It's hard to find accurate figures on what it would cost because of the politics involved, but these companies have been paying out £2bn a year on average in dividends since privatisation. Throw in savings in executive pay, cheaper public sector borrowing etc. and the money is all there.
The other approach I like is giving OFWAT the power to take shares instead of issuing fines, and doing it over time.
Yeah, nobody disputes this but you were saying the government will be able to nationalise the water companies and update the water system and it will all be paid for by the profits in a few years, that doesn't sound correct to me.
It will take far more than a few yrs profits to Nationalise and update the whole water system.
If updating our water system was the only problem Labour had to sort out then it wouldn't be that big of a problem. the problem is everything's been run down to the bone, our railways need a fortune in investment. the NHS, energy companies.
I find it annoying to be honest. the people who helped create this mess are going to be the biggest critics of Labour for not fixing it in a few yrs, this is the price of letting idiots take control for a few yrs.
I would be a bit more aggressive punishing the people who are responsible for running our water companies.
If I took a drum of contaminated liquid and dumped it into the sea or local river etc I would probably be sent to prison if the pollution became serious, the water company bosses did far worse than this, they ran pipes into the sea so they could dump toxic liquid continually over years. once is a emergency, doing it continually over years is a choice. ive heard the excuses but they just tell us the system wasn't fit to cope, it was the bosses responsibility to fix it.
The water companies chose to tuck the profits into the share holders and bosses back pockets over many years, they basically run down the whole water system over many years so they could tuck the profits into their back pockets.