We’re prepared to change the law to reform water industry, says Angela Eagle

The new environment secretary, Angela Eagle, says ministers are prepared to change the law — and, if necessary, take Thames Water into public ownership — to reform Britain’s water industry. In her first major interview in the job, reported by The Guardian, Eagle said the country’s insolvency rules were never designed to cope with the behaviour of the companies that control the troubled utility.

Thames Water is carrying a debt pile of about £20bn and was recently fined a record £122.7m over sewage spills and unlawful shareholder payouts. Its owners, which include the hedge funds Elliott Management and Apollo Global Management, are trying to renegotiate its debts, and Eagle cautioned that special administration is not as simple as it sounds — Thames, she said, is not technically insolvent.

The standoff is shaping up as the first test of the prime minister’s pledge to bring Britain’s utilities back under public control despite corporate lobbying and the threat of legal action. Speaking at the site of the country’s first new reservoir since 1992, Eagle also promised to speed up infrastructure projects after a run of droughts.