Water

EDM number 434 in 1995-96, proposed by Max Madden on 14/02/1996.

That this House congratulates Steve Letza and Clive Smallman, of Bradford University Management Centre, on their joint paper, Is Water Thicker Than Blood ? Overcoming the Conspiracy of profit Over Social Responsibility in Privatised Utilities; notes their paper proposes a shift in public policy away from the greed is good ethic, returning the water industry to public ownership with democratic accountability and a revival of long-term planning and investment; further notes the alternative is of an Orwellian vision of the future, featuring water as the new global currency, rather than oil - and one which, in the case of the United Kingdom, is controlled by private organisations; believes that handing water supply over to profit driven shareholders was not only unethical but also a recipe for bad management, under-investment and unfair pricing; further acknowledges that the relations between water bosses, their shareholders and the Government represents an implicit conspiracy whose baneful effects were exposed by last summer's water supply crisis; criticises huge increases in water company profits, share dividends and directors' pay and perks; and questions Yorkshire Water's reliance on freak weather conditions to explain last summer's water shortages when the previous winter in West Yorkshire was the wettest for 34 years, rainfall was below the long-term average for 17 of the last 21 years and drought orders had been in place for five of the last seven summers so demonstrating unusual weather was not entirely unknown.

This motion has been signed by a total of 44 MPs.