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South East Water: Disruption of Supply
03 June 2026
Lead MP
Emma Hardy
Debate Type
Ministerial Statement
Tags
EnergyAgriculture & Rural AffairsEnvironment
Other Contributors: 22
At a Glance
Emma Hardy raised concerns about south east water: disruption of supply in the House of Commons. A government minister responded. Other MPs also contributed.
How the Debate Unfolded
MPs spoke in turn to share their views and ask questions. Here's what each person said:
Government Statement
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for asking this question and update the House on the water supply disruption in Kent, expressing sympathy to those affected, particularly during hot weather. South East Water reported that thousands of customers were impacted by supply disruptions over the course of the incident, with normal water supply now restored. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs met the interim chair and senior operational staff twice during the incident and daily thereafter to hold them accountable, demanding compensation plans by the end of the week. Water supply disruption causes significant cost to businesses and impacts vulnerable individuals; a 100-year-old lady was without water and a care home in Cranbrook used wet wipes for residents' hygiene. The company must take urgent action. I thank all involved in supporting those affected, including local resilience forum staff, local authorities, health and social care partners, and civil servants. A reliable supply of clean water is crucial; hence, the Government is delivering whole-scale reform to the water sector through a new single powerful regulator under the Clean Water Bill, ensuring company performance oversight and faster intervention when companies fall short. This includes introducing sentencing powers for lawbreaking executives and banning unjustified bonuses.
Roger Gale
Con
North Thanet
Question
I thank the Minister for her measures and join her in thanking organisations that helped. Thousands of people were left without water during hot days, affecting households and businesses severely. There is no quick fix; the Broad Oak reservoir should have been built 50 years ago, taking 10 years if we start now. Water companies face a real problem as they must connect every new house to supply but are not consultees in planning applications.
Minister reply
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s outrage and agree that the reservoir is part of the solution, alongside desalination plants and tackling leakage. We are looking at building standards for new homes and making them more water-efficient. The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority has been mapping areas with acute water shortage problems. Immediate actions include improving communication, relationship with local resilience forums, bulk supply deals, and accelerating work on leakage reduction. Fundamentally, we need greater water storage to resolve this issue.
Question
Like many constituents, I have lost faith in South East Water after repeated failures. The latest incident left around 4,000 of my constituents without adequate standards for days. Its failure to invest in infrastructure means no confidence in basic service provision. Moreover, it kept the hosepipe ban until February and showed poor preparedness for hot weather, indicating a lack of understanding by senior leadership.
Minister reply
I share my hon. Friend’s outrage at South East Water's failures and his advocacy for constituents. Immediate action includes preparing for future hot weather with resilience plans and identifying immediate actions. The longer-term solution is greater water storage. Fundamentally, the company needs to focus on its core job of supplying water. Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate are investigating whether licence conditions have been broken due to the recent credit downgrade, leading to serious actions against the company. The CEO has offered his resignation and the chair has already resigned.
Neil Hudson
Con
Congleton
Question
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale). I thank the Minister for her approach and engagement on this vital issue... Can the Minister please provide guidance on what is being done to ensure that, moving forward, people can reliably access adequate supply, particularly vulnerable households? What is being done to ensure that vital healthcare delivery can continue uninterrupted? In these hot conditions, what measures can be put in place so that farmers and horse owners have enough water for their livestock?
Minister reply
Access to water for livestock was raised with me after the last outage—I think by the hon. Member and the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). This time, South East Water did make deliveries of alternative water to farms across the region during the incident—or that is what I have been informed, but if there is intelligence otherwise, I am keen to learn about that and to understand... To be fair to her, she has been in post for only a few weeks, so this incident has happened very early in her interim chairship, but there are things that we can work on and build on.
Polly Billington
Lab
Bristol West
Question
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the way that she has approached this incident... Rather than simply fining these companies when they fail so catastrophically, we should take stocks in the company to the value of the amount of the fine to be held by a locally convened water board, so that residents have some form of control and accountability for the decisions that are made.
Minister reply
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point... It is interesting that the No. 1 issue that came up for the water company to tackle was the lack of adequate communication.
Sarah Dyke
Lib Dem
Birkenhead
Question
Leaving thousands of South East Water customers without access to drinking water has become a pattern of neglect, enabled by a water system that fails to hold water companies accountable for their actions... Given the repeated failures in water supply and sewage pollution in the South East Water area and across the country, will the Minister back Liberal Democrat proposals for a mutually owned public benefit model for water companies?
Minister reply
South East Water is a water only company, not a sewage company, so we can criticise it for many things, but sewage pollution is not one of them... I stand proud on the record of the actions that we have already taken following years of inaction.
Helena Dollimore
Lab
Hove
Question
I thank the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) for securing the urgent question... Many residents and businesses were impacted, and it is right that the chief executive and the chairman of South East Water have resigned... I urge the Minister to look at such measures.
Minister reply
South East Water has broken its licence conditions, and it is currently in breach of its licence. Its licence is also being investigated by Ofwat under the consumer duty because of the supply outages in December and January... That is why we want to work with the local resilience forum, the water company and officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that those plans are improved before we have another short spell of hot weather.
Thomas Tugendhat
Con
Tonbridge and Malling
Question
Parts of Mereworth, Platt and Offham were left without water and support during an emergency. South East Water has been poorly managed and the Minister should look at bringing forward a task group within regional areas to ensure that emergency water plans are in place.
Minister reply
South East Water has a statutory duty to provide wholesome water and alternative supplies if necessary. The company should work closely with local resilience forums to address such issues.
Question
Farmers warned about low water supply levels in April, yet during a heatwave 15% extra usage was recorded. There is investment coming for Southern Water and South East Water but the differences between companies are stark.
Minister reply
Each company must produce a drought emergency plan for summer. The Government will intervene if projects do not meet targets set by the Water Delivery Taskforce.
Rosie Duffield
Lab
Canterbury
Question
Whitstable has been devastated due to water shortages and new houses demand more water than available. Businesses like Nomad Pizza had to close for days during peak tourism season.
Minister reply
South East Water must put in place measures over summer to ensure sufficient water supply. The Government is looking into building homes that use less water through building standards.
Question
Residents in Dartford are experiencing poor service and increased bills, including an additional sum for waste water to flow from Ebbsfleet into the Thames.
Minister reply
Unfair bonuses have been banned through the Water (Special Measures) Act. The Government is determined to close loopholes that allow companies to continue awarding them.
Helen Whately
Con
Faversham and Mid Kent
Question
There are 20,000 more houses planned for the next few years in her constituency. Is there enough water for those thousands of additional houses in rural Kent?
Minister reply
The Government is identifying areas with acute water shortages through the Water Delivery Taskforce and exploring ways to ensure necessary homes can be built without impacting existing residents.
Clive Efford
Lab
Eltham
Question
My question is about South East Water, which failed during the first period of hot weather. When will we take control of water companies for the public good?
Minister reply
The White Paper discusses alternative ownership models and special administration if a company breaches statutory duties under section 37 of the Water Industry Act 1991.
Question
South East Water has caused significant water outages in my constituency. Will you ask South East Water to look at their communication plans so that people receive timely information and bottled water?
Minister reply
The hon. Lady is right; we discussed communication during the conversation on Sunday, including placing bottled water stations where they are needed.
Matt Rodda
Lab
Reading East
Question
Can you update the House on the work to get meaningful compensation for residents and businesses affected by South East Water's failures? What is being done in the longer term?
Minister reply
We have introduced increased compensation payments, including new standards for boil notices and doubled compensation for failings such as supply interruptions. We will look at introducing a water ombudsman.
Question
Can you urgently review the resilience and availability of water supply in Weybridge, which had restrictions on water supply last week?
Minister reply
We want to introduce asset standards for water company assets, including MOT-style inspections from the Environment Agency to mark companies needing improvement.
Clive Lewis
Lab
Norwich South
Question
Private water companies sell off reservoirs and do not build new ones. Until water is under public control, this situation will keep happening.
Minister reply
The White Paper discusses setting up a transparent process to look at whether a company should transition to a different model, including a not-for-profit.
Mark Francois
Con
Rayleigh and Wickford
Question
Can we change the law to make water companies statutory consultees for planning applications?
Minister reply
We are looking at using tools such as the water delivery taskforce where we have shortages, to see what we can do. We want a sensible approach identifying shortages and addressing demand.
Question
Despite warnings of supply failure, South East Water was unprepared. Will regulatory reforms have real consequences if concerns are ignored?
Minister reply
We want to create a new regulator with strong powers and teeth to take action, as well as introduce performance improvement regimes for water companies.
Sarah Bool
Lab
Dulwich and West Norwood
Question
I thank the Minister for her praise of the EFRA Committee’s report. I speak as a member of that Committee; we are doing extensive work on the water industry and we are following this matter carefully. As has been said, the key issue with the South East Water disruption was the lack of communication, something that applied equally to Anglian Water with the outage that occurred at exactly the same time in South Northamptonshire. I was not told about the outage, and residents report not knowing what was going on for 12 or 24 hours, and the water delivery was inconsistent. What more can the Government do to send a clear message to the water companies that this lack of communication is not acceptable?
Minister reply
I thank the hon. Lady for her work on the EFRA Committee. She is entirely right: it is unacceptable. I feel that I am a fair-minded person. I know that water companies cannot control the weather, and I know that they cannot build a reservoir overnight. However, they certainly can contact their Members of Parliament, contact their councils, get in touch with their local resilience forums and make sure that they communicate with their customers, as an absolute bare minimum, and that is exactly the conversation that I will be having with each and every one of them.
Chris Hinchliff
Lab
Easington
Question
Alongside the failures in the south-east, during the recent heatwave there was a widespread disruption of water supply across swathes of my constituency, in Buntingford, Cottered, Ardeley and Throcking. In a country as wet as ours it should take a true organising genius to create disruptions in water supply, but we are on track for a water deficit of 6 billion litres in our country in the coming decades, and on top of that, AI data centres estimate that water consumption will reach up to half a trillion cubic metres every year. Does the Minister—whom I deeply respect—accept that if we are to prevent water supply disruptions from recurring year in year out, we cannot continue to have infinite increases in demand on our already vastly overstretched water resources?
Minister reply
My hon. Friend is right. It is astonishing that although, owing to climate change, we will experience wetter and wetter winters and drier and drier summers, we have no capacity to store water in the winter and use it in the summer. That seems to me to be absolute nonsense. As for the issue of data centres, there is one possibility that I am keen to look into, and I touched on it in an earlier answer. Under the current legislation, water that is supplied by a water company must be of drinking-water standard. It strikes me as logical and sensible to say, “If water is being used for cooling purposes rather than for drinking purposes in people’s homes, could it not be of a different standard? Why does it need to be of drinking-water quality?” Where, for instance, we want to use water for data centres, for growth, why do we not—in a closed-loop system—use waste water?
Helen Grant
Con
Maidstone and The Weald
Question
South East Water has openly and publicly admitted that it cannot supply drinking water for all the future homes that are planned for Kent. What is the Minister’s response to that specific concern, and is she having conversations with her colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government?
Minister reply
The short answer is yes. The previous chief executive of South East Water—or rather the current chief executive, who has not gone yet—met members of the water delivery taskforce a few weeks ago, with some of the councillors from the area, to discuss exactly that issue of how both water supply and housing demands can be met. I sit on the taskforce along with representatives of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, so we are all having the conversation together about how we build the homes that are needed without having an impact on the people already living in the area, yet also ensuring that new homes have the water that they require. We have been assessing what is likely to happen over the next five, 10 or 15 years. What are the various water supplies that will be coming in? What impact will that have on house building? How can homes be built to a more water-efficient design? Those conversations are happening now, across Government.
Shadow Comment
Roger Gale
Shadow Comment
I thank the Minister for her concern and measures but join in condemning South East Water’s unacceptable service during the hottest days of the year, affecting households and businesses severely. The Broad Oak reservoir should have been built 50 years ago; it will take 10 years if we start now. Regulations need addressing as water companies must be consultees in planning applications to avoid failing to supply new houses with water.
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