Plans being considered by Sir Keir Starmer for the party’s general election manifesto with firms that pay dividends likely to be fined more
Water companies will be automatically fined every time they dump sewage into rivers and seas, under plans being considered by Labour for its general election manifesto.
Firms that pay dividends but continue to repeatedly pollute waterways could be levied with higher fines than those who do not reward shareholders, under the proposals.
Automatic fines would have meant water companies being fined 301,000 times last year alone – one for each spillage formally logged by the Environment Agency.
By contrast, just four water companies were prosecuted for breaching overflow permits between 2018 and 2022 by the regulator, which in the current system decides when to levy fines.