Nationalising water companies 'is not the solution' says Lesh

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Head of Public Policy at Institute of Economic Affairs Matthew Lesh slammed proposal for the nationalisation of the water system as he explained the move would lead to “persistent issues of massive underinvestment”, as recorded in “Northern Ireland where the water system is nationalised”. He explaining by nationalising our water industry, “water will have to compete with education, health care as well as funding the national debt” and concluded such manoeuvre would lead to a situation that “won’t help” the country.

Mr Lesh told GB News: “It’s truly laughable to claim that renationalising water could magically fix all our problems.

“If we nationalise the water companies what’ll happen is water will have to compete with eduction and healthcare, with funding the national debt, all sorts of different things.

“The historical result of that has been massive underinvestment.

“That’s the situation still today in Northern Ireland, where water system is nationalised.

“There’s been persistent issues of underinvestment there.

“Let’s not pretend that nationalisation is a solution to anything when it comes to the water debate.

“We should actually start by scrutinising what the situation was like prior to privatisation, which is that was significant underinvestment in the system.”

He added: “Since privatisation we’ve seen water leakage down by one third.

“The costumer is now five times less likely to suffer from sewage flooding at the same time.

“The companies have ensured that prices haven’t gone up.

“In fact, in real terms water prices have gone down.

“Not everything is obviously perfect about the water situation in the UK, but I think we have to acknowledge that the status quo is not necessarily terrible and nationalising it won’t help.”

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Professor of Resources Economics and Policy Chad Staddon, also present in the discussion, backed Mr Lesh’s stance and added: “What we’ve managed in privatising the England water system is bringing private investment into the provision of water services under relatively heavy government regulation, economic and environmental regulations.

“In a way we’re having our cake and eating it too!

“We’ve privatised the industry and brought lots of private sector investment into the water industry since 1990.

“But we’ve done it in conditions of significant government regulatory control”.

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