Tom Gordon MP: Nicola Shaw’s refusal to hand back her bonus is “tone deaf”

Tom Gordon has called Nicola Shaw’s refusal to hand back her £370,000 bonus on BBC Politics North yesterday “tone deaf”. 

Many including Tom have been calling for Yorkshire Water’s CEO to hand back her bonus since she received it in the summer, due to the company’s continued sewage dumping. Over the past 6 months, Yorkshire Water has been fined by Ofwat for sewage dumping, come under fire for failing to deal with customer complaints, and continued to dump sewage, all whilst paying out a £371,000 bonus to their CEO, and requesting a large increase in customer bills over the next year. Just last week, it was revealed that a third of customers’ bills to Yorkshire Water go on servicing debt and paying dividends. 

On BBC Politics North, Nicola Shaw was asked whether she would hand back her bonus. She refused, claiming that the money came from profits that would otherwise have been paid out to shareholders. 

However, as was revealed last week, Yorkshire Water has £6.2 billion debt, and also has large amounts of infrastructure that needs upgrading, so it is unclear what profit Ms Shaw is referring to. Many are calling for her to hand back her bonus to help pay for infrastructure upgrades. 

Commenting, Tom said: 

“This is quite frankly tone deaf. Where profit is meant to have come from I don’t know, given the mountain of debt and amount of infrastructure upgrades required. Ultimately, income comes from billpayers, so I feel Nicola Shaw’s words were misleading.  

“Yorkshire Water has seen continuous sewage discharges, had to pay tens of millions in fines, all whilst hiking up costs on consumers and paying out to shareholders & bosses. 

“The whole thing stinks, and enough is enough. We must ban water bosses’ bonuses and shareholder payouts now, until all infrastructure is upgraded and no more sewage is being dumped. Customers should get what they pay for.”

ENDS

You can find the full episode on BBC iPlayer here: Politics North (Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) - 15/12/2024 - BBC iPlayer