Why is Thames Water in a lot bother? | EUROtoday

The whole water and waste sector was privatised 34 years in the past below the late Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative authorities for £7.6bn. At the time, Mrs Thatcher wrote off the business’s £5bn debt, leaving firms with a clear slate and gave them £1.5bn in public cash.

The authorities had needed to privatise the business in 1984 however a public backlash in opposition to the plan noticed it shelved till after the overall election three years later. At the time, the UK was below strain from Europe to enhance the purity of its water.

However, assembly European requirements would price billions of kilos price of funding which, it was hoped, would come from the personal sector and, by extension, firms’ clients.

“If we want environmental improvement, it will cost money,” stated Mrs Thatcher in 1988. “It will be the people who want those improvements in water who will have to pay.”

Former Labour MP Ann Taylor later stated of privatising the water business: “The message is always the same – maximise the cost to the consumer to ensure maximum return to the investor. We should not be surprised at that. After all, that is what private investors expect of their companies.”