As the Labour Party looks set to form the next government after the general election, the party is up to its neck in lobbying connections with the UK’s sewage-scandal-rife water industry. Yet Starmer has promised to mop up the mess left behind by the Tories’ on sewage pollution.
Now, the Canary can reveal that more than a dozen firms that have lobbied for the UK water sector in the last five years hold significant ties to the Labour Party. In particular, the Canary has identified a revolving door of Labour MPs, aides, and high profile staff from the party. Invariably, these have moved into prominent roles with consultant lobby companies working for the UK’s private water corporations.
Labour’s light touch on the water industry
Throughout the election campaign, the scandal-riddled water industry has been a focal issue.
In 2023, water companies dumped more sewage into the sea than ever before. Environment Agency figures revealed that water companies were responsible for 477,972 discharges. This was a 59% increase from the year prior.
In other words, the sewage crisis has continued to ramp up, putting the health of people and the environment at increasing risk.
All the while, shareholders have continued to reap the rewards of Thatcher’s neoliberal privatisation racket. As the sector pumped the UK’s waterways full of shit, it divvied out astronomical shareholder payouts. Campaign group We Own It found that for every hour the industry polluted in 2023, companies paid shareholders £377.
So what are Labour planning to do about it? The party’s manifesto states that:
Labour will put failing water companies under special measures to clean up our water. We will give regulators new powers to block the payment of bonuses to executives who pollute our waterways and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers. We will impose automatic and severe fines for wrongdoing and ensure independent monitoring of every outlet.
Ostensibly, Starmer’s Labour is pitching the problem as a failure of the regulatory regime. It therefore proposes tougher action on water companies and profiteering bosses.
Stopping short of nationalisation
However, multiple environmental groups and political opponents have exposed the glaring holes in Labour’s sewage pollution pledges. Most notably, under Starmer Labour has walked back plans to nationalise the industry. Independent challenger to Starmer in his Holborn and St Pancras seat Andrew Feinstein has criticised the Labour leader for bowing to big business:
Water companies, which have been making mega profits from massive price increases while polluting our rivers, must be returned to public ownership. Labour’s ultra cautious manifesto doesn’t go nearly far enough and will have no meaningful impact on the numerous crises Britain faces. Instead, under Starmer, it will be business as usual for the super rich and mega corporations.
However, Starmer’s Labour is seemingly unmoved by cautionary tales for the ills of privatised water – like those from Thames Water. How odd, you might think. Well, not really – when you realise former New Labour environment minister Ian Pearson sits on Thames Water’s board.
So as UK water pipelines fall apart, it’s this very politics-to-private pipeline that could be to blame.
The revolving door with the private water sector
Naturally, Pearson isn’t the only former MP using the revolving door between UK parliament and the private water sector.
In March, trade body for the sector Water UK appointed fellow previous New Labour MP Ruth Kelly as its head. As the Morning Star mused, the umbrella lobby group will benefit from her:
“New Labour” skill of appearing to offer business-led reform which actually ends up charging the public, a la PFI.
Besides Kelly, former Labour shadow minister-turned Change UK to Liberal Democrats MP Chuka Umunna has held indirect ties to the industry as well. While he was working for multinational lobby firm Edelman, the company counted multiple private water corporations among its clients. This included Water UK, Anglian Water, South West Water’s parent company Severn Trent, and United Utilities. Umunna left the firm in 2021 for a new role at JP Morgan.
Gemma Doyle, who lost her seat in 2015, went on to join FTI Consulting. Throughout 2023 and 2024, the PR firm has worked on behalf of Water UK.
Angela ‘funny tinge’ Smith is one of the more recent MPs to have leveraged her tenure in parliament to pursue a new career in the water industry.
A ‘funny tinge’ alright
For Smith’s part, in a piece for the Guardian in 2018 she railed against Corbyn’s then nationalisation plans. All the while, she sat as chair for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Water. But, as campaign group We Own It have previously pointed out, the APPG is in the pocket of the industry itself. Specifically, a number of private UK water companies almost entirely fund the group.
After Smith’s break-off party Change UK tanked, she secured a role with Portsmouth Water.
Then, in 2022, Smith quietly returned to the party without fanfare. During this election run, Smith has publicly declared her support for Starmer, and described his ‘changed’ party as the reason she rejoined. A number of people on X have surmised that Starmer’s massive step back on nationalisation might well have something to do with it:
Angela Smith quit Labour because she was in the pocket of the private water companies Corbyn pledged to nationalise. She later accepted a job in the water industry and only rejoined the party when it opposed nationalisation. She is as full of shit as our beaches and rivers. https://t.co/XXzVtxo1Mv
— Karl Hansen (@karl_fh) June 12, 2024
Good of you to spend that intermission valiantly struggling for the rights of private water firms to fill our rivers and beaches with shit though. Well done. https://t.co/NOIKDaAyv0
— James B (@piercepenniless) June 12, 2024
Labour candidates’ lobbyist links
Of course, the revolving door – as the term suggests – works both ways. While Smith is not standing this time, another Labour candidate is up for election on the 4 July, after a long-term career in the water industry.
Lee Pitcher is standing for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme. As Byline Times reported, the Labour candidate previously worked for Yorkshire Water.
Largely however, the majority of connections between Labour and the UK’s water industry manifest through lobbying firms. After his long stint at Yorkshire Water, Pitcher himself took up a role as head advisor on the water sector for consultancy company Jacobs.
And of course, he isn’t the only one. The Canary found at least eight Labour candidates standing for election who have recently worked for lobby and PR firms connected to the water industry.
Three of these were employed by Lexington Communications. The company was one of the firms at the heart of the 1999 cash-for-access scandal. Throughout the past year, the company has lobbied for disgraced water firm United Utilities.
In February, the company polluted the iconic Lake Windermere, in the Lake District National Park. Despite illegally pumping millions of litres of sewage into the famous lake, it still made more than £300m in payouts to its shareholders in May.
In bed with the water industry?
As well as this, as the Canary’s James Wright noted previously, the Australian investment bank Macquarie is one of its clients too. While owners of Thames Water, the bank leeched billions in loans and dividends from its subsidiary. When Macquarie sold the company in 2017, Thames Water was over £10bn in debt – and the investment bank itself had saddled it with a significant portion of this.
The Lexington employees included Steve Race, standing for Exeter, and Mary Creagh, who is standing for Coventry East. According to Novara, Oliver Ryan, standing for Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield purportedly worked for the firm until at least February this year.
A spokesperson for Mary Creagh told the Canary that:
Mary now longer works for Lexington Communications. During her time at Lexington she had did not work with United Utilities.
Alongside Lexington, the Blakeney Group has lobbied on behalf of Pennon during periods of 2023 and the start of 2024. It is the parent company of the infamous South West Water – responsible for the recent outbreak of a parasite in Devon drinking water. Labour candidate Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) worked for the firm. As the Canary reported in June, following the diarrhoea-inducing-parasite scandal that hospitalised two residents, the company awarded CEO Susan Davy a 58% pay-rise.
Other MP candidates working for water industry lobbyists are Gregor Poynton (Headland), Jade Botterill (Portland), Dan Bewley (Lowick), and Ieuan Môn Williams (5654). Their firms represented Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Southern Water, and the sector’s main lobbying body, Water UK.
The Canary contacted these MP candidates for comment, but did not hear back from them by the time of publication.
Labour senior staffers-turned-sewage scandal soothsayers
However, it isn’t only MPs and candidates riding the PR lobbyist-to-politics gravy train. Many water industry consultant lobbyist firms employ staff from former high-profile positions within the Labour right.
PR company Cavendish Consulting has worked for Southern Water, United Utilities, and Veolia in the past year. Among its directors is Ali Craft – a former Labour deputy regional director. His bio on Cavendish’s site states that:
Since leaving in 2019, he has remained closely involved, working for Morgan McSweeney (now Keir Starmer’s campaign chief) and on Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign. He remains a key figure in national Labour politics and has been advising clients about how to engage with the party at a national, regional and local level.
Similarly consultancy company Pagefield has another former Starmer staffer among its employees. Specifically, it states that its associate partner Juliet Patterson:
joined Pagefield from Ed Miliband’s office, where she was his political advisor and led the Labour Party’s media activity on business, energy and climate change. During her time working for Labour she was also seconded to work as a press officer for the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer.
Pagefield has counted Pennon Group among its clientele throughout periods of 2023 and 2024.
Other consultant lobbyists that have run public relations or lobbying for water companies in the previous year alone, have a multitude of employees from senior Labour positions. This includes Teneo, which has listed Severn Trent, United Utilities, and Thames Water among its clients as recently as at least 31 May this year. The company’s senior managing director Patrick Loughran worked closely with New Labour during its time in government. In particular, he operated as a special advisor to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Peter Mandelson.
Meanwhile, FTI Consulting has former front bench advisor Ben Craig, and current Labour NEC member Abdi Duale among its employees.
And as the Morning Star has also reported, Joe Vinson, a former aide to Wes Streeting now works for Lexington. The outlet noted how:
Vinson describes one of his pre-Lexington lobbying campaigns as having “created and delivered a crisis stakeholder engagement plan for a UK water company facing increasing criticism of its performance on sewage spills from the public, regulators, and politicians” — so he has stood up for a private water firm, most likely South West Water and its owner Pennon, as they are rightly lambasted for squeezing cash out of the water system while pouring filth into British rivers.
Then, there’s Connect Public Affairs, which has acted as secretariat for the APPG for Water. Connect’s managing director for its London office – Dan Simpson – has held a number of senior roles for Labour. This includes his time as secretary to the party in Westminster, as a campaign agent for Sadiq Khan, and stints as regional director in both London and the east of England.
Water company lobbyists front and centre
If these previous senior officials’ path to PR firms employed by private water wasn’t enough, the party has direct dealings with some of these companies too.
In May, Open Democracy reported that shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has seconded a staffer from corporate lobby firm FGS Global. Since mid February, the FGS employee has provided advisory services valued to the tune of over £10,000.
What’s more, as the Canary’s Rachel Swindon has noted that:
Shadow secretary of state for health and social care, the Blairite disciple Wes Streeting, was gifted hospitality worth more than a grand at Hay Festival courtesy of the broadcaster Sky and on top of that he received £600 worth of tickets to the opera at Glyndebourne by a lobbying and public affairs company, FGS Global.
During the April to June 2023 reporting period, FGS operated as a consultant lobbyist for Water UK.
Of course, Starmer’s corporate-captured Labour has made cosying up to lobbyists a key feature of his reformed party.
SEC Newgate’s chairman Mark Glover was among the 120 business leaders that declared support for Labour in the upcoming election.
In 2022, the PR company previously hosted a series of roundtable discussion dinners. It did so with shadow business secretary Jonny Reynolds, then-shadow business minister Seema Malhotra, and senior Labour officials. Glover led the networking events. According to its website, it hosted the “high level dinners” to help its clients:
to develop relationships with senior Labour figures to get a sense of what a Labour government would mean for their business – and position themselves to influence Labour’s policy agenda.
Among those in attendance were representatives of Anglian Water. The Public Affairs Board register shows that SEC Newgate has maintained the water company as a key client throughout 2023 and 2024 so far. At the Labour Party’s 2023 annual conference in Liverpool, Glover and his company hosted another business dinner event. There too, they met with then shadow business minister Seema Malhotra.
Glover’s wife, Johanna Baxter, is also standing as the Scottish Labour candidate for Paisley and Renfrewshire at the upcoming election.
In bed with big polluters
At the end of the day, Labour might talk the tough act on water companies, but ultimately, it’s the corporate-captured continuity party at the polling booth. When it comes down to it, Labour’s intimate links with lobbyists and PR firms show precisely why it’s shying away from renationalising the UK’s waterways.
In other words, Labour’s capitalist crony right is in bed with the big polluters. As ever, the corporate stooges in parliament will stifle any meaningful action to protect people and the environment. By the next election, we’ll still have seas full of sewage. However, at the same time, a Labour MP or two might bag themselves a pretty penny as a lobbyist for the private water sector.
Feature image via the Canary
