Weekend press: Water bosses could be stripped of bonuses under Labour plans

In the weekend papers, Labour previews its pitch to voters on energy and water at its annual party conference in Liverpool this week, including plans to strip bonuses from the boss of water companies polluting Britain’s waterways and offer lower bills to people willing to host infrastructure in their area. Meanwhile, prime minister Rishi Sunak faces criticism over proposals to restrict the installation of solar panels on farmland.

Water firm bosses could be stripped of bonuses under Labour’s anti-pollution plans

Bosses at water companies that pump significant levels of sewage into Britain’s waterways face having their bonuses blocked under a Labour government, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Labour Party will announce on Monday that it would give Ofwat, the water regulator, the powers to block the payment of bonuses to companies responsible for significant spills.

If the rule had been in place last year then six of the nine water companies’ executives could have had their bonuses blocked.

A total of £10 million in bonuses was paid to water firm executives last year.

Steve Reed, the Labour shadow environment secretary, reveals the plan in his article below for The Telegraph, which has long been running a Clean Rivers Campaign.

Mr Reed said: “At the Labour Party conference, I will outline our plans to give the water regulator new powers to end the warped practice of water bosses pocketing millions of pounds in bonuses while trashing our environment and forcing consumers to foot the bill.”

The change would be made via an amendment of duties in the Water Industry Act 1991 if Labour wins the next general election, which is expected for autumn 2024.

The party will have to come up with a definition for what it believes to be a serious pollution breach, or adopt one already used by water regulators.

How willing the regulator would then be to block bonuses, even if had the legal power to do so, remains unclear.

The move is one of a string of sewage crackdown policies being adopted by Labour. It has also promised to introduce automatic fines for illegal discharges and to force all companies to monitor every single water outlet.

Sewage discharge into Britain’s rivers and seas has become a problem that has risen up the political agenda in recent years, in part thanks to campaigners demanding change.

The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have all vowed to bring about change and criticised the water firms, putting forward a variety of different plans.

Tory rebels have at numerous points in recent years attempted to harden the Government’s stance on the issue, fearing improvements are happening too slowly.

The Telegraph

Ed Miliband to announce Labour plan to boost energy independence and cut bills

Ed Miliband is to announce Labour’s plan for an energy independence act that would boost Britain’s energy independence and cut bills for families.

The party says the bill will enable a Labour government to establish a UK electricity system fully based on clean power by 2030, with the largest expansion of renewable power in Britain’s history, and establish “GB Energy”, a publicly owned energy company announced by Keir Starmer last year.

Labour sources have suggested the party would aim to include the act in the king’s speech so it could become law soon after a general election win. One source said the act showcased “modern public ownership, working with the private sector without the need to nationalise”.

In his speech on Monday, Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for energy security and net zero, will attack the Conservatives’ record on energy security, saying the UK was the most exposed economy in western Europe to the energy price spike caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He will accuse the government of being “anti-prosperity, anti-growth, anti-business, anti-worker”, telling Labour party conference: “You’re paying record energy bills because they left us exposed to Putin’s war. Every time they turn their back on a clean energy future, they leave us exposed to global fossil fuel markets, at the mercy of dictators and petrostates, driving up bills, making us more insecure.”

Criticising Rishi Sunak’s U-turns on net zero policies, Miliband will add: “These Tories want a fight about who can tackle the cost of living crisis, we say bring it on. These Tories want a fight about who can ensure energy independence in our country, we say bring it on.

“These Tories want a fight about who can stand up for working people, we say bring it on. The Tories’ climate culture war is not just anti-planet; it’s anti-prosperity, anti-growth, anti-business, anti-worker, anti-jobs, anti-young people, anti-future.”

Labour insiders say internal party polling suggests Starmer’s plan to launch GB Energy is extremely popular. The Guardian understands the proposals will feature heavily in Labour’s election campaign.

A Labour source said it “taps into a patriotic argument that we should take back control of our energy system”, noting that Starmer had turned the party around to be proud of its heritage.

The act would also set out a framework for the party’s national wealth fund, a new body that would invest in partnership with the private sector.

The Guardian

Rachel Reeves: If we build in your area, you deserve a sweetener in return

While Rishi Sunak’s bedtime reading includes bonkbuster novels by Jilly Cooper, the most likely next incumbent of No 11 Downing Street has more mundane taste. Rachel Reeves, who is auditioning to become the country’s first female chancellor, is reading Follow the Money by Paul Johnson, in which the influential economist explains where money comes from, where it goes and how it needs to change in the future.

Unlike Sunak, who deployed shock and awe tactics last week at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Reeves is determined to make seriousness an electoral asset.

…

The 44-year-old, who worked as an economist at the Bank of England before she was elected as the Labour MP for Leeds West in 2010, said she was frustrated that Britain under the Tories had “squandered” its potential.

“That’s why I’ve made such an important thing about building business relations these last couple of years [creating] a proper plan for getting businesses investing in Britain and removing the obstacles to growth that the Tories have built,” Reeves said.

“Because as I go around the world — I went to Paris and New York earlier this year — it’s clear other countries are stealing a march on us . . . When I’m in the US, and I see the investment that is going into the rust belt, turning it into the electric vehicle belt of America, I see the investment in carbon capture and storage in hydrogen, I don’t want to have to go to America to see that investment . . . I’m patriotic, I want to see those jobs, those investments coming to Britain and at the moment, they’re not.

“When I was in New York I had investors saying to me, ‘We love Britain, we’re really committed to Britain. But the truth is we can build infrastructure in other European countries in half the time as what we can build it in Britain’. We are the sick man of Europe now and we are in the slow lane, and I want to turbocharge our growth. I want to get Britain building. I want to do things in Britain again so that we can be really proud and hold our heads high that we are leading in these industries and taking advantage of these opportunities.”

How to make the ailing economy grow will be at the heart of Reeves’s conference speech. She will build on her idea of “securonomics” but will say that it is not possible to “tax and spend your way there”. Reeves said: “We’ve got to grow our way there. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will all tell you there are short cuts to get there. There are not. You’ve got to have a serious plan for growing the economy. And that’s what we have.”

The centrepiece will be the creation of a state-owned energy company, GB Energy, that will work with electricity operators to “standardise and speed up” procurement for energy infrastructure projects. Reeves said there was £200 billion of private investment, which would bring 220,000 good jobs, “waiting to go” but was “stuck in the longest queue ever” — up to 15 years — because of an inability to get energy from the National Grid. She said that companies could not “buy the cables and connections to get projects off the ground”.

Reeves said: “I am absolutely determined to get that queue down, get these projects built to create jobs and prosperity around the country,” adding that such changes would cut annual household energy bills by £400 and reduce energy imports by £50 billion.

She hinted that her party would introduce a planning bill in the first 100 days of government to “back the builders not the blockers”. Fewer homes are being built than at any time since the Second World War, and the Tories had dealt a “hammer blow to the dreams” of young people and families that Labour was determined to reverse, Reeves said.

However, Reeves is well aware of Britain’s reputation as a “nation of nimbys” and wants to make towns and villages feel that new developments are in their interests. One idea is to cut energy bills for people living near onshore wind farms or energy pylons.

“When people and communities host critically important infrastructure, they should get some benefit from doing so. At the moment, you’re saying to people, ‘We’re going to build in your area, you have to suck it up’. I think that people deserve something in return,” she said. “It’s the same with housing. You know, a lot of the reason why people get frustrated by the development of new housing, because they already see the school is oversubscribed, that they’re having to wait two weeks, if they’re lucky, for the GP, that I can’t get a dentist for love nor money.”

The Sunday Times

‘Detached from reality’: anger as Rishi Sunak plans to restrict solar panels

Rishi Sunak plans to restrict the installation of solar panels on swathes of British farmland, which climate campaigners say will raise bills and put the UK’s energy security at risk.

Last year, then prime minister Liz Truss attempted to block solar from most of England’s farmland. The plans were deeply controversial and unpopular, and were dropped when she left office.

However, solar panels in the countryside are disliked by many rural Conservative MPs, and the Observer can reveal that Sunak and environment secretary Thérèse Coffey have revived plans to put new restrictions on this form of cheap renewable energy.

This is the latest weakening of green policies before the general election, which started when the Conservatives won the Uxbridge byelection, a result widely attributed to anger at Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s ultra low emissions zone.

Sunak recently announced that the 2030 phase-out of new petrol and diesel cars will be pushed back to 2035, as well as weakening the 2035 gas boiler phase-out, confirming it will apply to far fewer homes. The government also plans to scrap pollution rules for housebuilders in sensitive areas, where they are currently not able to add to sewage pollution without paying to improve nearby wetlands.

It has also faced criticism for its record on renewables, with its stance on onshore wind referred to by industry as an effective block, and the recent government renewable energy auction failing to sign up any offshore wind.

Sunak will further dilute green policies, say campaigners, by giving new powers to planning officials in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). These would allow officials to block any solar project that can be argued to “put food security at risk” – that is, anywhere food is grown.

Ministers are understood to believe that food security should be on par with energy security and will use recent climate breakdown-related food shortages in Europe and the war in Ukraine as justification for the change.

The framework amendment to the NPPF was drafted by Greg Smith, the MP for Buckingham, who has long campaigned against solar panels on farmland. He said: “This is a clear, straightforward protection that planning authorities up and down the land can use to say this development on this farmland isn’t going to hit our food security in this area, or this one over here is and therefore use that as a good reason to turn down applications.”

Coffey confirmed the NPPF will be coming out later this year and that “the first purpose [of farmland] must have to be about food production”.

Energy experts have strongly criticised the plans. Lydia Collas, senior policy analyst at Green Alliance, said: “Solar energy will help us move away from polluting fossil fuels, and in the long term protect UK farming from climate breakdown. Restricting ground-mounted solar would be gravely short-sighted. ”

The Observer

The dark side of solar panels – how crooks are exploiting net zero

Over 50,700 units were mounted on UK rooftops between January and March, double the figure in the same three months last year, as homeowners scramble to save money in the face of soaring energy bills.

But as solar panels have flown off the shelves, the industry has developed a dark underbelly in which scammers and cowboy installers take eco-friendly households for a ride.

The Financial Ombudsman Service received more complaints mentioning solar panels in 2022 than in the previous eight years combined, Telegraph analysis reveals.

Complaint numbers have sky-rocketed from a low of 15 in 2018, to a record high of 853 last year.

Many of the complaints involve customers being promised bumper returns on their green investment by rogue traders who convince them to take out large loans to cover the upfront cost.

Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, says the figures show that Britain’s solar industry has become a “new Wild West”.

He adds: “The websites we visit are littered with adverts, deals and freebies on the back of the dash to solar panels. But some of the offers are too good to be true.

“This new Wild West has attracted the usual cowboys into a potentially lucrative market. The unwary and vulnerable are being exploited.”

More than 1.3m UK homes – 4.1pc – now have solar panels installed, according to standards organisation MCS.

A series of grants, loans and tax breaks over the last decade have encouraged uptake.

The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme, launched in 2010, allowed solar panel owners to sell electricity they generate back to their energy supplier. FIT was replaced by the Smart Export Guarantee in January 2020.

While domestic solar panel systems of 3.5kW cost around £7,000, a typical household selling energy back to the grid can save roughly £620 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

In 2013, the Government’s Green Deal provided households with loans to pay for eco-friendly home improvements such as new boilers, insulation and solar panels.

The scheme was scrapped two years later due to low uptake, leaving thousands of households lumbered with high-interest loans.

From April 2022, energy-efficient equipment such as solar panels, insulation and heat pumps have attracted zero VAT, instead of 5pc, and will continue to do so until 2027.

However, homeowners making the most of the Government’s solar panel drive have increasingly fallen victim to conmen.

Citizens Advice has warned of a surge in solar panel fraud, particularly “upselling scams” in which cold-callers convince customers to upgrade technology they already have to meet fabricated legal “standards”.

A small minority of cowboy builders carry out shoddy installations which lead to costly repairs down the line. Some firms ask for big cash payments up front for solar panels that never arrive.

In April, renewable energy firm Daylight Energy went bust, owing customers over £1m in deposits, all of which was unsecured. While some customers have managed to recoup their money, many have not.

The Telegraph

Utility Week’s weekend press round-up is a curation of articles in the national newspapers relating to the energy and water sector. The views expressed are not those of Utility Week or Faversham House.