‘Clear Water Labour’s Vision for a Modern and Transparent Publicly-Owned Water System

Our utilities have been sold off and run for private profit, not public good, meaning we’re paying rip-off prices for worse services. Water bills increased 40% in the 25 years after privatisation. Over the last ten years, the English water companies have paid out more than £18 billion in dividends to shareholders. This is money that could have been invested instead, or used to reduce bills by around £100 a year per household, the equivalent of a 25% reduction. At the last election, Labour promised to turn off the tap that siphons billions of pounds into shareholders’ pockets. This document sets out how we will do so – by creating a network of regional publicly-owned water companies run by local councils, workers and customers, and operating with unprecedented levels of openness and transparency. In public hands, democratically run, the new public water companies will be able to systematically reinvest any surplus in water infrastructure and staff, or use it to reduce bills – instead of using bill-payers’ money to pay out dividends, executive salaries, or excessive interest payments. In doing so, we will stop trillions of litres being lost through leak’  To read more click here

Corbyn announces major new push on green Jobs

Jeremy Corbyn will today promise to put green jobs at the heart of Labour’s economic strategy in a bit to create 400,000 new posts and put the UK back “on track” to meet its emissions targets. In what looks set to be one of the greenest speeches ever delivered by a leader of a British political party, Corbyn will tell the Labour conference in Liverpool that “there is no bigger threat facing  “We must lead by example,” he will add. “Our energy plans would make Britain the only developed country outside Scandinavia to be on track to meet our climate change obligations.” The Party is set to follow the publication of a new package of environmental policies on Sunday with the release of a clean energy plan designed to ensure the UK sources 60 per cent of its power and heat from clean sources by 2030. However, the target appeared to conflict with Sunday’s proposals, which suggested the 60 per cent goal would cover all energy and would be met within 12 years of a Labour government coming to power. Labour is set to confirm that the overarching target will be backed by a goal to source 85 per cent of electricity from renewables and other low carbon sources, as well as a new target to source 44 per cent of heat from green sources.  “Our programme of investment and transformation to achieve a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 will create over 400,000 skilled jobs, based here and on union rates, bringing skills and security to communities held back for too long,”   Click here to read more