Category Archives: Regulator

Is Environment Agency colluding with government to lie about bathing water quality?

The Environment Agency has been telling the government how to lie about the quality of bathing water, investigations have revealed.

Here’s Channel 4 News to explain:

According to Channel 4 News,

We’ve seen documents which show that almost twice as many English bathing waters would fail pollution tests – if the regulator [the Environment Agency] wasn’t legally allowed to disregard some of the worst results.

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Papers and emails show Government officials were also worried about negative press and wanted pollution incidents to be “better presented”. But the Environment Agency warned some options they gave could look like ‘greenwashing’.

The Government and the agency insist it’s perfectly above board and follows scientific best practice, but campaigners want the system to change, insisting public safety should come first.

Former musician, now clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey has obtained a copy of the Environment Agency’s advice to the government, explaining how to – basically – lie to us about the amount of pollution in our waters:

In the TV report, an interviewee suggests that protection of the environment should be what the Environment Agency does, and not “spinning for the government”.

This Writer would certainly agree.

But it’s just another example of the corruption sweeping the UK.

It seems clear that the Environment Agency is not fit for purpose; when an organisation that is supposed to penalise water companies that break pollution rules is instead providing advice on how to hide such breaches, it does not deserve to continue.


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Tory government defiant after warning over sewage law breaches

Rivers of S**: unbelievably, the Tory government and regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency reckon they have not broken the law by failing to regulate this torrent of untreated sewage properly.

Unbelievable but true: the UK’s Tory government is digging its heels in and insisting that it, together with regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency, has not broken the law over how it regulates sewage releases into the UK’s waterways.

Here‘s the BBC:

The UK’s environment watchdog suspects the government and water regulators have broken the law over how they regulate sewage releases.

It follows continued high levels of sewage releases in England which topped 825 times a day last year.

Campaigners and opposition MPs have called the regulators “complicit” in allowing the pollution.

The government said it did not agree with the Office for Environmental Protection’s “initial interpretations”.

Following complaints to the OEP over sewage in June 2022 it announced it was investigating whether England’s regulators, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), were correctly enforcing the law on water companies.

In response to the announcement the government said: “The volume of sewage discharged is completely unacceptable. That is why we are the first government in history to take such comprehensive action to tackle it.”

That is hardly an alibi as it is the first UK government in history that needed to!

As for the substantive complaint – that far too much untreated sewage is stinking up our waterways – the instinctive urge is to come out with a lavatorial expletive like, “No sh**, Sherlock!”

Except…

It seems clear that there is far too much sh** flying around – as much from the mouths of government spokespeople as from privatised water firms’ pipes.


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Why are the Tories trying to hide energy bill misery for those who use the least?

The hard fact for the poorest people: while headline energy costs are falling, the price for those who can least afford to pay is rising unaffordably.

Average energy bills will fall slightly in the three months from October – to £1,923 a year for the typical household, the regulator Ofgem has said

This is a drop of £151 on the current annual energy bill for a typical household, which is currently £2,074.

But there are complications!

The drop is in the price per unit of electricity and gas, and standing charges – that are charged daily regardless of energy use, are set to rise to recoup the costs associated with the wave of supplier failures, consumer defaults, and additional support to shore up energy companies’ finances.

This means people who use less energy – logically, poorer people – will end up paying more for it.

The Resolution Foundation has explained the situation in a press release here. I’ll pull out the important bits:

Any family with an energy consumption less than four-fifths of the average will see higher bills this winter than last, a situation that applies to around one-in-three (35 per cent) of households in England and close to half (47 per cent) of those in the lowest income decile.

For some, these extra costs will be substantial: 13 per cent of households (2.7 million families) face energy bills rising by more than £100 this winter, a figure that rises to one in four (24 per cent) for the poorest households.

The removal of the flat £400 Energy Bill Support scheme, which was paid out in monthly instalments over winter 2022 to all households, regardless of income or energy consumption, is in effect putting upward pressure on every household’s bill this winter.

Whether a household faces a lower bill this winter depends on whether the lower per-unit prices provide savings that outweigh the higher standing charges and removal of the £400 support.

The Resolution Foundation expects 7.2 million households will end up paying more, with 2.7 million spending more than £100 more on gas and electricity bills – including 24 per cent (almost a quarter) of those in the poorest 1/10 of families.

The Conservative government doesn’t care about this increased pressure on the poorest.

Here’s Tory mouthpiece Andrew Bowie (he’s an under-secretary for “Nuclear and Networks”, whatever that means), refusing to discuss the issue with the BBC’s Naga Munchetty and determinedly trying to force the subject back to the reduction in bills for the very richest people:

We may draw just one conclusion from this:

Conservative government energy policy is to make the poorest pay the most (as a proportion of their available funds). They are using energy bills to create poverty.


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Isn’t it time we treated the pollution of our rivers by private water firms as government policy?

Rivers of Shit: isn’t it time we admitted to ourselves that it is government policy to let privatised water company shareholders pump untreated sewage into our rivers and seas and take the money saved from not treating it – along with money that should have been used to modernise the water and sewage infrastructure – as profit, while blinding the regulators that are supposed to monitor and penalise these transgressions so that we cannot know the extent of the harm?

This Site has been quiet about the ongoing crisis of the UK’s waterways being polluted with thousands of tonnes of untreated sewage lately. The reason is simply that individual stories – snapshots – don’t give you a chance to appreciate the full horror of what is happening.

The following video clip might help, though.

In it, Professor Jamie Woodward points out that not only has the government allowed privatised water firms to dump all that toxic waste into the local ecosystem, but it has slashed the budget of the regulator that is supposed to monitor any such pollution, down to one-third of what it used to be – and some may say that this wasn’t enough in the first place:

With only limited means of monitoring pollution by water companies, the regulator has no way of knowing the level of harm being done. This could then be flung in all our faces by the government if we try to complain that we’re being pelted with you-know-what so that these firms can make a profit. It could be used as an excuse to do nothing.

In fact, the following suggests that it is currently being used as such an excuse:

But with no meaningful enforcement from the Environment Agency or the government, there is no reason for the water companies to stop polluting the UK.

It’s a lot more profitable than actually doing their job, which is to treat our sewage so that nothing harmful escapes into the environment at all.

The upshot of all this is that we get warnings like this:

Also this:

One water company – Thames Water – seemed to be facing re-nationalisation because its business plan was not only harmful to the environment but had brought it to the brink of bankruptcy…

And what happened?

That’s right – shareholders promised to invest, in order to keep the money flowing to them and the crap flowing at us.

And it seems that while we’ve been gagging on the crap they’re pumping at us, Thames Water bosses have been gagging their own employees:

Then we discovered that the firm is planning to increase its bills, to save itself from collapse. There is not even the slightest hint that any of that money will be used to purify the water it pumps into our rivers.

And what use is purified water when the pipes through which it runs are made of lead – and are therefore toxic – because the water companies haven’t replaced the infrastructure, as they were expected to?

The infrastructure is also leaking around 1.1 TRILLION litres of water out of the system every year, according to Ofwat. Then the water companies tell us we have to have hosepipe bans. They are telling us to go without the service we deserve so they can have the profit they don’t.

The following report actually states in black-and-white that this is what is happening:

Here are a few more barmy ideas – appropriately from the boss of Thames Water – along with appropriate commentary from our friend Feargal Sharkey:

Piling even more insult on top of all this injury, one of the worst-performing water companies was named company of the year at the Water Industry Awards, 2023:

Remember that you have a human right to water, meaning that if one of the privatised companies fails, the state has to pick up the bill to put it right via renationalisation.

So, far from being the salvation of this vital national utility – as it has been described recently by ministers pointing out that investment in water was a very low priority when it was privatised – the sale of water to private shareholders has destroyed our system while the people causing the damage have extracted huge fortunes from it.

And the government that should have been safeguarding the interests of customers who are forced to rely on these large monopoly businesses has deliberately blinded the watchdog organisations.

That is enemy action. Your government – and the water firms – are your enemies; they are charging you a fortune to let them poison you.


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New energy price limit to be set in five days. Why is it still going to be sky-high?

Wholesale gas prices are now cheaper than before the Russia-Ukraine war pushed them through the roof.

That fall in prices should be reflected in the cost to the consumer, of course:

But it won’t.

The article states:

Households should also expect their energy bills to remain stubbornly high through the coming winter, at almost double the rates paid in 2020, and remain above pre-pandemic levels for the rest of the decade, according to analysts at Cornwall Insight.

Prices are not expected to return to pre-2020 levels until the end of the decade at the earliest – but no reason is given for that.

It is a fair point that energy sources are bought months in advance of their use, meaning that the current price falls will still take a few months to come to bear on our bills.

But this means that our bills should be capped at £1,000 or less by the end of 2023.

But they won’t. Why not?

Is this the privatised water fiasco being played out with a different national utility?

Water isn’t rare (yet) but the system was privatised on the understanding that bills would become cheaper and investment would go into modernising the water/sewage network and neither of those things have happened.

Instead, £66 billion have been taken from the public (we all need water) and given to shareholders as profit, while the privatised firms have gone around £54 billion into debt. Absolutely no effort has gone into modernising the network at all.

Now, the outcry over the pumping of sewage into our waterways has forced the water firms to agree they will modernise the system – at a cost of £10 billion (so, much less than has been given away to shareholders, and therefore an amount that could have been withheld from their dividends) that will be paid by water customers.

Clearly, greed has overtaken service provision in the boardrooms of the water firms.

Moving back to the energy firms: they have been making money hand over fist in the time since energy prices hit the roof. I’m not sure I understand how they have managed this.

If wholesale prices are coming down below what they were immediately before the Russia-Ukraine war, then it seems likely those profits will evaporate.

How do they keep the money flowing in? The answer seems clear: keep the price to the consumer artificially high.

That, I think, is the reason energy prices to the consumer will remain high, despite the cost to the companies coming down.

Ofgem, the regulator, has a responsibility to set a cap on energy prices, so it would be reasonable to ask what’s going on there.

If it isn’t going to hold the companies to their duty – providing energy to the public in the most cost-effective way possible – shouldn’t it be replaced by an organisation that will?


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Ofgem’s new rules could harm the people they’re supposed to help

Is this an example of a well-intentioned scheme backfiring, or of an ill-intentioned plan doing exactly what it’s supposed to?

In response to a backlash after it was discovered that employees of some energy suppliers, including British Gas, had been breaking into the homes of people who had been defaulting on their bill payments to forcibly install pre-payment meters, the regulator Ofgem has imposed new rules.

Energy firms have agreed to the voluntary code. It includes a ban on forcibly installing prepayment meters in the homes of people over the age of 85.

Companies will only be able to force the change if they stick to a set of voluntary restrictions and must make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer.

They must also carry out a site welfare visit before a such a meter can be installed and will need to avoid forced installations where a “continuous supply” of energy is needed for health reasons, such as for the terminally ill.

Energy firms will also be required to make representatives fitting meters wear body cameras or audio equipment.

But some have warned that the new rules aren’t good enough:

It seems Ofgem has not taken account of the fact that 29 per cent of households are now in debt to their energy supplier.

Critics say the regulator had an opportunity to introduce targeted debt relief for those who are most in need of it – but didn’t.

Nor has Ofgem considered the energy needs of people with disabilities or health conditions in its definition of the kind of vulnerability that would make a bill-payer exempt from having a pre-payment meter in any circumstances, it seems.

There is also the question of how people will prove their medical conditions without being humiliated by an energy firm health inspection.

Ofgem has said it will consult on whether the new code of practice can be made legally binding before the winter.

Labour seems to be in two minds about the situation. According to the Morning Star article mentioned above, Ed Miliband said Ofgem’s scheme was “not good enough”.

But Jonathan Ashworth seemed to have a different opinion:

Worse than that, the changes may mean energy bills increase – to cover their own cost:

How can that be, in any way, fair?


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Most of us want water bosses to face prison for pollution – apart from the regulator

Water: people supported the privatisation because they were told private enterprise would invest in system improvements while making bills cheaper. How much more gullible could they have been?

Here’s a double-whammy:

Most people believe that jail sentences are a fitting punishment for water bosses when their companies are responsible for major pollution spills in our rivers, waterways and shores. The strength of public feeling is revealed by an exclusive YouGov poll commissioned by Good Law Project.

The polling of 2,112 people across Great Britain has revealed that:

  • 60% of respondents believe that the chief executives of water companies should receive prison sentences if they are found to be responsible for serious incidents of water pollution. Only 21% disagree.
  • 82% have heard something about sewage discharges from media coverage about the issue.
  • 53% blame the water companies for sewage discharges into our rivers and seas.

People have had enough. This disgraceful situation needs to be brought to an end urgently.

It follows – doesn’t it? – that the privatisation of the UK’s water supply has been nothing but a horrifying failure and an ecological disaster.

And how do the water firms respond to calls for them to act?

Like this:

Water firms are making ‘a mockery’ of efforts to link executive pay to environmental performance by refusing to measure how much raw sewage is spewing into rivers and seas, experts say.

Industry regulator Ofwat wants private water companies to align bosses’ bonuses to pollution targets.

But companies do not monitor the amount of sewage being dumped into waterways.

Instead, they collect data on when the spills occur and how long they last.

Campaigners say weak regulators and budget cuts have allowed water companies to get away with a decades-long lack of investment in the Victorian-era sewage network.

And while firms monitor when spills happen and how long they last as part of a range of performance indicators used to set executive bonuses, none of the water companies contacted by the Mail said they monitored the amount of sewage being dumped into waterways.

Bonuses can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

United Utilities, the monopoly water supplier to 7m customers in north-west England … was responsible for 40 per cent of all spills last year.

Its chief executive Steven Mogford received a £727,000 bonus last year as part of his £3.2million pay packet.

United has a £230 million investment at 15 of its 575 treatment work sites to reduce spillages ‘by more than 10m tons a year – the equivalent of 4,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools’, a spokesman for the firm said.

If United has a reliable model to measure volume then, as an environmental campaigner asked in the article,

“Why not share it with the public and the wider industry?”

And what of the regulator?

Ofwat confirmed that so-called ‘event duration monitors’ that companies are installing only measure the number of spills and their duration, not volume.

It has also drawn up plans to block dividend payments – which have totalled an estimated £66billion since privatisation three decades ago – telling boards to ‘take account’ of environmental and customer performance when deciding payouts.

But it has only fined only one company – Southern Water – since sewage spill rules were introduced in 1994.

So: a toothless regulator means privatised, profit-driven water firms have no incentive to invest in improvements to their archaic system, or to stop filling our waterways with untreated sewage.

And they’ll make us pay through the nose for this “service” so they can pay themselves a fortune each year.

Did you vote for this?

And, more to the point:

Would you vote for a political party that would put a stop to it?

Source: Exclusive YouGov Poll: Nearly two-thirds believe water company bosses should face prison over serious incidents of pollution – Good Law Project


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Paying for energy by Direct Debit? Your bill may rise before October so be ready!

Toothless energy “regulator” Ofgem has said household bills may rise before the price cap does in October, as firms try to spread the cost of higher use in the winter months.

The story is on the BBC here.

But this kind of unilateral change by energy suppliers means customers are denied the opportunity to change the way they pay, if they have to.

Who says people are going to want to spread a notional cost of energy they haven’t used?

Millions of us are planning to limit our energy use instead, cutting out all but the essentials – so for us it would be better to take back what we have overpaid in the summer and pay only for what we use in the winter.

The suppliers won’t be happy with that because it removes their safety cushion. But they have been merrily paying massive bonuses to their shareholders, so perhaps they should have engaged in a little forward thinking before demanding that the rest of us take the strain?

As This Writer stated in a previous article, the best advice for you – for now – is to get in touch with your supplier, explain your personal financial circumstances and discuss the best way for both of you to get through the current crisis.

It will also give you a chance to check how quickly your supplier will bring bills down when energy costs start to drop again.

If your energy bill direct debit has doubled or tripled, here’s Martin Lewis’s advice

Martin Lewis: the ‘Money Saving Expert’ has advice that could save you hundreds of pounds if your energy supplier is overcharging you.

It seems some energy firms are playing fast and loose with customers on direct debit, with price hikes of up to 250 per cent.

So take a hard look at what your energy firm is charging you.

It seems some of them are trying to boost their own bank balances in advance of another expected price hike in October – in effect, relieving their own cash flow problems by inflicting them on you.

But it could lead to a fine of up to one-tenth of a company’s turnover if it is caught.

‘Money Saving Expert’ Martin Lewis has given advice on this, warning that there are some circumstances in which higher bill increases may be allowed.

But if you are in credit and “on the price cap”, and seeing a bill increase of more than 54 per cent, then you should call up the companies – politely – and dispute the new bill by asking them to justify the hike.

This would not be a “negotiation” as there is a legal requirement for your direct debit to be fair.

If the firm refuses to reduce the bill, then you should announce that you will take the matter to the Ombudsman. This will cost the energy company money.

Source: Martin Lewis’ urgent advice to anyone who uses direct debit to pay for their energy bills

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Nadine Dorries appoints new charity regulator – the wrong way

Nadine Dorries: wrong again.

If you heard a job had become available because a candidate had failed, went for it, and then found you weren’t considered because the bosses couldn’t be bothered to do it all again, wouldn’t you be upset?

If so, you can understand why the House of Commons Culture committee refused to endorse Nadine Dorries’s decision to make Orlando Fraser the new chair of the Charity Commission.

Mr Fraser was only appointed because Dorries’s original choice – Martin Thomas, who was reported to be a long-time friend of Boris Johnson – resigned after just a week in the job over allegations of inappropriate behaviour in a previous post.

She simply went back to her shortlist and appointed the candidate who was next on the list – to the disgust of the Culture committee:

Withholding its approval for Mr Fraser’s appointment, the cross-party Culture Committee said in its report that Ms Dorries should have initiated an entirely new selection process at that point, rather than picking another candidate from the existing shortlist.

The “slapdash” failure to rerun the process raised “serious concerns” about the selection process and the lack of diversity in the shortlist, the committee said.

The controversy has cast a shadow over Mr Fraser’s tenure, before he even started in the job.

No matter what he does now, he will always be considered a second-best choice who only get the role because a government minister couldn’t be bothered to do her job properly.

Source: Nadine Dorries appoints new charity regulator in face of objections from parliamentary committee

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