The water industry is in crisis with the taps running dry in many towns and villages in the South, Drought orders across England, Soaring water bills and pollution everywhere. Gone are the days when you could book a seaside holiday in Britain and be able to get in the sea without checking a sewage discharge map. The water industry has paid out more in dividends and debt payment to its shareholders than it has had invested from them, it has neglected its assets blaming the regulators, and there is no national water strategy to conserve and protect our waters. The public has no say over how our water is run, and non-payment of water bills for not delivering services is met with prosecution. Every water company in England is under criminal investigation. In this context,the imminent Water Reform Bill will not fix the problem, as the government has excluded any exploration or optional appraisal of other ownership models. Across the world, the majority of water is in public ownership with remunicipalisation the norm. England is an outlier in sticking with a failed privatised system. The People's Commission on the Water Sector was set up in parallel to the governments 'independent' Commission (run by Defra) run by 4 academics, including Professor Malby, taking research-based evidence in public. The results show that water is cleaner, cheaper and fairer in public ownership. Prof Malby will share her story of how she had to move upstream from finding shocking sewage pollution in her local river to challenging successive governments on their unwillingness to tackle the root cause, and the solutions proposed by The People's Commission.

About Professor Malby
Professor Becky Malby is a Visiting Professor in health systems leadership and innovation at York University, London South Bank University and Huddersfield University. She is non-executive at West Yorkshire Ambulance Trust, and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of General Practice. She has made sustained and demonstrable impact through her work on the quality of health services with global reach. Becky is the Chair of the Ilkley Clean River Group, Founder of the Sewage Campaign Network, and Chair of The People's Commission on the Water Sector.