General election candidates in Maidenhead have all said they’d take action against water company bosses for sewage in rivers. But they were split on whether they’d back taking water companies back into public ownership.

Candidates were asked what they’d do to protect the environment at a hustings debate in Maidenhead on Tuesday, June 26. Host, rabbi Jonathan Romain, said protecting the local environment was ‘by far the most popular question’ organisers had received from the public.

Liberal Democrat candidate Joshua Reynolds made similar promises. He said: “We need to ban bonuses for water company bosses.” And he added: “We need to put a sewage tax on the profits of these water companies.

“If none of that works we need to take these companies back as public benefit companies.”

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Green Party candidate Andrew Cooney said ‘we should definitely renationalise’ the water industry. He added: “It should never have been privatised in the first place.”

He said the money that water companies had paid to shareholders in dividends should have been spent on upgrading and repairing their network instead.

But Labour Party candidate Jo Smith said her party was ‘very clear’ that it would not renationalise water companies ‘at this stage.’

She said that’s because taking control of the water industry would also mean taking responsibility for their debts and the cost of upgrading infrastructure.

However she there would be ‘automatic and much more severe fines’ placed on water companies. And she added: “There will be criminal charges – it will be a criminal offence if there are repeat offences of sewage dumping.”

Conservative candidate Tania Mathias said she would cooperate with existing community projects to protect water quality. She added that that the Conservative manifesto included ‘no bonuses for the people in those companies that are polluting, and unlimited fines.’

She added: “The environment act does specify the quality of water for the first time. There may be further legislation to come but the immediate project is auditing, monitoring.”

Independent candidate Qazi Yasir Irshad said he wants the government to toughen up on sewage discharges with measures such as fines and new laws. He also said the Environment Agency, responsible for monitoring water quality, ‘should be properly funded.’

But he said that if this ‘plan A’ doesn’t work then ‘it is better to nationalise the water sector.’

Another independent candidate George Wright asked ‘Why is it not already illegal to be dumping sewage in our rivers?’