Pledge
“We will give regulators new powers to … bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers [water companies]”
Our verdict
New legislation which gives regulators greater powers to prosecute executives and directors for obstructing their investigations came into force in February 2025.
Water, sanitation and drainage services are supplied by privately-owned companies in England and Wales. These services are regulated by various bodies. In England, the Environment Agency enforces environmental standards in respect of water companies’ wastewater and sewage discharges.
Provisions already existed for the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Drinking Water Inspectorate to bring criminal charges against water companies and their executives for environmental or safety breaches. These could include offences under the Water Industry Act 1991, such as supplying water unfit for human consumption, or the Environment Act 1995, such as discharging sewage into water in breach of permit conditions.
In early 2025, the Labour government said there was a “high evidential bar” that needed to be met before criminal charges could be brought by these bodies, and added “obstructing the regulators was not always punishable by imprisonment, or triable in the Crown Court”. It said that since 1996, the year the Environment Agency was founded, only five people had been prosecuted for obstruction offences into pollution incidents, two of whom successfully appealed.
Labour’s manifesto did not specify exactly what new criminal charges it would allow regulators to bring for persistent law breaches by water companies or which specific laws it believed were being “persistently” breached.
However, in the July 2024 King’s Speech, the government announced its intent to introduce a Water (Special Measures) Bill to “strengthen regulation to ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability for lawbreaking”.
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We are rating this pledge as “achieved”. New powers have been introduced to allow water company bosses to be held personally criminally responsible for lawbreaking.
The Water (Special Measures) Act, which passed into law in February 2025, introduced new powers from April 2025 to allow water executives to be held criminally responsible for obstructing regulators’ investigations into pollution incidents.
It allows water company executives or directors to be prosecuted for the offence of obstructing a regulator’s investigation, where this occurs with their consent or due to their neglect, with a maximum prison sentence of two years or a fine.
The government said the passing of the Act delivered “on the manifesto pledges to clean up the water sector, including significantly increasing the ability of the Environment Agency to bring forward criminal charges against law-breaking water executives”.
In May 2025, ministers said a “record” 81 criminal investigations had been launched into water companies in England since the July 2024 election over alleged illegal sewage spills, and that these investigations could “see bosses behind bars”.
We’re also separately tracking progress on the government’s promise to cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade.
As we develop this Government Tracker we’re keen to hear your feedback. We’ll be keeping the Tracker up to date and adding more pledges in the coming months.
Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.
Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister – 24 September 2024
