Steve Reed's water claims that of an incompetent charlatan

The National

23-07-2025

IN an article for The National, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Energy angrily responded to false statements made earlier this week by UK Environment minister Steve Reed. He attempted to defend his own Labour party's betrayal of its pre-election promise to nationalise England's failing, privately-owned water companies by claiming that nationalisation was not the solution to England's dirty and expensive water, stating that Scottish Water is publicly owned, yet "[water] pollution levels in Scotland are worse than they are in England".
This is categorically untrue. Either Reed knew it was untrue and said it anyway, knowing he'd be unlikely to be challenged – in which case he's a charlatan and a liar –, or he didn't know it was untrue – in which case he's an incompetent charlatan, who uncritically leaps on false statements to get himself out of politically tricky situations. Reed also warned that nationalisation would cost £100bn and would slow down efforts to cut pollution. This claim has also been disputed.
READ MORE: Anas Sarwar urged to break silence on Labour's 'nuclear tax' for Scots
Estimates of the cost of renationalising the water industry in England range from £14.7bn, a figure estimated by the public services international research unit (PSIRU) at the University of Greenwich, to £99bn if company debts are included, a figure estimated by a thinktank commissioned by the water companies themselves. By citing the figure of £100 billion, it's clear that Reed and the Labour Government are siding with the profiteers of the English private water companies. This figure is based on a calculation of the maximum dividends, which starts from the purchase cost of the companies in 1990 when they were privatised, adding capital investment per year and inflation, but it takes no account of the actual market value of the companies.
Crucially, these figures are predicated on the assumption that directors and shareholders who have extracted vast profits from the water companies over the years while piling debts on the companies should be financially compensated for nationalisation and not be left liable for the debt.
Some claim that the cost of nationalisation could be close to zero. Thames Water is currently in debt to the tune of some £20 billion – even though its directors and shareholders have continued to profit, so it could be argued that the true value of the company is next to nothing. Thames Water is not alone. England's water companies are bust. They would not be financially viable if they had to meet the required standards without taking on huge amounts of debt.
According to the latest independent water commission report, Scotland has a far higher percentage of its waterways in 'good' ecological condition than England and Wales. The Independent Water Commission found that 66% of Scotland's water bodies were of good ecological status, compared with 16.1% in England and 29.9% in Wales.
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It is also worth noting that Scotland has some 32% of the UK land mass, is the part of the UK with the highest annual rainfall and has many more water bodies than England and Wales. Loch Ness alone is popularly claimed to contain more fresh water than the combined total of the rivers and lakes of England and Wales, holding 7.4 cubic km of clean Scottish water. Yet Loch Ness is neither Scotland's largest loch by surface area (that's Loch Lomond), nor is it the deepest – that's Loch Morar, whose maximum depth is 310m (1017 ft). Scotland contains truly vast amounts of water, most of which is in good condition. 87% of Scotland's entire water environment is assessed by SEPA as having a high or good classification for water quality, up from 82% in 2014.
The claim about Loch Ness (below) containing more fresh water than all of England's lakes and rivers may just be a popular myth. It's not easy to find reliable statistics on the amount of water in all of England's rivers and lakes, but since the English water companies abstract 4.6 cubic km of water annually and don't extract every last drop of water – otherwise there would be no lakes or rivers left in England – the popular boast about Loch Ness seems unlikely to be true.
However, what is unquestionably true, is that Scottish Water must manage much more water than all the water companies of England combined. It does so successfully, without siphoning off large amounts of cash for directors and shareholders and invests back into Scotland's water infrastructure.
Steve Reed and this Labour government are terrified of nationalisation, so Reed would rather lie about Scottish Water. For him, that serves two purposes: allowing him to stick the boot into the Scottish Government, while defending the interests of the profiteers of England's private water companies. He does know knowing that he's not going to be challenged by a London centric media, which is all too happy to propagate the Anglo-British nationalist myth that 'parochial' wee Scotland could not possibly make a better fist of things than the all-mighty Westminster.
Westminster goes into summer recess this week, and just prior to MPs going off for the summer, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband sneaked in an announcement that the energy bills of everyone in the UK, Scotland included, will increase by around £1 per month in order to cover the estimated £38 billion cost of the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk.
The SNP's Westminster energy spokesman, Graham Leadbitter, said nuclear power was 'extortionate, takes decades to build and the toxic waste is a risk to local communities'.
He added: "To make matters worse, Scots will be left to foot the bill with a levy on energy bills – you simply couldn't make it up, yet Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour back this extortionate and wasteful plan that energy-rich Scotland will pay for through the nose.
'Meanwhile, Grangemouth has been shut down and Westminster's fiscal regime has ruined Scottish energy jobs – Scotland isn't just an afterthought, it's barely a thought at all.'