Thames Water boss says he's 'angry' over pollution amid government crackdown

Water bosses could face up to two years in prison under new government plans to crack down on water companies that damage the environment, as ITV News Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills reports

The chief executive of Thames Water has said he is angry about water pollution as new legislation comes in that could see bosses put in prison if their company fails to meet certain standards.

"I want to clean up rivers, and that's why I joined Thames [Water] and now there's a job of work to do," Chris Weston told ITV News. "I understand everyone's angry - as am I."

The new legislation allows regulators to bring criminal charges against executives from water companies, which could lead to imprisonment.

Additionally, it enables faster and more severe fines for poor performance, and to ban bonuses if executives fail to meet certain standards.

Mr Weston refused to answer multiple questions about whether he thinks he should give up his bonus, which totaled £195,000 for the first three months of this year.

Water bosses could face up to two years in prison under new government plans to crack down on water companies that damage the environment.

Under previous laws, the maximum punishment for polluting was a fine, but new legislation put before Parliament on Wednesday could see water bosses face jail time.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said that British waterways "are now in an unacceptable state".

"Under this government, water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth. If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time.

In a speech at Thames Rowing Club in Putney, Reed said the former Conservative government was “too weak” to stop water companies paying out millions in bonuses and dividends at the expense of infrastructure upgrades.

"The public are sick and tired of our rivers being full of filthy, toxic sewage and there being no accountability back to the sector," he added.

"The changes we're announcing with this new legislation is to make the water bosses accountable for what they're doing."

The concern is that regulators will struggle to enforce the new measures, with the provisions not coming with any extra government funding.

"The environment agency is massively under resourced. I think the funding has been cut by around 40% in the last few years, and that means they can't possibly hope to keep up with all the regulation that's required," Tessa Wardley, director for communications and advocacy at The Rivers Trust, told ITV News.

The quality of England’s rivers, lakes and seas has plummeted in recent years as the number of sewage spills has increased.

Currently, no single river in England is considered to be in good overall health, and beauty spots, including Windermere, in the Lake District, have been polluted.

Open water swimmer Laura Reineke said the water quality of the River Thames had obviously declined in recent years.

"The plant life is covered in sewage foam, there's rag which is sanitary products hanging off the trees with a kingfisher sitting on them, you've got poo tidemarks on swans and you've got a murky, unhealthy river which is not full of life. It's dying," she said.

Some water utilities are also creaking under high levels of debt or face criticism over dividends to shareholders and executive bonuses.

Thames Water has just announced that it will need to hike customer bills by nearly 60% by 2030, warning that any other action will leave it "uninvestible".

In turn this has led to water companies requesting permission to sharply increase bills to address the concerns.

Under the proposed laws, regulators will be able to issue severe and automatic fines without having to direct resources to lengthy investigations, the government said.

Currently, the regulators cannot impose fixed financial penalties for most offences and the current maximum fine is just £300, meaning it is not cost effective for them to penalise frequent, more minor offences.

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The legislation will also require independent monitoring of every sewage outlet and the reporting of discharges within the hour of the initial spill.

Currently, some 14,000 storm overflows across England are monitored so that any discharge of untreated sewage during periods of heavy rain can be reported.

However, water firms will now be required to fully monitor the 7,000 emergency overflows, which are only permitted to discharge raw sewage as a last resort from the network in the event of issues, such as power outages or pump failures.

The firms will then be required to publish real-time data for all emergency overflows to ensure transparency and alert the public.

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To ensure regulators are properly funded, the bill will expand powers for the watchdogs to recover costs from water companies for enforcement action taken in response to their failings.

Ofwat will also be required to set rules that ensure companies appoint directors and chief executives, and allow them to remain in post, only when they meet the highest standards of “fitness and propriety”.

Elsewhere, there will be a new statutory requirement for water companies to publish annual pollution incident reduction plans that outline the steps they are taking to address pollution incidents.

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