Emma Hardy MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am really proud that our country has world-leading drinking water quality—in fact, our PFAS standard of 0.1 micrograms per litre is among the tightest in the whole world. I completely accept the “polluter pays” principle, although that is quite challenging for PFAS, because much of it is historical contamination. We are now working through that to make the principle work effectively in practice, while acknowledging that it is sometimes very difficult to identify the original source of PFAS.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Clean Waterways: Thames Valley · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises an important point; I would be happy to look at it with the Environment Agency.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Clean Waterways: Thames Valley · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important issue to the House, and I join him in paying tribute to the Environment Agency, all the emergency responders and everybody who has been working so hard. Public health advice has been issued, including precautionary guidance to avoid contact with potentially contaminated material. The incident is under investigation to assess regulatory compliance and to determine whether enforcement action is required, and I am happy to meet him to see whether it has been dealt with to his satisfaction and whether there is any more help I can give him.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Clean Waterways: Thames Valley · Hansard source

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  We are taking decisive action to clean up waterways in the Thames valley, tackling pollution from water companies, agriculture and urban run-off. The Environment Agency carried out more than 800 inspections of Thames Water assets this year, holding water companies to account and improving water quality for local communities.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Water Quality · Hansard source

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  It would be difficult to identify whose product it was in the water, but I am sure that is not quite what my hon. Friend meant. I wholeheartedly agree with him on the issue of making water bosses clean up the mess that has been created. That is why we passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which introduced tough accountability measures that sadly have been lacking for the last decade.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Water Quality · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s expertise in this area. This is a serious issue; a scientific group is looking at it and will give advice to Ministers on what is the best course of action to take.

• 4 Jun 2026 · Water Quality · Hansard source

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  The Government are serious about holding water companies to account and maintaining high drinking water standards. Just this week, South West Water has rightly been fined £1.85 million—a record fine for a drinking water offence—for failures that led to a cryptosporidium outbreak in the Brixham area of Devon. We will keep taking action so that communities can have safe, clean and reliable drinking water.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  I totally agree with my hon. Friend. As I have mentioned before, I do not have an issue with bonuses per se; I just think they should be linked to how well people do their jobs. We have banned unfair bonuses through the Water (Special Measures) Act, but some companies have attempted to exploit loopholes so that they can continue to award them. We are determined to close those loopholes.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  One of the first things we did when we came into government was to look at the guaranteed standards scheme. We have introduced increased compensation payments and new standards. Previously, compensation was not being paid when people were under a boil notice, but this Government have introduced that, along with doubling compensation for failings such as supply interruptions, low pressure and sewer flooding. Because of those changes, customers should for the first time be receiving payments for boil notices. We have told water companies to make compensation available to people as soon as possible. We are clear that customers come first. They are the people I care about, and they are the people for whom I am the Water Minister. We will also look at introducing a water ombudsman. In the conversation I had with South East Water on Sunday, I asked it to identify by the end of the week what compensation will be paid to who, and when, and I will be following up on that.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. It is astonishing that although, owing to climate change, we will experience wetter and wetter winters and drier and drier summers, we have no capacity to store water in the winter and use it in the summer. That seems to me to be absolute nonsense. As for the issue of data centres, there is one possibility that I am keen to look into, and I touched on it in an earlier answer. Under the current legislation, water that is supplied by a water company must be of drinking-water standard. It strikes me as logical and sensible to say, “If water is being used for cooling purposes rather than for drinking purposes in people’s homes, could it not be of a different standard? Why does it need to be of drinking-water quality?” Where, for instance, we want to use water for data centres, for growth, why do we not—in a closed-loop system—use waste water? We have some legislation that has been drafted for the right purposes and sounds great—of course, a water company must produce water of drinking-water standard—but does it need to be of drinking-water standard if it is being used to cool machinery?

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out the consequences of getting it wrong. Just to reassure him, we are looking at using tools such as the water delivery taskforce where we have shortages, to see what we can do. That is for not just water, but waste water capacity too, because both are crucial. We want to see homes being built—people want somewhere to live, and first-time buyers in particular are finding it incredibly difficult—but we are taking a sensible approach. We are identifying where we have shortages in waste water or water to see what we can do to address the amount available, as well as what can be done to reduce demand in that area, including retrofitting, building standards and various other measures.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  The short answer is yes. The previous chief executive of South East Water—or rather the current chief executive, who has not gone yet—met members of the water delivery taskforce a few weeks ago, with some of the councillors from the area, to discuss exactly that issue of how both water supply and housing demands can be met. I sit on the taskforce along with representatives of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, so we are all having the conversation together about how we build the homes that are needed without having an impact on the people already living in the area, yet also ensuring that new homes have the water that they require. We have been assessing what is likely to happen over the next five, 10 or 15 years. What are the various water supplies that will be coming in? What impact will that have on house building? How can homes be built to a more water-efficient design? Those conversations are happening now, across Government. We need to achieve the right balance between ensuring that everyone has a home to live in and, at the same time, preventing a water crisis?

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  I know how passionately my hon. Friend cares about this issue, and I genuinely pay tribute to him for championing this issue and for the work he has done in Parliament to bring people together. As I have mentioned, the White Paper talks about setting up a transparent process to look at whether a company should transition to a different model, including a not-for-profit, if that was what it wished to do.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  As I have highlighted, the White Paper talks about companies that wish to move to alternative ownership models, but I will briefly touch on special administration for breaching statutory duties. Under section 37 of the Water Industry Act 1991, a water company has a duty to supply water within its area of appointment. A serious breach of these principal duties or of an enforcement order can be grounds for a performance special administration regime, if that breach is so serious that it is no longer appropriate for the company to continue to hold its instrument of appointment.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her work on the EFRA Committee. She is entirely right: it is unacceptable. I feel that I am a fair-minded person. I know that water companies cannot control the weather, and I know that they cannot build a reservoir overnight. However, they certainly can contact their Members of Parliament, contact their councils, get in touch with their local resilience forums and make sure that they communicate with their customers, as an absolute bare minimum, and that is exactly the conversation that I will be having with each and every one of them.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  And the councillors, of course, through the local resilience forum; they need to make sure they are ready for what may be another hot summer.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  On resilience, one of the things that we want to introduce for the first time is asset standards for water company assets. At the moment, those do not exist; there is no rule or criterion for the standard to which water companies need to maintain their water treatment work, waste water treatment work or pipes, or for how much leakage is acceptable. With the new regulator, we want to introduce those asset standards, which say that companies have to maintain their assets to a certain standard. That should help change things and basically build against what we have seen—admittedly not on this occasion; on this occasion, the company ran out of water—in other cases where infrastructure falls over because it is not adequately maintained and looked after. That is why the no-notice inspections matter; with those MOT-style inspections, as I refer to them, people from the Environment Agency can go in with no notice, check the assets, mark the water company on them and then give it an enforcement notice to say that it has to improve its assets up to a certain standard. The situation will not be fixed overnight, but having that goal for where we need to get to will help to prevent infrastructure from falling over because it is not properly looked after.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As the White Paper set out: “Where a water company might want to transition to a new ownership model, such as a not-for-profit, the regulator will develop a transparent process to assess whether a water company’s requested move to a new model should go ahead”. We are looking at developing a transparent process, if that is something that the water company might want to consider. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about increasing the customer voice. On day one when this Government came to power we announced new consumer boards for water companies. The Consumer Council for Water has covered the entire country, gathering together different people for customer panels. It has already held a customer panel in the South East Water area, so that customers can hold water company bosses to account—it works very much like a Select Committee hearing. I will share the report from that panel with the House. It is interesting that the No. 1 issue that came up for the water company to tackle was the lack of adequate communication. That does not require millions or billions of pounds spent on a reservoir—it just requires competence.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. One of the issues that we discussed in the conversation on Sunday was communication, including about where to put bottled water stations. I was told that during this incident, South East Water had worked more closely with the local resilience forum to listen to its advice about where to place those stations. If that is not her experience, I would be keen to hear about that, so that I can take that back to the company. South East Water has an interim chair, who I know is keen to build new relationships with Members of Parliament—she has assured me that she will be meeting MPs. I urge Members collectively to raise this issue of communication and where bottled water stations are directly with the interim chair, so that we can have them in the right place. Fundamentally, Members of Parliament and councillors probably know and understand their areas far better than a water company does.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  That pizza business sounds great, and definitely worth a visit in summer. The hon. Lady is right; when I spoke to South East Water again on Sunday evening, I asked, “What immediate measures can you put in place over this summer to make sure we have enough water supply?” I have had some really productive conversations with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about how we build homes that use less water—what we can do through building standards to build homes in a different way, so that they do not have to use the same amount of water. That happens all over the world; it is not beyond our grasp as a Government to do. Fundamentally, we are going to need to build the reservoirs. We are going to need the desalination plants and those big sources of water, but as I have mentioned before, one of the more immediate things that South East Water could do is tackle the leaks. At the moment, too much water is going into the ground and being wasted.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  On the issue of farmers and water supply, I am keen to make it much easier for farmers to set up on-farm reservoirs. I have heard repeatedly from farmers that they find that difficult, so I want to make it as simple as possible. I have spoken to too many farmers who tell me about their frustrations, particularly in the Suffolk area; they say, “All winter, we send all the water out into the sea, and then all summer, we wish we had it back.” I want to do something about that. Every single water company has been told to produce a drought emergency plan ready for the summer, to make sure we are prepared. As for making sure the companies deliver what they promise, one of the things we did through the Water (Special Measures) Act was ensure that if they do not deliver what they promise, the money they have taken to deliver it must be refunded to customers. That money has been ringfenced, and the Water Delivery Taskforce tracks all of the major projects to make sure they are on track and on budget. If they are not, we as a Government intervene to understand why, and to assess what can be done to bring those projects back on track. My hon. Friend is quite right that someone who lives in a certain area should not suffer a much poorer service than they would receive if they lived somewhere else. That is why we want to get a better grip on the delivery of projects, and also make it easier for people to hold on to water during the winter, to make sure they have it during the summer.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  Access to water for livestock was raised with me after the last outage—I think by the hon. Member and the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). This time, South East Water did make deliveries of alternative water to farms across the region during the incident—or that is what I have been informed, but if there is intelligence otherwise, I am keen to learn about that and to understand. South East Water has said that it continues to monitor farms in at-risk areas. The issue of vulnerable customers continues to be a challenge. I have been talking to the Cabinet Office about whether there are ways to share more accurate information and data. The water companies say that it is challenging to keep a priority register up to date because people sometimes fall in and out of being classified as “vulnerable”. For example, a lady who is pregnant is classified as being vulnerable and needing water, but after she has had the baby, she is no longer classified as vulnerable in the same way. We need to ensure that we can maintain accurate records of who is vulnerable and in need of additional water, so I am having conversations with the Cabinet Office about whether there are ways of sharing data, while bearing in mind the sensitivities and complications of sharing information. I ask all colleagues to encourage their constituents to self-identify through the priority services register if they are classified as “vulnerable”, so that they can access water as they expect. I met the interim chair of South East Water, and we had a productive conversation. She is keen to reset relationships, and she wants to meet MPs who represent constituencies in the area and talk to them. She is committed to rebuilding the relationship with the local resilience forum and looking at how the company can improve communications. To be fair to her, she has been in post for only a few weeks, so this incident has happened very early in her interim chairship, but there are things that we can work on and build on. There are things that the company can do now around communications and I am concerned by what the hon. Gentleman says about accessibility problems at drinking-water stations. The hon. Gentleman asked about who I have met. I have met the new interim chair and the senior people involved. I regularly meet the Drinking Water Inspectorate and Ofwat. There are currently live investigations into the company following the last incident and those will continue.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  South East Water has broken its licence conditions, and it is currently in breach of its licence. It has been downgraded by Moody’s credit rating agency because of its performance—I think it is the first time that a credit rating agency has downgraded a water company over performance rather than insolvency. Its licence is also being investigated by Ofwat under the consumer duty because of the supply outages in December and January. My hon. Friend asked about emergency response plans. Water companies should absolutely have emergency response plans, but clearly the plans that South East Water has are inadequate. That is why we want to work with the local resilience forum, the water company and officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that those plans are improved before we have another short spell of hot weather.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for asking this question. I will update the House on the water supply disruption in Kent, and I want to begin by expressing my sympathy for those affected by the disruption. Being without water is distressing at any time, but particularly during a period of hot weather, alongside school revision and examinations. This is now the third major outage affecting South East Water customers in recent months, and it is simply not acceptable. South East Water reported that thousands of customers were impacted by supply disruptions over the course of the incident, and I am pleased that normal water supply has now been restored. I met the interim chair and senior operational staff twice during the course of the incident, including on Sunday, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team met them daily to hold them to account for the incident and to request that they set out by the end of this week how they will compensate customers. Water supply disruption causes significant cost to businesses and impacts the most vulnerable in society. I have heard of a 100-year-old lady without water, and a care home in Cranbrook using wet wipes to keep their residents clean. This is simply unacceptable, and the company must take urgent action. I thank all those working in the Kent local resilience forum, the local authorities, the health and social care partners, and civil servants in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and DEFRA for their hard work to support those affected. I am also grateful to operational staff and volunteers who worked on the ground to restore supplies and provide alternative water. A reliable supply of clean water is one of the foundations of a healthy, functioning society. The situation demands further bold action to deliver fundamental long-term reform, and that is why we are delivering whole-scale reform to the water sector. Through our clean water Bill, we will create a new single, powerful regulator, giving us for the first time a clear system-wide view of company performance and the tools to intervene more quickly when companies fall short. We will put consumers first by introducing a water ombudsman, ensuring that customers have a stronger voice and clearer routes to redress. We have already passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which introduced the toughest sentencing powers ever applied to lawbreaking water company executives, and introduced powers to ban unjustified bonuses. It is vital that South East Water and all water companies deliver on improvements to their infrastructure, but most of all, they must continue to improve their ability to maintain water supplies to their customers, whatever the weather.

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful question. The water companies have a statutory duty to provide wholesome water. In the event that they cannot do that, they must include provisions of alternative water supplies, as set out in the Security and Emergency Measures (Water and Sewerage Undertakers and Water Supply Licensees) Direction 2022, so they have that statutory duty to plan and prepare. The right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is a helpful one, and I would want South East Water to work with the LRF on this issue. In this case, it was just a water supply issue, but often when we have incidents that take out water supply—such as flooding, potentially—there is more than one issue, so it is important that companies work really closely with local resilience forums. I can commit to contacting the company and the local resilience forum to ensure they have those plans in place, and also recommend that they speak to the local Members of Parliament about those plans, to ensure that they are felt to be satisfactory.