ITV GMB's Richard Madeley skewers Ofwat director with furious five words in heated row

Good Morning Britain presenter Richard Madeley ripped into Ofwat's Price Review Director Chris Walters as he confronted him over the rise in water bills.

During Thursday's instalment (December 19) of the ITV programme, Richard and co-host Charlotte Hawkins announced that water bills will rise by 36 percent over the next five years.

They were joined by Walters, who attempted to explain the regulator's decision.

Richard, 68, interjected: "Can I just cut in? Look, I appreciate that your job this morning is to dance on the head of a pin."

He fumed: "I notice that you speak consistently about the present and the future. You simply, as head of Ofwat, will not address what you guys let happen in the past."

Richard then accused Ofwat of overseeing an industry that allowed "Fat Cat bosses", as he put it, to receive huge bonuses and shareholders to reap large dividends, while also permitting asset stripping.

The presenter added: "So we are where we are now. And the people playing the price for that, it's not you. It's the people watching this programme, who in the case of Southern water, are going to see their water rates double because of this total screw up of administration."

He continued with a damning indictment: "I put it to you, looking at where we are now, that Ofwat is actually trying to regulate a write-off, that the system that we have in this country for providing water, keeping the rivers clean, and keeping the oceans clean is terminally broken," branding the situation a "car crash" beyond repair.

Richard added: "We need a completely new system. There's nothing you can do to fix it now. It's too far gone."

Responding to the grilling, Walters insisted that Ofwat is diligent in assessing proposals for fairness and value for money.

He stated: "Then, to hold companies to account for those proposals. Government and environmental regulators are holding companies to higher standards, rightly so."

Despite this assurance, Richard was quick to point out the director's reluctance to discuss previous actions as he declared: "You won't address the past."

Richard continued his pursuit for an admission of past faults, asserting: "You haven't said one word to acknowledge Ofwat's failure, total failure, to regulate the water industries, to stop these companies ripping off the public. You won't talk about the past; I invite you to one more time; will you address the failure of the past?"

Walters reluctantly acknowledged the invitation and defended Ofwat's historical performance, saying: "That is what we have done, we have done our job."