MPs urge ministers to break off Thames Water talks with US hedge funds

Thames Water’s Coppermills water treatment works, east London. The company’s ‘16 million customers have largely lost faith in it’, said the chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Andy Burnham is under further pressure to take control of ailing Thames Water from a cross-party group of MPs who are calling for ministers to break off talks with the US hedge funds who are effectively running the company.

Adding their voices to demands that the prime minister takes public control of the company, which has debts of £20bn and is being controlled by a group of 100 hedge funds and distressed-debt investors, the MPs said in a report that ministers should consider emergency legislation to take control of its financial affairs to stabilise the company.