I’ve promoted this petition in my newsletters, on social media and in my Birdwatch column as I think it is a clever move, a timely move and a well-managed campaign so I am delighted that Ash Smith’s petition did so well.
The 100,000+ signatures, in fact 200,000+ signatures, generated a debate in Westminster Hall and that was an excellent debate. Well, these things are never really debates but they are a series of speeches on the subject made by back-bench MPs and getting a response from a government (junior) minister.
Labour, and LibDem, MPs turned out in droves to slag off their local water companies and to say that greater public control of water is needed and that privatisation has quite clearly failed. They are right. We need the water industry to be managed for the public benefit not for profit.
I have just written to my MP, Lee Barron (Corby, Lab), drawing both the debate and the strongly supported petition to his attention.
I’ve heard the suggestion that regional mayors should have a say in all this but that doesn’t seem a great idea to me. For one thing, I don’t have a regional mayor and it doesn’t seem as though one will be coming along very soon. More importantly, but also linked to public accountability, water catchments do not map onto mayoral boundaries (or those of any other existing political entity as far as I can see). Water is a slippery thing, by nature.
Also, when he was Mayor of Manchester I doubt that Makerfield Andy visited the Forest of Bowland or the Lake District to check out the land from which some of his local water company’s water came. Surely, managing water companies for the public good will require the management of large areas of land for carbon storage, clean water, flood alleviation and wildlife. The very urban Labour Party, and Labour Government, will be dropping the ball if they don’t seize the opportunities to ensure upland watersheds are managed for us all.