Sixteen million face higher bills in Thames Water bailout, MPs warn
MPs demand Thames Water go into special administration, warning a hedge-fund bailout would raise bills while sparing polluters.
Sixteen million Thames Water customers face higher bills and more sewage under a hedge-fund bailout, MPs warned today, demanding special administration before the utility collapses.
More than 100 MPs from across the parties have signed a letter to the Environment Secretary and Ofwat calling for Thames Water special administration rather than sign-off for a rescue deal led by the firm’s US creditors. Campaigners and MPs gathered at Victoria Embankment on Sunday holding placards reading “special administration NOW for Thames Water”, pressing ministers to act before a formal decision on the creditor bid.
Thames Water is carrying debts of almost £20bn. The rescue on the table would hand control to a bloc of US hedge funds and asset managers, among them Elliott Management, Silver Point Capital, Apollo Global Management, BlackRock and Invesco, who have kept the firm afloat since late 2024 through emergency loans charging interest of 9.75%. In exchange, the deal would waive Thames Water’s fines until 2030 and loosen its pollution and leakage targets, according to reporting on the Ofwat negotiations.
Thames Water special administration: what it means for bills and pollution enforcement Thames Water was responsible for 33 of the water industry’s 75 most serious pollution incidents last year, Environment Agency figures show, and rates the lowest possible score for environmental performance. The company dumped sewage for 80,000 hours in the first six weeks of this year alone. Under special administration, the government would take the firm into temporary state control to restructure its debts, rather than leaving creditors to write the terms of their own rescue.
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds has already called the roughly £10bn creditor bid an “unfair cost to consumers”, though Ofwat has yet to reject it. Government officials have put the price of full public ownership at up to £100bn, a figure the campaign group We Own It disputes: legal experts say special administration could cost far less if creditors are made to absorb losses rather than paid out at par.
The demand lands days before Andy Burnham enters Downing Street. Confirmed as Labour leader after securing 322 of 403 MPs’ nominations, he becomes prime minister on 20 July having said of Thames Water: “Public ownership is absolutely an option. I would say for Thames Water, that is what should be done.”
We Own It campaigner Sophie Conquest put the choice in front of him directly: “Andy Burnham has promised to secure greater public control of life’s essentials. There is no clearer test of whether he will keep that promise than what happens next to Thames Water.” Signing off on the creditor deal, she said, would be “to sign off on a whole new low in standards across the water sector.”
