Thatcher’s Rotten Legacy: Offshore Bonuses, Raw Sewage, and the Sham of “Private Efficiency”

Yorkshire Water boss was paid extra £1.3m via offshore parent firm

While working people across Yorkshire are forced to tighten their belts, pay ever-rising water bills, and dodge sewage in the rivers while on a hosepipe ban, the boss of Yorkshire Water has quietly pocketed an extra £1.3 million through an offshore Jersey-registered company that answers to no one but profit.

Nicola Shaw, the current chief executive of Yorkshire Water, has been handsomely rewarded by Kelda Holdings, the shadowy offshore parent company owned by a patchwork of global investors, including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and Wall Street’s Corsair Capital. Shaw received £660,000 on top of her already bloated salary of nearly £700k for what they describe as “investor engagement” and “financial oversight.” Translation: keeping the shareholders happy while the pipes rot and the people get fleeced.

The whole scandal stinks of exactly what it is… a neoliberal bamboozle hardwired into the DNA of privatisation. It’s the legacy of Thatcher’s great sell-off: not just flogging off what rightly belonged to the British people, but shackling us to a system where we keep paying through the nose for it, forever. Our water, our infrastructure, our future, siphoned off into offshore accounts and foreign hands, all in the name of “efficiency,” while executive greed drinks deep and the public picks up the tab.

Let’s call it what it is: organised legalised looting. Yorkshire Water initially refused to reveal the payments. Why? Because Kelda Holdings is registered in Jersey, a secrecy haven where no one’s required to publish executive pay. They only admitted it after The Guardian started asking uncomfortable questions. Even then, the company insisted this money wasn’t from bill payers, as if the public should feel comforted by the fact that it came from shareholder dividends, which themselves are extracted from the same system that should be investing in clean water, not executive bonuses.

This comes just months after Yorkshire Water was one of six companies barred from giving out bonuses due to environmental violations, including a £40m payment for excessive storm overflow spills and an £850k fine for dumping chlorinated water into a stream. So what did they do? They paid the boss anyway, offshore, out of sight, beyond accountability.

This is the same system that’s let our rivers become open sewers while CEOs walk off with pay packets fit for kings. It’s a system designed for the market, by the market, and the rest of us just get the runoff.

The GMB union was right to call it out. As national officer, Gary Carter put it: “The fact that this salary is hidden and not transparent just further undermines the reputation of water companies. This sort of behaviour has got to end.” He’s right. But we’ve heard it all before, and still, nothing changes.

Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, echoed the outrage and rightly demanded public ownership. But let’s be honest, unless Labour’s new corporate governance plans actually bring this pirate economy to heel and renationalise essential services, it’s just more papering over the leaks and hiding the stench of the sewer .

We need more than transparency. We need justice. We need to own our water again. Because so long as profiteers can hide millions in Jersey while Yorkshire’s taps run brown and our rivers run black, the bamboozle lives on.

This isn’t just about Yorkshire Water. It’s the entire privatised model that stinks. Thatcher may be gone, but her legacy is alive and well, draining our pockets, polluting our land, and paying itself handsomely for the privilege…

Paul Knaggs

Editor, founder, Labour Heartlands, Citizen journalist. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Fighting a constant struggle with dyslexia that’s overcome with a burning desire to speak out against the corrupt political system and the social injustices it creates. Advocate for Free speech and open, accountable, democracy. #GTTO