Environment Secretary urged to apologise for ‘misleading' Scottish water claims
Mr Reed came under fire after claiming that under publicly-owned Scottish Water 'pollution levels in Scotland are worse than they are in England'.
The UK Government minister made the remarks to Channel 4 News as he dismissed calls for water services south of the border to be nationalised.
Gillian Martin, the Scottish Government Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, said she was 'extremely disappointed' that Mr Reed had made the 'inaccurate and misleading comments regarding performance in Scotland' as he sought to 'dismiss out of hand the value of public ownership of a key asset like water'.
She wrote to Mr Reed noting that Monday's report from the Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, had found 66% of Scotland's water bodies to be of good ecological status, compared with 16.1% in England and 29.9% in Wales.
And while she accepted the figures for the different countries were 'not calculated on the same basis', Ms Martin stated: 'It is clear that Scotland has a higher performance.'
She insisted that 'much of the improvement' seen in water in Scotland was 'due to significant investment in the water industry to reduce pollution', which she said was driven by both Scottish Water and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).
Ms Martin told the UK Environment Secretary: 'Your comments sought also to undermine the idea of public ownership in the minds of voters, yet this is clearly what the people of Scotland continue to want.
'Indeed, it is the very fact of that public ownership and control which has allowed us to keep water bills lower for people, compared to what people with privatised water supplies in England have to pay.'
Noting that Sepa had found 87% of the Scottish water environment to be of 'high' of 'good' quality – up from 82% in 2014 – she insisted this was 'in part, due to water being a publicly-owned asset, allowing for investment without shareholder returns or the pressure to make profits'.
The Scottish Government minister went on to tell Mr Reed: 'I am therefore asking that you acknowledge that your comments were inaccurate, that you apologise publicly for making them, and seek to correct them.'
Sir Jon's review of water services south of the border did not explore renationalising water companies – with the Government at Westminster opposed to this despite demands from campaigners for a return to public ownership in England.
Mr Reed however warned that nationalisation would cost £100 billion and would slow down efforts to cut pollution.
The UK Government has been contacted for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Charity in legal action against minister for failing to act over Thames Water
A river charity is taking legal action against the environment secretary, Steve Reed, accusing him of an unlawful failure to publish his policy on taking failing water companies into temporary nationalisation. Lawyers for River Action argue that Thames Water has breached its duties and violated its licence conditions seriously and repeatedly, making it the clearest possible case for special administration. Special administration is a temporary insolvency and restructuring process for companies that provide essential public services such as water, energy and transport. It is designed to ensure continuity of service while the company is stabilised and restructured. There is a bespoke special administration regime (SAR) for the water industry, which was created in 1991 and is designed to prioritise customers and services while putting financial interests second. Reed has said that the government is stepping up preparations to take Thames Water into special administration, indicating he will reject pleas from the company's creditors for leniency from fines and penalties. Thames Water's largest creditors control the utility and have made efforts to cut some of its debts and have offered to provide £5.3bn in new funding to try to turn it around. But River Action's head of legal, Emma Dearnaley, said the time to use the SAR process was now. 'Enough is enough,' she said. 'Why hasn't the secretary of state used special administration to fix the water sector, starting with Thames Water? 'The government has the power but won't use it, or even explain when it might trigger this process. Apparently, the government has no policy at all. That's a fundamental failure of transparency and accountability, and it's unlawful.' River Action has lodged an application for a judicial review against the secretary of state. The claim argues that the government has failed to publish its policy on when it would use the SAR process, breaching core public law duties, and that ministers have failed to develop a policy at all, breaching obligations under habitats regulations and other planning and environmental laws. Under section 24 of the Water Industry Act 1991, special administration can be triggered by a water company's failure to meet performance standards, including environmental pollution, and a breach of its statutory or licence duties in ways that are 'serious enough to make it inappropriate for the company to continue to hold its licence'. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion River Action argues that Thames Water clearly meets that threshold and has done so for years. Serious pollution incidents by Thames and other water companies were up 60% last year compared with the year before, data has revealed. There were 75 serious pollution incidents in 2024, up from 47 in 2023, Environment Agency figures show. Three companies were responsible for 61, or 81%, of the incidents: : Thames Water with 33, Southern Water, 15, and Yorkshire Water, 13. Thames Water's serious incidents more than doubled. A spokesperson for the government said: 'We are unable to comment on an ongoing legal challenge.' Thames Water was approached for comment.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Lawless London: Knife crime offences in the capital nearly double in decade under Sadiq Khan - as report shows West End is becoming a hotspot of offending
Knife offences in London have increased by 86 per cent in a decade, a shocking report has found. London's iconic West End has more knife crime than almost 15 per cent of the rest of the capital combined, according to research from the Policy Exchange. Just five per cent of robberies and 0.6 per cent of 'theft from person' crimes in London were solved last year, the research – titled Your Money or Your Life: London's Knife Crime, Robbery and Street Theft Epidemic' – found. The report's author, ex-Scotland Yard detective chief inspector David Spencer, said his former force must take an unequivocal 'crime fighting first' approach to save the city from a knife, robbery and theft epidemic. Knife offences across the country have increased by 78 per cent since 2014, but Mr Spencer said these figures had been skewed by the scale of the issue in the capital, where there were 16,879 knife crimes last year alone - about a third of the total across England and Wales. The report points out that this coincides broadly with the mayoralty of Sir Sadiq Khan, who was this week publicly criticised by US president Donald Trump, who claimed he had done a 'terrible job.' Sir Sadiq, who was knighted in June, has won the Mayoral elections three times since 2016. The Policy Exchange report claims that since the pandemic knife crime has risen year on year throughout his tenure, with separate figures indicating a nine per cent rise in the past year. A spokesman for the Mayor said murders, gun crime with lethal barrel discharges, knife crime with injury and burglary are all down since 2016 and last year teen murders were the lowest they had been for a decade. But the report's author Mr Spencer said: 'A cosy consensus between police chiefs and political leaders has led to a collapse in proactive policing – in particular stop and search rates – allowing the streets to be surrendered to thugs, robbers and thieves.' The Metropolitan Police said there had been a recent dip in knife crimes between April and May, while personal robbery was down 12.8 per cent in a year. The report made 17 recommendations, including that the capital's top 20 knife crime hotspots should have enhanced 'zero tolerance' enforcement, with extra officers tasked with conducting high volumes of stop and search. The number of searches has dropped by 56.4 per cent since 2022, from 311,352 annually to 135,739, the report states. And the paper argues that contrary to criticism, the controversial practice is not deployed in a 'racist' way and reflected the proportion of the capital charged with serious crimes. The report stated that 39.5 per cent of those stopped and searched were black, while 43.6 per cent of people charged with murder and 45.6 per cent of victims stabbed to death were. 'The police are merely responding to the demographic breakdown of serious and violent offending in the capital,' the report argued. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said he supported the 'zero tolerance' approach, which he understood would require a combination of clear policy, political will and savvy operational policing to implement. 'It also requires policing and political leaders to put public safety ahead of ideological dogma on issues such as stop and search,' he added. The report also called on the Government to force Apple and Google to prevent stolen mobile phones being able to connect with cloud services, which would render them useless to thieves. The Mail revealed on Saturday that traditional county lines gangs are turning to stealing phones over dealing drugs because unprecedented demand from overseas is creating a booming £70million black market. The report also highlighted that 'hyper-prolific offenders' across Britain with 46 or more previous convictions are sent to prison on less than half of occasions after they are convicted again. It recommended the Government should make immediate two-year custodial sentences mandatory for all such offenders upon conviction of a further offence. Labour MP and former Metropolitan Police inspector Jonathan Hinder said the criminal justice system had been left broken, and there was an urgent need to properly resource courts and prisons to restore public faith. 'In the meantime, the law-abiding public want a strong police force to have the confidence to take on criminals, and it's time for politicians of all colours to give the police their full backing to do just that,' he added. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'We are putting more officers in neighbourhoods than ever before, using our stop and search powers to taking thousands of weapons off the street – 17,500 over the past four years - and utilising new technology and data-driven tactics including focussing on the highest harm hotspots to bring offenders to justice and drive down violent crime. 'We are also arresting more than 1,000 more criminals each month thanks to the hard work of our officers. 'Our approach is having success - this financial year, knife-related crime is down by 16 per cent, there has 12.8 per cent reduction in robbery offences and homicide is at a five year low. 'This report repeats the calls that we have previously made for reform of the justice system and the collaboration of partners like major mobile phone producers. 'We all know that reducing knife crime requires a whole of society effort and we will support any initiative that seeks to make this happen.' A spokesman for the Mayor of London said: 'The latest ONS stats also show that overall, the violent crime with injury rate is lower in London than in the rest of England and Wales. 'Record funding from the Mayor and an enhanced approach to neighbourhood policing in the West End has led to personal robberies falling by 20 per cent and violence with injury reducing by 25 per cent in the last year. 'The Mayor is determined to build on this progress – his record £1.16bn funding has secured 935 police officers and he has worked closely with the Commissioner to increase the number of police officers on the beat in the West End, plus additional police officers working in new or enhanced town centre teams in hotspot areas. 'Despite years of austerity by the previous government, this is the latest example of the Met Police and Mayor prioritising what Londoners want and delivering on their pledge to put high visibility policing at the heart of fighting crime and rebuilding community confidence and trust.'
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
Donald Trump is right to stir up the hornets' nest on North Sea oil and gas
In spite of their relationship being one of the political world's strangest bromances, Donald Trump's claim that Keir Starmer was 'destroying' the North Sea's oil and gas found other targets in his Aberdeen stopover. As a result – and even in their own backyard – he was not averse to letting John Swinney, the First Minister, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, know that he didn't think much of their energy policies. That's assuming that any one of those who'll be called to vote in next May's Scottish Parliament elections really knows what Swinney's or Sarwar's definite policy on North Sea oil and gas will be. Both parties have been playing a version of dodgems, ducking and diving all over the place as they constantly seek to confuse the electorate about what the future holds for what the president rightly described as the North Sea's 'treasure chest'. The SNP have been all over the place in relation to energy, while at least with Nicola Sturgeon voters knew where they were. Then, in that ill-fated and completely nonsensical alliance with the sub-Marxist Scottish Greens, the Scottish Government had set its face firmly against more development of oil and gas fields and any still under way would presumably be abandoned. Everything was geared to renewable power – wind, solar and tidal. And definitely no nuclear generation, either – not ever. Swinney has managed to get the SNP off that ludicrous policy for keeping Scotland's lights on, if only by sitting on the fence and stating that they'd no longer ban all North Sea production and instead would consider new licences to drill on a case-by-case basis. I can just imagine the world's oil giants rushing to do business with the Scottish Government with that sort of 'maybe-aye-maybe-no' condition hanging over their development plans. The Scottish Tories are completely onside with the president in being ready to approve many new licences that would help preserve the current well-paid and highly skilled jobs in the North East of Scotland. And it should help them hang onto key constituencies. But it was Scottish Labour that, until fairly recently, looked to have a fair chance of challenging the SNP for the right to form a government next May. That hope, however, almost disappeared thanks to a whole series of own goals by the UK Labour Government over issues such as winter fuel payments and benefit cuts. It remains to be seen whether their Hamilton by-election victory has put new heart into Labour and also whether they now have a policy on North Sea oil and gas that will attract voters. The omens are not good, if the trades union leader Gary Smith is to be believed. The general secretary of the Labour-supporting GMB union has said that the UK Government's energy policy is 'bonkers' as it plans to cut off investment that would help create jobs. In that he was essentially echoing the president's comments. The UK Government is expected to grant permission for the giant new Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea to go ahead as they already have licences approved. But Ed Miliband, the UK Energy Secretary, has repeatedly said no future licences will be granted by Labour – meaning the North Sea sector is in danger of continuing to shed jobs over time. Labour aims to fight the nationalists on the record of Swinney's Government, which in spite of President Trump's nice words about him are nothing to boast about, and neither is his obsession with breaking up Britain. But there are lots of votes in the energy policies of the three main contenders, and currently only the Tories seem to agree with the Trump 'manifesto' on North oil and gas. He was right to stir up that hornets' nest. The electorate deserve clearer answers, especially from Labour.
