MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has warmly welcomed plans to strip water bosses of their bonuses if their companies are convicted of serious pollution incidents.
He says with water bills everywhere set to increase people will welcome signs that the Government is getting tough with the privatised industry.
Environment Secretary Steve Barclay has announced a consultation over the proposal which could tear up the current terms for remunerating water company chief executives and executive board members. The measure could be introduced later this year.
Last year 10 water company chief executives received bonuses totalling £2.5 million at time when the country was enduring dozens of pollution incidents involving illegal sewage discharges into rivers and bathing water.
Mr Liddell-Grainger, MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, said the Government had to target the system to start restoring public confidence in the industry.
“At the moment it seems as though these people are being paid to pollute - and the more they pollute the bigger the wage packet,” he said.
“In my region I would regard Wessex Water as one of the least bad but in the south-west things have reached an appalling state.
“Given that the superb beaches of Devon and Cornwall represent one of the principal factors attracting millions of visitors to the area it is nauseating to read how they have become convenient locations for South West Water to dump excess sewage.”
Mr Liddell-Grainger said campaigners had been entirely right to direct their anger against South West Water last summer
“Yet despite this appalling litany of environmental vandalism the chief executive still arrogantly asserts she is not merely worth her enormous salary but is entitled to an additional wad of cash by way of a performance bonus.
“But that bonus has only been earned by presiding over a company whose supply network leaks like a sieve; which has invested so little in new storage facilities that its customers spent nearly a year under restrictions; and whose discharges have imperilled the health of people enjoying what should be among the cleanest and safest bathing waters in Europe.
“It is simply immoral for people to continue to be paid for such monumental failures.”
