Labour stance that fails to hold water

IT is 24 or so years since the water industry was privatised. As your Editorial points out (Yorkshire Post, November 9), it is a little rich for Labour who were in power for 13 of those years to complain that the utilities are getting away with murder.

Shadow Environment Secretary, Maria Eagle for Labour, is calling for “tax loopholes” to be closed by which she is presumably referring to allowances for the significant capital investment being undertaken.

Can one refer to these as “loopholes” (possibly, if utilities are still allowed to claim allowances for investment that has been “efficiently” avoided).

Ms Eagle does recognise water as a “complete monopoly”. Past governments – including Labour – should therefore have been more circumspect in regulation, including perhaps limiting rates of return as I believe the USA does to its monopoly utilities. Such an approach could have saved some of the tens of billions of pounds paid out in dividends across the industry since privatisation for investment and helped to keep bills down.

It’s no use Ms Eagle complaining about dividends paid to “shareholders”. That’s what regulation permits. Of course, Yorkshire Water’s “shareholders” are now (foreign) private equity companies including government ownership by the State of Singapore’s sovereign fund: proof that public ownership is not wrong. Nor are huge debts. Yorkshire Water Authority had about £20m of debt in 1979. Today it runs into billions (which customers will eventually have to pay back/finance).

It’s a funny old world.

From: Peter Rigby, Lenner House, Beamsley. Skipton.

I WAS surprised to read that Maria Eagle, the Shadow Environment Secretary, seems to be trying to take the lead in the Yorkshire Water tax avoidance affair.

My MP, Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon), has been diligently looking into Yorkshire Water’s tax arrangements since 2011, getting the two senior directors to appear in front of a Select Committee and then initiating a three-hour debate in Parliament last week.

I do not recall any Labour politician taking the slightest interest until they saw which way the wind was blowing.

The sad thing about this tax avoidance affair is that the hard working employees of Yorkshire Water have been badly let down by a small handful of directors at the top.

Most people are well aware that Yorkshire Water have done nothing illegal, but I suspect that most people (including their own employees) consider that these activities have been highly immoral.

As my MP said to me: “The less Yorkshire Water pay in taxes, the more you and I have to pay for the shortfall”.

There will undoubtedly be big changes in the New Year in the way the water industry is governed plus all the associated ownership issues, and it is our MP Julian Smith we have to thank for that.

Jury out on crime chiefs

From: Don Rhodes, Boothgate, Howden, East Yorkshire.

SO Matthew Grove, Humberside’s Police and Crime Commissioner, is already endorsing the Police Commissioner model as a solution for the National Health Service’s ills (Yorkshire Post, November 10).

I think this is a bit premature. The jury is still out on Mr Grove and his colleagues.

Most of them seem hopelessly out of depth in holding to account complex organisations such as a police force. I think that the PCC posts seemed to attract political lightweights with the odd has-been thrown in for good measure.

I’ve had a look on Mr Grove’s website to see what he’s been up to. “Busy, busy” if I am to believe all the self-promotion on there.

I am reminded of the comment of an old boss of mine who on hearing how dreadfully busy I’d been, shut me up by saying he didn’t want to know how much I’d done but how much I’d achieved. I think Mr Grove should take that advice.

Remedy for ills

From: H Marjorie Gill, Clarence Drive, Menston.

MANY years ago, it was unheard of to go to A&E wards when one became ill at weekends and during the night. Unless there was a genuine accident, one called the doctor.

Naturally doctors, like other workers, wanted regular hours and stopped providing 24-hour cover.

I wonder if it might not be feasible to employ one or two doctors to provide cover – say from Friday afternoon until Monday morning with the doctors on duty then receiving the same salary as those working a week of regular hours?

Perhaps this would relieve the congestion at the A&E wards?

Sometimes a hospital visit is unnecessary and patients can be quite easily treated in their own homes. I can remember being taken to the surgery with acute earache for instance, or on another occasion with sinus trouble, when the doctor treated me with liquid penicillin.

It does seem unfortunate that such simple remedies can’t be available immediately and locally.

Going solo

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme, Holmfirth.

I THINK we should not be too proud to learn a lesson from our cousins the Scots – a lesson on how to compel this London Parliament to pay attention, and grant favours. I suggest that we should give serious consideration to demanding independence for what one might call Greater Brigantia, which might very reasonably be defined as running from the Mersey across to the Humber, and north to the Scottish border.