The Water Commission’s failure to consider renationalisation as an option for the industry does not necessarily mean that we’ll “watch the industry continue to sink under the failed model of privatisation”, as the Green party’s co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, has suggested (‘Less reorganising, more doing’: landmark report alone won’t fix broken water sector, 21 July). But, as you say in your editorial (21 July), it will mean that “making water companies value the public interest more highly, relative to private profit, will be an ongoing struggle”.
There is a way, however, of ensuring that the public interest wins this struggle. Change the laws on corporate governance. Legally require water and other private companies to operate in the interests of the common good, and develop a regulatory system to ensure that this happens. This would make it easier to prosecute CEOs and other senior executives, should they fail to run their companies in the interests of the British people. In legislating this way, the government could take its lead from the German constitution, article 14, clause 2 of which states: “Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the public good.”
In so doing, the government could take note of the fact that this is a legal cornerstone of Germany’s social market version of capitalism – one that for a long time has surpassed Britain’s in terms of its higher levels of prosperity, with far lower levels of inequality.
Jeffrey Henderson
Leeds
• I could accept a privatised water industry if I had a choice of provider. As a Severn Trent customer, the only way to change my water supplier is to move house. There is no incentive for Severn Trent to offer me the best service it can, as there is no penalty for not doing so. Pious statements about regulation are easily addressed by looking at the regulatory bonfire that occurs every time we elect a Tory government.
I’ve been a Labour voter for 40-plus years, and was incensed enough to think about changing my vote over the benefit changes disaster, but now have a positive reason to consider a vote for the Green party – an unambiguous commitment to nationalisation. This is the only way of getting an accountable system.
Peter Bowden
Birmingham
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