A few days ago, during an interview with Channel 4, Steve Reed, Labour’s Secretary of State for environment, mentioned that the pollution levels in Scotland are “worse than they are in England”, when talking about nationalising the water companies. When reading reports about water pollution in England in recent months, it is hard to believe such a statement – after all we can drink water from the tap in Scotland!
Scottish water quality
Looking at the Independent Water Commission’s final report, it is not difficult to conclude that the story is a bit different from what was depicted in the quote above. Below are some examples taken from the report:
“Within Britain, Scotland has a greater number of water bodies achieving ‘good’ status compared to England and Wales.”
Regarding bathing water quality, “Scotland performs strongly with 87%, while England with 85 %.”
“The Commission has also learnt from Scotland’s ethical based regulation model the benefit of close supervisory engagement with the company to understand more deeply its challenges and capabilities and build trust.”
“The 5/10/25 planning model takes inspiration from the Scottish model where Scottish Water operate under a framework they term a ‘rolling programme of investment’, through which there is much closer working between the company and regulators throughout delivery.”
Scottish MPs respond to the claim
In response to Steeve Reed’s claim, Gillian Martin, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, has written a letter asking him to retract his statement, presenting further data about the quality status of Scottish water. She added: “The Commission’s report notes that 66% of Scotland’s water bodies are of good ecological status as compared with 16.1% in England and 29.9% in Wales. Whilst we of course need to be careful how these figures are used, as they are not calculated on the same basis, it is clear that Scotland has a higher performance.”
Stephen Flynn, SNP MSP, on X posted:
Startling is to know that politicians nowadays don’t worry much about false claims. Why? Because nothing much happens to them. It is more than time that we all bring them to account.
West England Bylines has been publishing a series on the appalling findings about the poor quality in their area, and today East Anglia Bylines published an article about how discharges are not considered pollution incidents.
Such talk from politicians is cheap and deflects from the grave concerns that many consumers have. It certainly doesn’t address the issue that the quality of water in many parts of the UK has deteriorated since water companies have become privatised. Scottish Water is still 100% owned by the state. This begs the obvious question whether profit seeking is a priority over water quality and the consumers are left with substandard supply. These are the serious concerns of consumers and politicians like Steve Reed should be honest enough to address them.
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