For decades, Britain’s water debate has largely been framed around bills, regulation and corporate responsibility. At the Green Party conference in Brighton, however, Rachel Millward reframed the argument around a much more basic question: what happens when a service as fundamental as water stops functioning?
The Green Party deputy leader has called for Thames Water and South East Water to be returned to public ownership before Christmas, arguing that waiting a decade for greater public control is unacceptable. She also said shareholders and creditors should receive no compensation, describing the two companies as insolvent.
Millward’s argument began not with balance sheets, but with the tap.
She pointed to Sussex, where she said residents have sometimes had to travel to buy bottled water because supplies have failed. Her wider criticism was that the infrastructure debate has failed to keep pace with the needs of a growing and changing population.
She also highlighted the absence of major reservoir construction since the beginning of privatisation, using it as evidence for her argument that the existing model has failed to deliver the infrastructure Britain needs.
Then came the political dividing line.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has proposed legislation aimed at reversing the longstanding restriction on public ownership and a 10-year programme to increase public control over water companies, including stronger powers for mayors to hold poorly performing firms accountable.
Millward says that timetable is far too slow.
Her alternative is immediate intervention: put Thames Water and South East Water into public ownership before Christmas, rather than beginning a decade-long transition. The Greens argue that the companies’ financial position provides the basis for taking them over without compensating shareholders or creditors.
But beneath the political confrontation lies a larger question about Britain’s relationship with essential infrastructure.
Water is not an ordinary consumer product. Everyone needs it, every day. Yet the companies responsible for delivering it operate within a system where private finance, debt, investment and public regulation all intersect.
Millward’s speech turned that contradiction into a central political message: if water is essential to life, should its ownership ultimately be treated differently from an ordinary commercial enterprise?
The Green Party’s answer is increasingly explicit: yes.
Whether such a takeover could be implemented without lengthy legal and financial battles remains contested. Thames Water’s creditors have previously prepared for potential nationalisation and legal challenges, illustrating the complexity surrounding any move into public ownership.
What is clear is that Britain’s water debate has moved beyond the question of whether reform is necessary.
The argument is now increasingly about how quickly it should happen, who should control the system, and who should bear the cost of its failures.
And for the Greens, the starting point is remarkably simple:
Before Christmas, the water should belong to the public again.
