Support for water nationalisation has fallen as details of Labour’s plan to take the English water industry into government ownership have emerged and the associated share values.
Only 29% of people would support water nationalisation if pensions were impacted in the way planned by Labour, as reported by a new poll by ComRes for Water UK.
This compares to the commonly quoted 83% support for water nationalisation, from a poll carried out in summer 2017 long before details about Labour’s water takeover plans emerged.
The fall in support for nationalisation comes as more details of the pension implications come to light. Research by the Global Infrastructure Investor Association (GIIA) has found that there are over than 4 million public sector workers with pension funds invested in the English water companies. They potentially face losing thousands of pounds if Labour implements plans for a cut-price takeover of the industry without additional mitigations in place.