UK Greens Urge Burnham to Put Thames Water in Public Hands Now

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing pressure to speed up his efforts to tackle the UK’s troubled water industry, as the Green Party called for Thames Water to be brought under public ownership immediately.

In his speech at Labour’s annual conference earlier this week, Burnham announced plans to repeal the ban on public ownership of water companies, but stopped short of actually bringing any under government control. That includes Thames Water, which serves Greater London and the surrounding areas, and is struggling under nearly £19 billion ($25.2 billion) of debt.

But speaking at the Greens’ conference on Saturday, the party’s deputy leader Rachel Millward said Burnham was making a mistake by delaying action, and that Thames Water should be brought under public control immediately with no compensation paid to creditors or shareholders.

“Burnham’s 10-year plan of gentle threats and vague notions of control is not enough,” she said. “Stop this talk of 10-year plans and putting them on notice. We need public ownership now, and we have all the tools we need to make it happen.”

The Labour government has long been considering how to put Britain’s biggest water supplier into special administration. It has effectively been in the hands of creditors since shareholders walked away in 2024. Last month, a group of lawmakers said they should be blocked from taking full control, and called on the government and regulator Ofwat to withdraw from negotiations with them.

Yet the government has been hesitant to act due to the potential cost to the taxpayer, and possible legal challenge from creditors. There is also the concern for officials that heavy-handed government intervention could deter future investment in British utilities.

Millward’s call for more radical action came as Zack Polanski, the Green Party’s leader, told the conference on Friday that his party had been key in influencing Labour’s tack to the left under Burnham.

While membership of the Greens has surged under Polanski, with the party’s popularity climbing into double-digits percentages, it has recently slipped in polls after a series of missteps. It still has just five members in the 650-strong House of Commons, though Polanski himself is standing in a special election on Thursday.

A consequence of the Green’s growing membership is that divisions have emerged between longer-standing members, who were focused on environmental policy, and those who have joined more recently as they saw the party as one of the few which was taking a strongly supportive stance toward Palestinian statehood.

Read More: Greens’ Polanski Struggles to Adapt as Burnham Moves Labour Left

Those divisions have come to the fore in recent weeks as a group of members proposed a motion at the conference to class Zionism as racism, due to be put to the vote on Sunday. There was disagreement over what Zionism actually meant — while some see it as colonialism, others see it as the necessary struggle for a Jewish homeland — and some Jews in the Greens have said they would find it uncomfortable to remain members if the motion passed.

Mothin Ali, deputy leader, acknowledged the tensions during his speech on Saturday. “People have come here from different political traditions, different communities, and different experiences,” he said. “That should be a strength, but only if we learn how to disagree.”

Ali also used his speech at the conference to propose a new policy to provide a guaranteed job for every 18-24 year old lasting up to two years.

The Greens said their plan would tackle the crisis of young people who are not in education, employment or training.

Under their policy, the Greens said the government would pay half the wages for two-year placements for non-public sector positions, and employers will be exempt from National Insurance contributions but must provide structured training and meet high employment standards.