Prime Minister Andy Burnham has asked advisers to “rip up” current plans to fix Thames Water and suggest “more radical options”, according to a report in The Guardian yesterday evening.

The House of Commons EFRA Committee has published a report on the future of Thames Water which calls on Ofwat and the government to withdraw from negotiating with the L&VW consortium and urges the government to either put the company into Special Administration or to consider emergency legislation that takes control of its financial affairs before more appropriate owners can be found.

Widespread news reports in the press and online media during the course of last week, over the weekend and today are suggesting that if Andy Burnham, who will shortly be appointed as the UK’s new prime minister, moves to nationalise Thames Water, the creditors will launch a legal challenge.

Thames Water came in for swingeing criticism from MPs in Parliament in response to Emma Reynolds, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, ministerial statement to the House of Commons yesterday.

CK Infrastructure, the owner of Northumbrian Water, has re-entered the bidding process for Thames Water and approached the water sector regulator Ofwat to say it is ready to submit its own rescue package, according to a report in The Sunday Times at the weekend.

A highly critical new report by the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is warning that a failing water sector in which “water companies increasingly look like financial institutions rather than businesses servicing monopolised critical infrastructure” is in need of “root and branch reform”.

Correspondence released by the House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee yesterday evening has raised even more questions for the Chair and CEO of Thames Water to answer about the water company’s financial affairs – and the Committee has now further extended its questions about their recent evidence to Environment Secretary Steve Reed and Ofwat Chief Executive David Black.

Ofwat is seeking views on guidance it has issued setting out its approach to enforcement aimed at providing clarity to water companies, customers and other stakeholders - the ultimate sanction is High Court special administration order where the court is satisfied that the company's breach is serious enough to make it inappropriate for the company to continue to hold its appointment or it is or is likely to be unable to pay its debts.

 What is to be done about the UK’s failing utilities? Listen to Professor Dieter Helm explore the options to tackle the UK’s failing utilities – Thames Water, the Royal Mail and Network Rail in particular.

Professor Dieter Helm has published a highly critical and detailed analysis of Thames Water, describing the deeply indebted utility as “a disaster of its own and the regulators’ making” and “badly managed and financially engineered.”