England’s most polluting water provider “isn’t good enough” at trying to stop sewage dumping, its boss has admitted to MPs.
The chief executive of United Utilities defended her £1.4m pay packet, including a £420k bonus, despite the company behind historic spills in Lake Windermere having been found to have polluted more than any other in 2023.
Louise Beardmore told parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee: “I’m very alive, as is the board, on the focus of executive remuneration. Two-thirds of my remuneration is regarding outcomes for customers and the environment. And shareholders are entirely paying for that, it is not passed over to customers in terms of customer bills.”
She added: “Our performance isn’t good enough … we have one of the highest rates of internal sewer flooding across the country.”
The latest available government data found United Utilities to have polluted more than any other water firm in 2023, pouring 3.6m hours into England’s rivers over the course of the year.
Beardmore said the uptick in pollution was partly because “additional monitors” had been installed to measure the sewage spills, and because “2023 was an exceptionally wet year”.
United Utilities is scheduled to increase consumer bills by 32% over the coming five years, which will help pay for a £13.7bn investment plan in the wider region between 2025 and 2030.
The committee also heard on Wednesday from the country’s highest-paid water CEO, Liv Garfield, who told MPs she was “absolutely gutted” at a rise in pollution last year from her company, Severn Trent water.
Garfield said the long length of the pipes under Severn Trent’s control meant that mains burst more frequently, and added that climate change was increasing pressure on the network. She said: “We need to get better at keeping up with climate change.”
Her company was recently among those found to be spilling sewage into waterways even when it was not raining. Garfield told the committee: “I am committed to get to zero dry-day spills.” She said the company would be doing “a gazillion times better” by this time next year.
Garfield was last year awarded a £3.2m pay deal, including a £584,000 bonus, despite the company being fined £2m for spilling 260m litres of sewage into the River Trent.
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She defended her pay and bonus, saying: “We’ve been the best performing company on the issues customers care about most … on a whole range of metrics we are a very good company.”
Garfield added: “If you look at the pay package I have, 25% of it is funded by water customers. Any performance-related pay is not funded by a Severn Trent water customer.”
The government has just brought in a law, the water (special measures) bill, which will allow the regulator to stop bonuses for bosses of polluting water companies.
Garfield suggested she did not mind the fact her bonus could be scrapped: “I love the fact we live in a nation where legislation arrives and we fall in line with it. I welcome all legislation that comes out of these hallowed halls.”
Source: theguardian.com
