Today (21 July 2025) Luke Myer MP has welcomed the Government’s decision to create a powerful new Water Ombudsman, arguing that families need a clear, independent champion when water companies get things wrong on leaks, bills, or sewage pollution.

The new ombudsman will act as a single, free point of contact for customers in dispute with their water company, with legal powers to require firms to put things right. The move forms part of the Government’s wider “root and branch” reforms to a sector that ministers have described as broken, following years of under-investment, soaring bills, and record levels of sewage discharges into rivers and seas.

Luke said the announcement builds on the tougher action already taken through the Water (Special Measures) Act passed last year, which strengthened the Environment Agency, banned unfair bonuses for polluting bosses, and introduced the prospect of criminal sanctions for law-breaking executives. Ministers have also committed to ringfencing customer bills for infrastructure upgrades, investing £104bn in pipes and treatment works over five years, and halving sewage pollution by 2030.

Luke said that, alongside changes in the upcoming Water White Paper, the ombudsman would help shift the system from reacting to failure to preventing it in the first place.