UK government attempts to defend their record on sewage discharges

This article from The Guardian looks at the failure of water companies to tackle the issue of sewage discharges into the UK's oceans, and touches on a range of issues, most obviously the negative externalities associated with this and whether or not water privatisation has been a success.

I'm particularly fascinated by the detail - the fact that the proposed level of the water companies' investment in tackling the problem - £56bn - is almost identical to the amount that they've paid out to shareholders since privatisation. This begs the question whether we think that this sort of thing is an 'efficient' outcome.