Water company bosses could be banned from receiving bonuses and even sent to prison under new government legislation to combat pollution.
The proposed laws will apply in England and Wales and give increased powers to regulators to tackle companies who pollute and make it easier for them to be fined.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the measures would “end the disgraceful behaviour of water companies and their bosses”.
But some campaigners for cleaner waters have criticised the new legislation, with one telling BBC News it amounted only to “window dressing”.
Water companies have been widely criticised for giving multi-million pound pay packages to their executives while continuing to regularly spill sewage into lakes, rivers and the sea.
The new Water (Special Measures) Bill will see harsher penalties for law-breaking, with prison sentences of up to two years for executives who fail to cooperate or obstruct investigators.
The burden of proof in civil cases will be lowered so that the Environment Agency can more easily bring forward criminal charges against bosses.
Regulators will also be given the power to stop bonus payments to water bosses if they fail to meet high standards to protect the environment, their consumers and their company’s finances.
“Banning the payment of bonuses for bosses who are overseeing failure and making them personally criminally liable if they refuse to comply with investigations will focus them on cleaning up our rivers not lining their pockets,“ Mr Reed said.
Some campaigners for cleaner waters criticised the new legislation.
Many pointed out that there is already widespread rule-breaking in the water industry and said the real issue was a failure of the water regulator, Ofwat, and the Environment Agency to enforce them properly.
Earlier this year a BBC investigation revealed that in
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