Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he has “no sympathy” for Thames Water shareholders as the company heads towards collapse.
Thames Water is facing collapse after investors pulled £500m of emergency funding amid a standoff with the industry regulator over water bill increases.
This could cause Britain’s biggest water supplier to default on its debts and require a taxpayer bailout, which the Telegraph said last month could be as much as £5bn.
But Jacob Rees-Mogg said that he has “no sympathy” for the company and its shareholders. The Tory MP said on X (formerly Twitter): “Thames Water ought to be allowed to go bankrupt.
“It would continue to be run by an administrator, the shareholders would lose their equity but they took too much cash out so deserve no sympathy and the bondholders would face a partial loss. This is capitalism, it won’t affect the water supply.”
Michael Gove, the communities secretary, said Thames should not pass on higher bills to consumers.
He added: “The leadership of Thames Water has been a disgrace. I think for years now we have seen customers of Thames Water taken advantage of by successive management teams that have been taking out profits and not investing as they should have been.”
The GMB union, which represents many of Thames Water’s workers, accused the company’s shareholders of “essentially blackmailing” customers and industry regulator Ofwat.
Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, told broadcasters the Treasury is monitoring the situation “very carefully” but the company was “still solvent”.
Chris Weston, Thames Water’s chief executive, claimed it remained “business as usual” and stressed that there was no threat to water supplies.
If the company fails, it could be nationalised. The Government has said it would be placed into “special administration”, a process used when energy supplier Bulb collapsed in 2021.
