Conservative Libertarians-UK

 Shirley Dayane Freire (She/Her) 8:46 PM

Hi Shantanu, it is great to have connected with you. I am great, I hope you are also good!

I couldn't help but notice your opinions on the free market. I agree with your statement but I always seem to stutter when people bring out monopolies. Therefore, I would like to ask, how would you justify your view when it comes to a monopoly such as Thames Water in the UK?

Shantanu Panigrahi sent the following messages at 11:44 PM

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 Shantanu Panigrahi (He/Him) 11:44 PM

 Hi

 I now only take questions in Open Forum discussions here: https://www.theconservativelibertariansociety.com/forum  

Shantanu

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    Shantanu Panigrahi (He/Him) 8:01 AM

The issues are very complicated Shirley, that is why I did not wish to delve into them in private messaging. Essentially however, I am a Conservative Libertarian, who believes that water is a resource and part of Nature at the same time with ecological significance and should be protected and preserved. It should therefore not be treated like any other commodity for the free market to exploit for profit motives. But the private sector is more efficient in harnessing the water reserves and delivering it to the customer in the houses and businesses than a nationalised Water industry can do.  So whereas I believe that the private sector should have the responsibility for water, it should be regulated appropriately by OfWat in a balanced manner that enables a 20 percent maximum return to the private investment of shareholders, and charges the customer for the balance of the costs of keeping our water resources sustainably managed with the externalities like pollution of the rivers and discharge of sewage into the rivers and seas to be paid for in the price that the people have to pay for water in the home and in businesses. If this is not done people will just tend to waste water leading to shortages during hot summers and so on.

Obviously I have not seen the reason for why Thames Water failed to deliver and no doubt it is in continuous talks with Ofwat to see that the business succeeds.

I would not like to see any change into nationalisation. Innovative solutions come from the private sector and no doubt entrepreneurs at Thames Water have the matter in hand.

There is also the issue of economy of scale in the delivery of gods and services so that one cannot have too many companies in the United Kingdom competing with each other in the same area when considering water.

Shantanu