WATER COMPANY fat cats are being rewarded for decades of criminal behaviour, a Labour MP said today after the industry regulator announced an average £86 bill hike from April.

Clive Lewis said billpayers are paying for crooks as he called for water firms to be nationalised and Ofwat abolished. 

The MP for Norwich South said: “Ofwat is making us pay for decades of criminal behaviour by water companies.e l

“The regulator turned a blind eye to years of these companies’ widespread illegal sewage dumping.

“Privatisation is a failed experiment. We deserve a public ownership model prioritising people and the environment over profit.”

Ofwat said that the steep rise is part of bill increases in England and Wales over the next five years that will pay for supply upgrades and to reduce sewage discharges.

This is despite water companies doubling their profits since 2019.

The average rise in bills will be £31 a year — about 36 per cent before inflation — over the period, but the regulator said firms are expected to hike tariffs more in the first year.

The announcement came amid widespread public anger over Britain’s waterways being filled with pollution from sewage, agricultural run-off and chemical pollutants, along with rising bills, and dividends and bonuses paid out by water firms.

GMB national officer Gary Carter said: “Putting up water bills and giving water companies large bags of cash won’t stop the leaks and sewage spills. 

“The water sector is broken and requires fundamental reform. 

“If water companies squander the money and don’t deliver, they must be stripped of their licences and be brought into public ownership.”

Unite national officer Simon Coop added: “Yet again Ofwat fail to regulate debt ridden companies and the bill lands with consumers, while dividends and bonuses for executives continue to be paid. 

“This system is broken — the running of water companies needs to be brought into to public ownership for proper investment and lower bills, while the debt they’ve racked up needs to stay with those who created it.”

As they queued for up to two hours to get bottled water, Southern Water customers discovered they face the biggest increase of 53 per cent by 2030 to an average of £642.

Thousands of homes in Hampshire were yesterday without supplies following a “technical issue,” leaving more than 30 schools closed.

We Own It’s Matthew Topham said: “These eye-watering figures are little more than a public bailout of the failing water firms, who have racked up over £60 billion in debts to pay out their £80bn in dividends while letting our rivers and seas become an open sewer. 

“It’s disgraceful that the government would sit back and allow what is effectively a water privatisation tax to increase while one in six fear that these rises will mean they have to cut back on food and other essentials as shareholders are set to receive £12.5 billion over the course of this parliament.”

Surfers Against Sewage chief executive Giles Bristow said a third of every pound a customer paid was lost to industry debt and dividends, not going to cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas.

“This is truly the nightmare before Christmas for a cash-strapped public and signs that even under a new government, the sewage scandal rumbles on,” he said.

River Action’s chair and founder Charles Watson said: “It is a travesty that customers are now being forced to pay higher water bills, especially when these increases are directly the result of years of under-investment by the water industry.”

Sienna Somers, senior nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth, accused Ofwat of caving into pressure from water companies to hike bills.

Greenpeace’s director of policy Doug Parr described the bill hikes as a “bitter pill” for customers after years of poor performance and record levels of sewage in rivers and seas.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: “This Labour government will ringfence money earmarked for investment so it can never be diverted for bonuses and shareholder payouts.

“We will clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.”