Middle class families could be hit with soaring water bills under Labour's new plan to subside the costs for Britain's poorest households
Ministers are being urged to approve a new nationwide scheme that would subsidise bills for low income families.
The proposed national social tariff is due to be presented to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in a review of the water industry on Monday.
However, there are fears that middle class families could end up bearing the brunt of the charges and see their water bills increase.
Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake told The Telegraph: 'Family homes across middle England face soaring water bills under the Labour Government, thanks to the triple whammy of above-inflation hikes, higher tariffs on multi-person households, and robbing Peter to pay Paul to fund tariffs for those on welfare benefits.'
'We can't just keep increasing taxes and charges – record taxes are already making life too hard for people,' he added.
'The Government should be standing up for the makers, not the takers.'
There is currently no nationwide scheme to help poorer customers - with a patchwork of subsidy programmes in place across different suppliers.
Consumer groups have suggested that a national social tariff could unify the level of support received and help an extra two million people get money off their bills.
However, such a scheme was rejected by the previous Conservative government due to concerns about the impact it would have on wealthier households.
On Monday, a landmark review of the water industry led by Sir John Cunliffe is due to be published.
He announced his interim findings last month, when he revealed he would bring forward proposals to 'strengthen' the system of social tariffs.
Sir John wrote: 'The commission is looking at how to more effectively support customers who are struggling to pay their bills.
'This includes looking at options to strengthen social tariffs and to tailor water bills to better reflect household consumption.'
Currently, water firms can only raise money from their own areas and consult their customers on how much they would be willing to pay.
However, more and more households are being placed on social tariffs as they struggle to keep up with the soaring costs of living.
Statistics from water regulator Ofwat show that across Britain one in ten customers are now receiving support with their bills.
But the data varies wildly per region with South West Water having the lowest number of customers on social tariffs.
Meanwhile, United Utilities, which covers the North West of England, has the highest at 15 per cent.
It comes after it was revealed that household water bills would rise by an average of £123 from April 1, equating to an increase of around £10 a month.
The rise, confirmed by industry body Water UK, will take the average water and wastewater bill from £480 to £603 for the next year alone.
Water firms are facing huge problems with their drains, reservoirs and sewers, leading to vast amounts of pollution spilling into rivers and waterways.
That means firms are needing to spend billions on upgrading their systems.
Because they are privatised, they also want to turn a profit so they can keep getting more investment from shareholders.
To make matters worse, many face huge debt piles. The 10 biggest water companies have about £60 billion of combined debt.
Regulator Ofwat has 'failed' and 'run up the white flag' by announcing rises in household water bills, the chairman of an environmental campaign group said.
Charles Watson, from River Action, said: 'The shareholders in these companies are just laughing all the way to the bank.'
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Orgreave inquiry: Why now and what are the crucial questions it seeks to answer?
Ministers have announced an inquiry into the violent policing at Orgreave and the collapsed prosecutions of 95 miners accused of offences there, 41 years after the infamous scenes of 18 June 1984. Here we set out some key details about why the inquiry has been set up and the crucial questions it may seek to answer. The revival of campaigning about the Orgreave injustices developed after the Guardian published an article in April 2012 making the link between the South Yorkshire police operation in 1984 and a collapsed trial in 1985, and the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 people were unlawfully killed. The same force, led by the same chief constable, Peter Wright, was responsible for the disaster, and orchestrated a false narrative to blame the victims. The BBC in Yorkshire then broadcast a documentary in October 2012, highlighting that dozens of police officers' statements alleging criminal behaviour by miners at Orgreave had the same opening paragraphs, apparently dictated to them by detectives. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) formed after that, and it has argued for 13 years that the injustices endure today and an inquiry is needed. Yvette Cooper began calling for an inquiry in 2015 when she was shadow home secretary, and Labour has pledged to hold an inquiry in every election manifesto since 2017. OTJC founding member Joe Rollin said they expect the inquiry to finally access all relevant documents, including some that have remained classified on grounds of national security. The overall police operational plan has never been made public. The National Union of Mineworkers has always believed the police attacks were pre-planned, kettling miners into a field and deploying strategically positioned mounted officers, dog handlers and units with short shields and truncheons. During the miners' strike police set up roadblocks across routes to mining areas to prevent people picketing, but many miners who were at Orgreave still talk with bewilderment about the police directing them into the site that day. No police officer has ever been held to account for the apparently dictated statements and false evidence that was used to charge 95 men with riot and unlawful assembly. All defendants were acquitted in July 1985 after a 48-day trial in which defence barristers repeatedly accused police officers in court of lying and fabricating evidence. A 2015 report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) said it found suggestions that senior South Yorkshire police officers later acknowledged there was evidence of perjury, and in effect covered it up. The IPCC referred to a note regarding the force's 1991 settlement of a civil claim, paying 39 miners £425,000 compensation but with no admission of liability. 'The note also raises further doubts about the ethical standards and complicity of officers high up in [South Yorkshire police],' the report said. The inquiry will be a panel of relevant experts, chaired by Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield. This builds on the pioneering Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), chaired by the then bishop of Liverpool, James Jones. Unlike that panel, the Orgreave inquiry will be statutory, which means it has powers to compel people to provide information. Wilcox will develop the terms of reference, format and panel membership in consultation with the Home Office. He said that he expects the panel to begin its work this autumn. After it emerged last month that Northumbria police had destroyed their documents relating to Orgreave, Cooper, now the home secretary, said she has written to all police forces believed to have relevant records, saying they must be preserved. The inquiry may follow the model of the HIP, which considered only documentary evidence and did not hold hearings where witnesses such as retired police officers would be questioned in person. It is presumed the Orgreave inquiry will produce a report that will seek to illuminate the full truth of the police operation and prosecutions. Campaigners also hope that it will help redress the broader historical narrative, the negative portrayal of the miners in large sections of the media, and prime minister Margaret Thatcher labelling them 'the enemy within', while her government fully supported the police. Given the four decades since these traumatic events of the 1980s, it appears unlikely anybody could be prosecuted, whatever the inquiry finds. But Cooper did not rule it out, saying she could not pre-empt the inquiry's findings, or any outcome.
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
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Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners' strike
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Speaking to the Guardian at the Orgreave site, which has now been developed into an advanced manufacturing complex, retail estate, new homes and parkland, Cooper said: 'I think the miners' strike still has deep scars across coalfield communities, and the decisions made at that time – the broadest decisions that were taken by the Thatcher government in the 1980s – the scars can still be felt across the coalfields.' The Home Office said in its announcement that the criminal charges brought by South Yorkshire police against 95 miners were dropped 'after evidence was discredited'. The legacy of Orgreave has been to undermine 'the wider mining community's confidence in policing for decades,' it said. Cooper said that as an MP for a former mining area in West Yorkshire, she understood the community feeling. She made it clear that the inquiry would address the collapsed prosecutions as well as the policing on the day. 'People have waited for answers for over 40 years,' she said. 'The scale of the clashes, the injuries, the prosecutions, the discredited evidence, all of those things – there's still so many unanswered questions.' At Orgreave, about 8,000 miners assembled for a mass picket called by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and were met by 6,000 police officers from forces nationwide, led by South Yorkshire police. The violence that ensued has become an infamous episode in British history, police charging on horseback and hitting miners over the head with truncheons. Some miners did throw stones before the police charge and retaliated after it, and the next day 28 officers were reported to have been injured. Official reports later put the figure at 72. The NUM, however, has always believed the police violence was pre-planned, and that the South Yorkshire force, and Margaret Thatcher herself, who described the Orgreave picketing as 'mob rule', greatly exaggerated the extent of miners' misbehaviour. 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Daily Mail
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