The chair of the Water Commission, Sir Jon Cunliffe, will lay out his recommendations on how to improve the environmental and financial performance of the sector.
Several British media outlets reported on Friday that Sir Jon’s report would suggest scrapping the regulator, Ofwat, altogether. A government spokesperson said: “We are not going to comment on speculation.”
But speaking on the pollution data, Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary said: “These figures are disgraceful and are a stark reminder of how years of underinvestment and weak regulation have led to record levels of sewage polluting our rivers.”
Industry group Water UK acknowledged that the performance of some companies had not been good enough.
“The Environment Agency is right to highlight underinvestment in infrastructure and maintenance as the major causes of these results,” said a Water UK spokesperson.
The industry was set a target to reduce pollution incidents by 40% by 2025 against 2016 levels. But this has been significantly missed – levels reported in 2024 were more than double the original EA target.
Every year the Environment Agency records the number of times pollution such as untreated sewage is released from water company sites such as treatment works into the country’s waterways.
Just three companies were responsible for the vast majority of the most serious incidents – Thames Water (33), Southern Water (15) and Yorkshire Water (13).
“These figures expose a brutal truth. Serious pollution incidents are rising, sewage discharges remain rampant, and our rivers are spiralling toward ecological collapse. This is not just regulatory failure; it is a national disgrace,” said River Action CEO James Wallace.
“Thames Water, the most egregious polluter, should be put into special administration to start the reset,” he added.
The company saw their levels of serious pollution double, and were the worst performer for reporting pollution events to the regulator.
