The House of Commons is set to debate the contingency plans of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Friday for the potential event of the collapse of Thames Water.

Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney, who has been pressing the Government in recent weeks to publish details of the contingency plans, put Rishi Sunak on the spot about the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House Commons today, saying:

“Under this Conservative Government’s watch, Thames Water have dumped over seventy two billion litres of sewage into London’s rivers - all whilst racking up multi billion pond debts and reports are now that they could go bust any day. Despite this, the Government is still refusing to publish their contingency plans for the collapse of our country’s biggest water firm.

“So, yes or no, does the Prime Minister believe that Thames Water will still exist by the end of the year?”

However, the Prime Minister refused to be drawn, choosing instead to deflect the question and confining his answer to saying:

“Mr Speaker it wouldn’t be right for me to comment on individual companies and all I can say is that our ambitious storm overflow reduction plan is backed by £60 billion pounds of capital investment. We now monitor every single storm overflow across england and have legislated to introduce unlimited penalties on water companies that breach their obligations. The independent regulator and the Environment Agency have the powers they need to hold water companies wherever they are to account.”

Sarah Olney has secured an adjournment debate on contingency plans for Thames Water which will take place in the House of Commons on Friday 15 March 2024.

The MP had previously submitted an early day motion on 28 February requesting that the House of Commons should debate the contingency plans of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for the potential event of the collapse of Thames Water.

Early day motions (EDMs) are motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons for which no day has been fixed. Usually, very few EDMs are ever debated as there is no specific time allocated to EDMs.