ensuring that Keir Stammer

01:11becomes the next Prime Minister of this country and that Labour wins this election.

01:16So a month ago, I was on the verge of despair, despondency, banging my head against the wall

01:23and suddenly the world has a brightness and a shine to it that, as you can see, is filling

01:27me with enthusiasm and ambition. And I can't wait for the next six weeks.

01:31You're a very passionate campaigner. Would you consider standing for...

01:35No, I can absolutely assure you I do not have the personality. Let's face it, I've spent

01:41all of my adult life with random people walking up to me and talking to me about music and

01:46singing songs at me. I want to go back to that life as quickly as I possibly can and

01:51leave politics to the professionals, because I'm not a professional politician.