November 10th, 2026.



Lewes MP James MacCleary has accused Kemi Badenoch of trying to “rewrite history” after she claimed the privatisation of water companies under Margaret Thatcher was a “success”.

A new analysis by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that Southern and South East Water has leaked 204 million litres per day on average since 1992. That’s equivalent to over 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools a day, say the Lib Dems.

Since 1992, a total of 2.5 trillion litres have been leaked by the two water companies that serve the Lewes constituency.

MacCleary highlighted the irony of the comments made by the Conservative party leader in an interview with ITV Meridian, in spite of continuing spills and when other high level members of Badenoch’s party have said the opposite.

The Liberal Democrats say that they are the only party facing the realities of the water crisis and have a plan to tackle the problem. The party is calling for water companies to become mutually owned public benefit corporations - owned by customers, professionally managed, and not driven by shareholder profit.

Mutualisation converts a company from a shareholder-owned to a member-owned model, meaning profits are reinvested into infrastructure, rather than huge sums being paid out as dividends.


James MacCLeary said: "“Kemi Badenoch cannot rewrite history. The privatisation of water was a huge and costly failure by the Thatcher government that local residents in Sussex are still paying for today.

“The Conservatives broke our water industry and the Labour Government hasn't made any serious moves to fix it. The Liberal Democrats are the only party with a plan to hold water companies to account and put money back into the pockets of customers.

“The Government must move towards a mutual ownership model for water companies so they are owned by and run in the interests of their customers and our environment - no longer in the pursuit of private profit at any cost.

“It must also immediately replace Ofwat with a powerful new regulator, in order to hold Southern and South East Water to account for their persistent failures.”