Our water is filthy. It's time to float the idea of renationalisation

The Boat Race is a curious phenomenon. Two of the most recognisable universities in the world, bywords for a certain establishment elitism, compete in a sport that is closed off to most people. 

That the BBC still talk it up and run it live says more about the straitened times the broadcaster finds itself in than the broad desire to see the blues give it some welly at Putney Bridge. 

There are issues around class as the defining element of the event. But that is hardly news. What is more relevant is what happened after the Boat Race this year – or what didn’t happen.

Crews were warned not to throw each other into the Thames for a celebratory, or commiseratory, dip. This is because levels of pollution are at a staggering level. Testing showed levels of E coli almost three times the Environment Agency’s threshold for “poor” bathing waters. 

Any level of E coli, given that it is a bacteria traced to sewage, is hardly welcome. It’s the second year in a row there were significant such warnings. Thames Water, not exactly a trusted paragon of quality, said £1.8 billion would be committed to improve the rivers around London.

As Big Issue reports this week, this is a small part of a national problem that has been recognised for years, but shows little movement on any clean water dial. Water companies in England reported 2,487 pollution ‘incidents’ in 2024. That is a 30% increase on the Environment Agency target to reduce sewage.

Everybody agrees SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. But there are only so many times Feargal Sharkey can stride angrily along a riverbank.

• It will take 700 years to replace UK’s ageing water network at current pace: ‘A wholesale betrayal’
• The sewage crisis is your fault: How water firms use same deceptive tactics as Big Oil and Big Tobacco
• Labour has vowed to cleaning up Windermere – but our fight for a sewage-free lake is not over

Labour MP Clive Lewis decided to introduce a Private Members’ Bill to parliament aimed at nationalising companies that repeatedly pollute. Private Members’ Bills are notoriously difficult to shine into statute, and so it turned out for Lewis. His bill was, quietly, drowned at the turn of April. 

He had a very hardline element to it. He wanted to introduce powers that included revoking the licence of firms with three major sewage spills and taking them into public ownership without compensation. 

The government didn’t back the bill, so that was that. It’s not clear if they shied away because of the stridency of Lewis’s call, or the cost. It was estimated that doing as he advocated would cost £200bn. As the government is a little shy of money now, this must have felt like a chunky number, one that is hard to flush. 

The companies were sold to private investors in 1989 for £7.6bn. In that time, around £72bn has been paid out in dividends to investors. The public’s fury at the waste – and the WASTE – is understandable. The appetite for nationalisation is real, though.

The government is talking up a full renationalisation of British Steel. There is cross-party desire for it. Its cost is significantly less than going after water, but if it looks like being a vote winner – it was Reform UK who made noises about British Steel being saved by the public purse – money may well be found.

For now, don’t hold your breath. Actually, it’s probably safer if you do.

Paul McNamee is editor of the Big Issue. Read more of his columns here. Follow him on X.

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