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dan_b wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 11:19 am What has the regulator been doing for the last decade?

Darren Jones, the Labour MP who chairs the parliamentary business and trade committee, said Ofwat had a case to answer over the problems in the industry, and that he was “increasingly sick” of seeing the same failings.
“We know that companies that are too important to fail must be regulated differently to other companies,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “For too many years, decades even, we’ve allowed these companies to be operated with high-risk stakes, with high levels of debt, with wealth being extracted from the companies, with investment not being high enough.”

He added: “And then, once again, we’re in a situation where we’re being told that customers, taxpayers are going to have to pick up the bill for a failure of good corporate behaviour at these companies, and by the sounds of it poor regulation.
“These companies have been allowed to not invest for the future, even though we know in many ways what we needed them to do for the future, and the regulators have allowed them to get away with it.”

The sound of doors creaking closed long after the horses had bolted was hard to ignore when the regulator Ofwat this year unveiled new powers to stop water companies paying dividends if it would harm their financial resilience.

That came on the heels of another belated bout of regulatory bluster when the Environment Agency said water bosses should be jailed after overseeing the worst levels of pollution in years.

As Thames Water, the biggest of the privatised water and sewerage companies, teeters on the brink of collapse, the tardy flexing of these regulatory muscles will be the focus of much criticism.

For decades, water firms, which were handed a monopoly with no debts at privatisation in 1989, have been loading up debt to pay dividends, while failing to adequately invest in the infrastructure to fulfil their legal duty: to provide clean water to customers and treat their sewage.