Environment Secretary took £1,786 football tickets from bosses linked to polluting water company! B
Steve Reed criticised for being ‘wined and dined’ by industry he ‘must now take to task’
The Environment Secretary accepted almost £2,000 in tickets and hospitality for a football match from bosses linked to a polluting water company.
Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North, attended a Chelsea v Crystal Palace football match at the invitation of Hutchison 3G UK Limited, which is ultimately wholly owned by CK Hutchison Holdings.
CK Hutchison Holdings owns 75 per cent of Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, the owner of Northumbrian Water.
The match took place in December 2023, three months after Mr Reed was made the shadow environment secretary, with tickets and hospitality valued at £1,786, according to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
The Government has been criticised for accepting hospitality and large donations, including clothing and tickets to football matches and concerts.
Clear water campaigners said the meeting was concerning, particularly in the context of wider unease over links between the Government, regulators and the water industry, which is under fire over sewage pollution and its financial resilience.
Ed Acteson, co-founder of the anti-sewage group SOS Whitstable, said: “That Steve Reed, then the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, accepted hospitality from a water company owner is extremely disappointing. Frankly, it is the latest question mark over an industry riddled with double standards and conflicts of interest.”
He added: “Mere weeks after attending this event, he was pledging to put water bosses ‘in the dock’ for illegal releases.
“How are we supposed to believe those words carried any sincerity when, at the same time, he was receiving blatantly inappropriate hospitality of this nature?”
Northumbrian Water spilt sewage into England’s waterways for 280,000 hours in 2023 and has accepted that the company needs to do better to improve its record on pollution.
Matthew Topham, the lead campaigner at We Own It, said: “It’s shocking to learn that the man Keir Starmer has entrusted with the pressing task of cleaning up Britain’s rivers and seas has been wined and dined by the very family of firms he must now take to task.”
The Government has vowed to crack down on the water industry, promising to block bonuses, and introduce criminal charges for blocking investigations.
But the reforms have been criticised by campaigners as inadequate, leading to some calls for nationalisation, which the Government has ruled out.
Water companies argue they need more leeway from the financial regulator to raise bills in order to invest in infrastructure.
Ash Smith, the founder of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, said: “Now that we know the root cause of illegality and profiteering in the water industry is rooted in its private ownership, it’s inevitably worrying to see government ministers siding with keeping that exploitation in place while struggling to answer broader questions about donations and the influence they buy.”
A government spokesman said: “This story is complete nonsense. Steve has taken the toughest action against water companies of any minister in decades.
“He’s imposing tough new special measures to ban polluting water bosses’ bonuses and make them face criminal charges if they keep breaking the law.”
