Public control: a new direction for essential services?

Public control is back on the agenda. But what will it mean in practice for essential services, and for those who invest in them and run them?

The UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has placed public control as part of his government’s strategy for economic and national renewal. The government’s ambitions span water, energy, transport and housing—but ‘public control’ could mean anything from stronger local oversight to full public ownership or competition from new public companies. The government’s next steps will shape investment, risk, competition and accountability across each sector.

What does the government really mean by ‘public control’?

Andy Burnham, Labour Party Conference 2026

The Prime Minister is seeking a greater public role over essential services such as water, energy, transport and housing. This could mean stronger local accountability whereby mayors are given new regulatory powers or greater powers to hold utilities to account. It could mean public ownership of existing utilities, or the establishment of new public companies to compete with private utilities.

Any move to public ownership will bring practical fiscal challenges. Changes to the fiscal rules would allow the government to count spending on infrastructure or equity stakes in companies as assets to be offset against borrowing costs. However, the scale of government borrowing would still remain a barrier.

What’s driving the push for change?

The government’s case is that privatisation has failed to ensure that essential services are affordable, accountable and run in the public interest. Burnham has linked the model to excessive executive remuneration and dividends and costly debt, arguing that these costs ultimately fall on billpayers. He has also pointed to poor performance, including sewage pollution, and slow delivery, such as delays in connecting businesses to the electricity grid.

The implication is that the existing regulatory framework has not been sufficient to secure the outcomes that the government wants from privately owned utilities. That does not necessarily mean that independent regulated private provision of services has failed in principle, but it does imply that the government believes that independent regulation alone may not be enough.

The argument above represents the government’s case for change, not proof that public control will automatically improve performance or lower bills. Outcomes will depend existing underlying levels of performance and existing public control mechanisms, as well as on the model chosen and how the resulting ownership, regulation, investment and accountability are designed. This is particularly important given the scale of investment needed across sectors, the reliance on private finance to deliver much of it, and the urgency of meeting the UK’s climate goals.

One ambition, four different sectors

From ambition to action: what happens next?

Watch this space: the government has established a Public Control Taskforce chaired by First Secretary of State, Louise Haigh, to examine how public control could work across sectors, including water. The Prime Minister has also announced that a ten-year plan for Britain will set out the government’s wider approach. This is expected to provide more detail on the intended models, powers, funding and sequencing, and is due to be published before the end of the year.