Environment Secretary Steve Reed has warned the nationalisation would cost £100 billion and slow down efforts to cut pollution. Mr Reed said it was not the answer, adding: “It would involve years of legal wrangles and during that that time, there would be no investments into upgrading our sewage and water pipes.'' Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
00:00The reasons it's not doable is, first of all, to buy out the current owners of the water companies would cost around £100 billion, with a B, pounds of public money.
00:09That's money we'd have to strip out of the National Health Service or education in order to hand it to the owners of the companies that have polluted our rivers, lakes and seas.
00:19That makes no sense on its own terms.
00:21But secondly, if we were to try and unpick the current model of ownership, it would involve years of legal wrangles.
00:28And during that time, there would be no investment into upgrading our sewage and water pipes because the companies would fear that they would soon not be owning them.
00:37So pollution in our waterways would get worse.
00:40The increasing deterioration of the assets would mean that in the end, bill payers would be hit with even bigger bill rises.
00:47So higher bill rises, more pollution and cutting back on our health service and education does not make sense.
00:54And you only have to look across the border to Scotland, where they have a nationalised water company, and water pollution there is worse than in England, not better.
01:03So we can see it isn't the answer.
01:05What I asked Sir John to do, and what he's come up with today, is what is the fastest way to make sure we can keep bill rises down to a level that customers will feel is fair,
01:14but also clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.
