I love these amendments and wish I had tabled them myself. They are excellent. Water companies dumping sewage into rivers has been illegal for years: it is just this and the previous Government’s refusal to act that has let it continue without serious consequences.

The legislation allows Ministers to set a bar of what is acceptable behaviour and, so far, every politician in charge has refused to say what is and is not a major failure. The result of this political cowardice is that water companies continue to make a profit out of polluting our waterways and beaches, and the people in charge continue to collect their big pay cheques and bonuses.

Regulators such as Ofwat have been in bed with the water industry bosses, and the Environment Agency has lost staff and legitimacy. Labour are wedded to private ownership of water and refuse to consider public ownership, even though it would be the most popular legislation they could enact this Parliament. I keep making suggestions about how Labour can get some voters back, but it is not listening.

These companies are fleecing bill payers with the excuse that they need to carry out the investment they have failed to do for decades. They have taken the public’s money and given it directly to shareholders. They have run up debts to pay even higher dividends and the bill payers are now paying for those debts. What is going to stop them doing this all again?

These amendments take a direct route to stopping pollution by making this personal to the people at the top. If they do not spend the money to invest and reduce pollution, then that is a crime. They are taking the public’s money and failing to improve. My own preference would be to put them on long-term community service cleaning up the sewage from our beaches, waterways and riverbanks. I would probably put them in special uniforms so that everybody passing by would know exactly who they are. I would also put a complete ban on dividend and bonus payments.

I am happy—she says, through gritted teeth—to support this more moderate suggestion, as being something the Minister might accept. I would not give them three years to turn it around either, but setting some sort of firm deadline would be preferable to the inaction of this, and the last, Government.

Finally, the best way of stopping the crime of water companies dumping sewage in our rivers is to take them into public ownership. Reduce Bills by reducing the money wasted on debt repayments and replace the current set of overpaid bosses with people who can do the job and care about our environment.