“Wes Streeting says that if the NHS doesn’t change, it will die. But it is inadequate funding that has left our NHS in a poor state of health, not lack of reform.
“Between 2010 and 2019 the UK had a lower level of capital investment in health care and 18% lower average health spending than 14 EU countries.
“So to say that the public is paying a heavy price for failure is an insult to hard-working NHS staff, who are doing their level best despite being overworked and underpaid. It is the failure to invest adequately and pay staff properly that is at the root of dissatisfaction with the NHS.
“The public agrees. They don’t want endless reforms; neither do they share the Conservative or Labour appetite for creeping privatisation. They want the current model to work and to see the NHS available to everyone free of charge and primarily funded through taxes. A tax on the super-rich billionaires and multi-millionaires can provide the funds needed to fix our cherished NHS.
“The Green Party has never had any truck with the profit motive in health care and will continue to push for a fully publicly funded NHS.”
England’s privatised water companies are an example of vulture capitalism
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
England’s privatised water companies are an example of vulture capitalism unleashed by neoliberal obsession with privatisation of essential services. Its poster child, Thames Water, the UK’s largest water company, wants a 40% price increase and guaranteed returns. Its investors based in China, Abu Dhabi, Canada and the Netherlands are holding the government, regulators and people to ransom by stating that unless their demands are met they won’t invest and let the business collapse. Any concession to Thames will enable other water companies and corporations to do the same. It is time to tackle vulture capitalism head-on, let Thames go bust and bring water back into public ownership.
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The industry was privatised in 1989 for a net price of £6.1bn, £7.5bn price minus a dowry of £1.5bn to give companies a debt free start. So far water companies have paid more than £75bn in dividends, and neglected investment. Customer bills have increased by over 350%, double the rate of inflation. Companies operate through complex opaque corporate structures and are adept at shifting profits to low/no tax jurisdiction. They pay little or no corporation tax. In 2023, sewage was dumped into rivers/seas for 3.6 million hours, compared to 1.75m hours in 2022. Some 3bn litres of water is lost every year due to leaks from a dilapidated infrastructure. No new reservoirs have been built since 1989.
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Privatisation has failed and water industry needs to be brought back into public ownership. However, acknowledging that privatisation has failed would be a bitter pill to swallow for the Conservative government. In an election year, the government will try to prolong the life of Thames Water. During his leadership campaign, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer promised to nationalise water, but has since reversed his position. A crisis looms for both parties.
Profiteering is the root cause of the crisis, and that can’t be addressed by handing the company to another profit seeking operator. The profit element needs to be removed and surpluses need to be ploughed back into building the infrastructure. Public ownership whether through a not-for-profit, a community owned, or a mutual organisation is the best way forward.
dizzy: 350% seems far more than double the rate of inflation so there may be an error there. I wonder if there is a case of criminal neglect here since water companies’ conduct affects pollution and health.
AS BELEAGUERED customers faced further price hikes today, the scale of Britain’s energy rip-off was revealed.
The energy firms have collectively reaped profits of £420 billion since 2020, according to research by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition.
For comparison, the annual budget of the Department of Health & Social Care, which includes the NHS, was £181.7bn in 2022-3.
Though the Ofgem-imposed price cap, limiting what customers pay for each unit of gas and electricity that we use, fell today to £1,690 a year for a typical household, the average standing charge rose from £303 a year to £334.
These charges, which have to be paid even if no gas or electricity is used, have risen by 147 per cent since the 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Those cashing in on the profits dividend include not only the energy providers but also the firms that own the wires and pipes through which electricity and gas supplies travel, all publicly owned prior to privatisation in 1990.
A rowing boat on the River Thames Putney, London, March 27, 2024
THE crisis of capitalism is running out of your taps and pouring into our rivers. Britain’s water industry is lurching towards calamity, poisoned by the priorities of profit and abetted by politicians in the pocket of the privateers.
The largest water company in the country, Thames Water, appears to be on the edge of insolvency after its investors refused to pump in cash essential to the company’s survival — apparently because the reluctance of regulator Ofwat to authorise even steeper increases in bills to households made it an unattractive bet.
And alarm was spread about the annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race on Saturday having to row through the sewage-ridden Thames, with doubts being cast on maintaining the tradition of throwing the cox of the winning crew in the river on health and safety grounds.
Now there are calls for the government to declare a national emergency as discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas across Britain reach a record high.
These are the fruits of the handing over of the most basic resource to the tender mercies of monopoly capital. The sewage in the rivers is one side of the coin, the riches sitting in shareholders’ bank accounts is the other.
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Nationalisation may be forced on the government in the case of Thames Water. But state control can only work in a context of planning, investment and a role for both workers’ and consumer interests.
That was Labour Party policy until Keir Starmer abandoned it. It is time the labour movement demanded its reinstatement.
BRITAIN is worried about the NHS. The latest Social Attitudes Survey shows less than a quarter of the population are satisfied with the health service. That represents a drop of 29 per cent in just three years — the fastest fall ever.
That’s hardly surprising. Waiting lists at over seven million represent months of pain for people waiting on procedures. Seeing a GP in a hurry is all but impossible in many areas. Waiting times in A&E are breaching targets wherever you look.
This suits private healthcare interests down to the ground.
The number of privatised medical procedures hit a record last year. People who can afford it are going private: people who can’t afford it, the vast majority, are suffering.
The degradation of the NHS, and the consequent pressure for “reform” in the form of ever-greater dependence on for-profit provision, follows a familiar playbook. US academic Noam Chomsky summed it up: “That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”
People are angry about the state of the NHS, but there is certainly no public enthusiasm, or even consent, to increasing the role of private capital.
The NHS’s founder Nye Bevan famously said the NHS would last as long as people had the faith to fight for it.
