ENVIRONMENT Secretary Michael Gove has been “taking lessons” from Labour’s manifesto as he tries to talk tough about rip-off water firms, the party said today.

But shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said Mr Gove had watered down Labour’s popular policies on the industry, which pledge real action “to tackle the failures of privatisation in our utilities.”

In a speech at the Water UK conference, Mr Gove told company bosses they have not been acting “in the public interest” and warned them of “changes to the regulatory framework” if they did not clean up their act.

He also accused the utility firms of “playing the system” at the expense of consumers and the environment.

A shocking £18.1 billion was paid out to shareholders of the nine large English regional water and sewerage companies between 2007 and 2016, which represented almost all of their £18.8bn profits over the same period.

Mr Gove said water companies had “shielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be and allowed leaks, pollution and other failures to persist for far too long.”

But he still insisted that “private markets are the optimum way to meet the ongoing needs of water customers and the environment,” claiming that renationalisation would be a “terrible backward step.”

Ms Long Bailey said: “Michael Gove has clearly been taking lessons from Labour’s popular manifesto. However, spouting words will do little to mend our rip-off water system.

“Where the Tories just talk, Labour will take action to tackle the failures of privatisation in our utilities and bring the water companies back into public hands.”