Susan Davy named and shamed this week in parliament

So said Ben Maguire Liberal Democrat Shadow Attorney General MP for North Cornwall during Wednesday’s parliamentary adjournment debate on Sewage discharges in the South West, which he introduced.

Here is the full quote:

Ben Maguire:

When I took my seat in this place, I promised my constituents that I would always speak truth to power. In a previous career, I advised businesses and their leaders. If I could offer some advice here and now to the chief executive of South West Water, I would say, “Please do the decent thing and go now.” In what other universe could a chief executive preside over such a record of abject failure? With Ms Davy having been the chief finance officer since 2015 and then the chief executive since 2020, almost 10 years of failed leadership have brought us to this diabolical situation. How on earth can anyone now have confidence that South West Water will miraculously turn things around in the next five years?

Ms Davy declined to take a bonus last year, instead adding that bonus amount to her base salary, which at last count was a whopping £860,000. Before Members start worrying about South West Water’s shareholders, they too were awarded a generous dividend of 44p per share. This is all while water bills are rocketing, children are getting severely sick as a result of that greed, and people everywhere are too afraid to enjoy the beaches and rivers that make Cornwall and the wider south-west so uniquely special. As a society, at what point do we come together and say that this has to stop, for the sake of our children and the sake of us all? Well, I humbly suggest that that point has now long passed.”

Emma Hardy – The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs replied:

South West Water’s environmental performance is clearly not good enough. It continues to be rated as requiring improvement in the Environment Agency’s environmental performance assessment, and it has the highest rate of incidents on its network in the sector. So far, as the hon. Gentleman said, there have been 20 pollution incidents in his constituency, and they are clearly unacceptable.

Where companies have failed in their statutory duties to maintain their assets properly and protect the local environment, regulators will take appropriate enforcement action. The Environment Agency has informed me that 24 charges against South West Water currently await a court hearing, and many of them relate to discharges in North Cornwall. Of course, it is inappropriate for me to comment further on these while those proceedings are ongoing.

However, I am reassured that the new powers in the Water (Special Measures) Bill, including those relating to the monitoring of emergency overflows—I quite enjoyed the idea that we could call EDMs electronic dance music instead, and maybe that is what I will be thinking of in the future—will assist the Environment Agency with workload and efficiency relating to these types of offences. Two new dedicated inspection teams have been in place since October this year. Once officers are trained, the annual number of inspections in the region will double from the 335 they will carry out this year. I think that is positive action that has been taken by the Environment Agency.

Both local MPs Richard Foord and David Reed spoke (Richard Foord a couple of times):

Richard Foord:

I am aware of the new storm overflow hub that the Minister talks about. My point is that sometimes the data that the new hub reveals is different to the data that the water companies are revealing on their apps, such as the South West Water WaterFit app. That was discovered by a constituent of mine in relation to Sidmouth last weekend.

To which the Minister replied:

I am more than happy to look into any anomalies, so if Members want to send through details of where there seems to be a discrepancy in the data, I can pick that up.

David Reed:

I thank Ben Maguire for securing this important debate. Many of the points that have been raised this evening are issues we have all experienced, but I have found that South West Water’s communication and engagement with its customers has been atrocious over recent months. What more can the Government do to ensure that South West Water properly engages with its customers?

To which the Minister replied:

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for having to rearrange our meeting yesterday as I was visiting a flooded area. We will get that meeting back in the diary quickly. He is right to raise that issue as it is one of the reasons why we want to put customer representation on the water boards, and give customers that stronger voice. I am more than happy to follow that issue up with the hon. Gentleman and see what more I can do to support him. It is incredibly important that customers are treated with the respect they deserve, and if water companies are not doing that, I am more than happy to follow it up.

Owl recommends reading the whole transcript – doesn’t really solve anything but shows that our MPs are keeping up the scrutiny pressure on both South West Water and the Government