The sewage conversation has changedpublished at 11:23 British Summer Time 11 July

11:23 BST 11 July

Jonah Fisher
Climate and environment correspondent

It’s interesting to compare how different things are now at this five year price review relative to the last time round in 2019.

Back then, there was very little talk of large investment in the sewage infrastructure. The emphasis was on delivering cheaper customer bills - a fall of 12% over the 5 years period.

Now, thanks to a significant extent to the deployment of monitors (EDMs) on all the sewage overflow pipes in England (about 15,000), everyone is much more aware of the discharges. So the conversation has changed, and now the discussion is about “how much is the rise?” and “how much is needed?” rather than keeping bills down.

The deployment of the monitors made it impossible for the water companies and the government to continue arguing that rivers and seas were not being impacted as their own equipment was at times reporting the exact opposite.

Image source, PA Media

There is widespread agreement that England and Wales need more investment in water infrastructure.

But the debate goes on over who should pay for it and how the sector has performed – much of that relates to how much the private water companies pay in dividends to shareholders.

The top 10 water companies in England and Wales have paid out £72.8bn in dividends, when taking inflation into account, since the industry was privatised more than 30 years ago, analysis released in May by the University of Greenwich suggested.

During that time, money invested by shareholders in the largest firms shrunk by £5.5bn when adjusted for inflation, the research claimed.

Ofwat, the industry regulator, said at the time that it "strongly refuted" the figures, saying there had been "huge investment in the sector of over £200bn".

And Water UK, which represents the industry, claimed investment in the sector was "double the annual levels seen before privatisation".

How effective will new water measures be?published at 10:55 British Summer Time 11 July

10:55 BST 11 July

Jonah Fisher
Climate and environment correspondent

It was clear during the general election that the level of sewage discharges was in some seats a key issue.

The measures being announced today are an attempt to put the needs of customers and the environment at the heart of decision making by the water companies.

How’s that going to work? Well, the new environment secretary Steve Reed wants the companies to modify their internal rules to prioritise customers and the environment. New “customer panels” are being proposed with the power to summon board members and hold water executives to account.

It’s not yet clear how effective that will be. The water companies are privatised monopolies and answerable first and foremost to shareholders who want a return on their capital – with those decisions overseen by regulators. Up until now fines that have been levied by the regulators have been widely criticised as small compared to the size of the water companies.

The dilemma for the government is that tightening the regulatory regime, and levying higher fines, is likely to make it harder for the water companies to raise the billions of pounds that all agree is needed to rebuild a decrepit sewage network.

Image source, Reuters

Let’s move away from the NHS figures now and back to water after the government pledged a “reset moment” for water companies earlier this morning.

Water regulator, Ofwat, says it expects to see at least 44% fewer sewage spills, external from storm overflows by 2029 - compared to 35% proposed by water companies.

Water firms had proposed to reduce sewage spills by 21% by 2025 but the regulator says it is pushing them further, and wants them to reduce spills by a further 6% by next year.

Ofwat is pledging a £10 billion investment programme to see faster progress on reducing spills.

It says this will increase storage in the network, expand monitoring as well as delivering green schemes like natural drainage solutions.

Ofwat adds that Welsh companies have much higher average spill levels than English companies, and Ofwat expects Welsh firms to put forward "more ambitious proposals" ahead of its final decisions.

• Read more: How much sewage is released into the sea and rivers in England?

The average response time in June for ambulances in England dealing with the most urgent incidents – defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries – was eight minutes and 21 seconds.

That's up slightly from eight minutes and 16 seconds in May, and is above the target standard response time of seven minutes.

Ambulances took an average of 34 minutes and 38 seconds last month to respond to emergency calls such as heart attacks, strokes and sepsis.

That's up from 32 minutes and 44 seconds in May, while the target for those is 18 minutes.

Response times for urgent calls such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged two hours, two minutes and 34 seconds in June, up from exactly two hours in May.

More health data now - NHS England says 76.4% of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer in May were diagnosed or had the disease ruled out within 28 days.

That's up from 73.5% the previous month and is above the target of 75% – only the third time the target has been exceeded since it was introduced in autumn 2021.

GPs in England made 270,583 urgent cancer referrals in May, up from 260,108 in April and also up year-on-year from 245,849 in May 2023.

Image source, Getty Images

The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours for a bed on a ward after being seen in A&E has fallen, NHS England figures just released show.

Some 38,106 patients waited more than 12 hours after A&E doctors took the decision to admit them, down from 42,555 in June.

A decade ago these waits were virtually unheard of, as our health correspondent has written previously.

The NHS set a target of March this year for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Today's figures show some 74.6% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es in June.

More now on those NHS figures for England - and some 4,597 patients in England were waiting more than 18 months to start routine treatment at the end of May, down from 5,013 in April.

The previous government and NHS England set a target to eliminate 18-month waits completely by April 2023.

There's also a national target to eliminate all 65-week waits by September.

There were more than 55,000 patients waiting more than 65 weeks to start treatment at the end of May, the figures show.

New data shows scale of Wes Streeting's challengepublished at 09:53 British Summer Time 11 July

09:53 BST 11 July

Nick Triggle
Health correspondent

As we reported earlier, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has ordered an independent investigation into NHS performance in England.

He says he wants to know the “hard truths” about what he claims is a broken health service.

That announcement was made to coincide with this latest monthly publication of NHS waiting times.

The data shows the scale of the challenge. The waiting list for planned hospital care has risen for the second month in a row to 7.6 million – more than 300,000 have been waiting over a year.

But this is still below the 7.77 million peak seen in September.

A&E and cancer care waiting time targets continue to be missed. In fact, it is more than eight years since any of the three key targets have been hit.

We've just had this month's figures from NHS England showing the number of people waiting for hospital treatment has risen again.

An estimated 7.6 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of May, relating to 6.38 million patients - up from 7.57 million treatments and 6.33 million patients at the end of April.

But this is down from the record high in September 2023 when there were 7.77 million treatments on the waiting list.

These figures are for May - so before the new government took over. We'll have to wait until September for the first figures under this government.

Let's stick with water for a bit longer and here's a reminder of why sewage is released into our waterways.

Most of the UK has a combined sewerage system, meaning that both rainwater and wastewater - from toilets, bathrooms and kitchens - flow in the same pipes.

Wastewater is usually sent to a sewage treatment works. But when it rains heavily, capacity can sometimes be exceeded - and can lead to sewage works being inundated and homes, roads and open spaces being flooded.

So the system is designed to occasionally allow overflows into the sea and rivers.

Water companies are allowed to do this in heavy rain, but the BBC has evidence that some water companies are potentially spilling sewage when it is not raining. And every major English water company has reported data suggesting they've discharged raw sewage when the weather is dry - a practice which is potentially illegal.

According to the Environment Agency, there were 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

Without rainwater to dilute the waste, this can lead to higher concentrations of sewage entering waterways - and that's illegal.

You can read more here.

We'll shortly be getting the latest figures on NHS waiting times in England - which will be the first since the new government took office, although the data pre-dates the change.

The last figures showed 7.57 million treatments waiting to be carried out, relating to 6.33 million patients.

It comes as Health Secretary Wes Streeting - who is calling the NHS "broken" - announced an independent investigation into NHS performance in England, headed by the surgeon Lord Darzi who was a health minister in the last Labour government.

Wes Streeting writes in the Sun today that the probe will be aimed at "diagnosing the problem" so the government can "write the prescription".

Image source, Getty Images

Water UK, which represents water suppliers, is unhappy with Ofwat's proposed increase for bills - saying it's not enough and amounts to "the biggest ever cut in investment by Ofwat".

"Water companies proposed to invest £105bn because it is the minimum needed to meet the legitimate concerns we’ve heard from the public about our environment and our economy," says Water UK.

It says Ofwat is "right to want to ensure customers receive value for money" - but that "for far too long, Ofwat has failed to be realistic about the levels of investment needed and what it will take to deliver and maintain necessary infrastructure".

"We cannot allow this pattern to repeat itself. Water companies are ready to invest in an unprecedented overhaul of the country’s water and sewage infrastructure. Ofwat now needs to let them get on with it."

Water companies have been heavily criticised for widespread leaks and the amount of sewage being discharged, as well as their financial performance over the past years and anger over executive pay.

Ofwat boss David Black also says the regulator has today announced the "biggest ever investment package" in the water sector.

He says that will "help protect our rivers, it will help build new reservoirs, to cut leakage, and to raise the bar on company performance", and adds he is clear "the sector needs to change".

Asked if he is prepared to see Thames Water nationalised, he says the regulator is there to "protect customers' interest".

"We think the determination that we have set provides Thames Water with a fair set of returns, it's now their job to go to investors and to seek to raise that funding," he adds.

Thames Water sees a "private sector solution as the best outcome", he says, adding "they have now got the regulatory certainty to pursue that".

Image source, Ofwat

We can bring you more now from the chief executive of Ofwat, the water regulator, who says he is “very concerned” about the level of bonuses being paid to water company bosses.

David Black tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that's why Ofwat has introduced measures to "protect customers" and that in the last year no customer paid for executive bonuses - they should only be paid by customers where they are "demonstrably earned", he says.

It's put to him bonuses have still been paid, and that the chief executive of Thames Water was paid a £195,000 bonus for his first three months in the job.

Black says Ofwat has the powers to stop water companies passing the cost of bonuses on to customers.

Ofwat “would need new powers” to intervene in bonus payments between shareholders and executives, he says, adding the regulator “will look at this issue further and we will discuss with the new government as to whether intervention in this space is required”.

Nadia Ragozhina
Live page editor

This morning we've brought you a flurry of lines from the water regulator, Ofwat, and the Environment Secretary Steve Reed's team.

Reed is due to meet water bosses later - we already know he will tell them to prioritise the interests of customers and the environment, as part of government plans to reform the sector.

Ofwat CEO, David Black, says customers "want to see radical change" in the way water companies care for the environment, adding he is "very concerned" about the bonuses being paid to water company bosses.

This morning, Ofwat has given suppliers provisional permission to increase annual household bills by an average of £94, or 21% over five years, a third less than requested by water firms.

We also heard this morning that the UK economy grew by 0.4% in May, according to the ONS - these growth figures are from before the change in government.

There's plenty more to come today, including the continuation of the prime minister's visit to the US for a Nato summit.

Stay with us as we bring you all the latest lines and analysis throughout the day.

This isn't the final decision - it's still got to be consulted onpublished at 07:56 British Summer Time 11 July

07:56 BST 11 July

Peter Ruddick
Business reporter, BBC Breakfast

This isn't quite the final word. This is all about the investment that needs to be made in the water network - and we know quite a bit of investment needs to be made to stop spills and sewage - over the five period from next year to the end of 2030.

In October, each water company put together a business plan - pretty much all of them included increases in bills.

And now we've got Ofwat's draft verdict on those business plans.

There will be a bit of consultation now, a bit of negotiation back and forth, and then in December we'll get the final verdict.

But bills are likely to go up, if this comes to pass, by £94 over the next five years.

That's an average because every water company's got slightly different plans in place.

We're expecting to hear from the new Environment Secretary Steve Reed later, after he meets with water companies' bosses in England and Wales.

A source close to Reed tells us the last government "weakened regulation allowing the sewage system to crumble and illegal sewage dumping to hit record levels".

"The election of this Labour government is a reset moment for the water industry.

"In coming weeks and months, this government will outline its first steps to reform the water sector to attract the investment we need to upgrade our infrastructure and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health."

Image source, Getty Images

Most people in England and Wales get their water from one of 17 companies and have their waste water taken away by one of 11 companies.

Households cannot choose which supplier they use - it is down to where they live.

The water regulator Ofwat determines the levels of service all customers can expect and how much it will cost to keep services running efficiently under five-yearly “price reviews”.

Each water company creates a plan for services and household bills for the next five years.

Ofwat assesses the plans and takes decisions on how much money water companies should invest in protecting the environment and upgrading the water system. This determines future water bills.

Ofwat's price review today will help companies set bills for the period 2025-2030. More here.

Image source, Getty Images

We have a bit more on that water bills announcement just now - the regulator Ofwat says the increase in water bills is a third less than requested by water companies.

It says companies proposed increases averaging £144 over five years. For example, the rise suggested by Thames Water was £191 by 2030 but this was reduced to £99, while Severn Trent's proposed increase of £144 has been cut to £93, Ofwat says.

Ofwat boss David Black adds that customers want to see change in how water companies treat the environment - and warns water companies they will be "closely scrutinising" them to "deliver real improvements to the environment and for customers".

More on the story here.