Privatisation And The Image Of Welsh Water

EDM number 554 in 1991-92, proposed by Alun Michael on 23/01/1992.

That this House urges Welsh Water plc not to worry about its image; notes that employees and services of Welsh Water are well-regarded and what is unpopular is the company's privatised status and large water bills; considers that trying to change this reasonable public perception would be comparable to the pre-privatisation advertising campaign which portrayed milk floats delivering water to each household in order to persuade the public that water is important, assures Welsh Water that the people of Wales are not fools, that they know water is a daily necessity for which they pay a high price because of deliberate Government policies to privatise and to shift costs onto ordinary people; regrets that a company spokesman blamed politicians for the company's low image without specifying Conservatives as the culprits; believes that in a democracy Conservative honourable Members must answer to the electorate for supporting their Party's foolish decisions and that any attempt to change such a perception must count as an election expense and be shown in the books as a donation to Conservative Party funds; and calls on Welsh Water to recognise that, where the company's image has been tarnished by the appointment of a Conservative honourable Member to the lucrative role of P. R. consultant, by a high rate of disconnection, and by the 88 per cent. increase in the Chairman's salary to ú143,000, the way for the Board to win popularity is to change policies rather than waste money on a cosmetic exercise.

This motion has been signed by a total of 50 MPs.