Writer and comedian Stephen Fry slammed the state of the UK’s water system over the weekend, saying it was clear the country needed to “take back control”.

The environment secretary Steve Reed ruled out temporarily nationalising Thames Water on Sunday but said Labour intends to “clean up our water”.

Speaking on the panel of the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg after Reed, Fry said: “The thing that I picked up on which really matters to me and I think matters to an enormous number of people – the water.

“In the days of Brexit we heard that phrase again and again: Take back control.

“But not to have control of our water always struck me as insane for a country not to have control of its rivers and its lakes and its drinking water.”

Presenter Victoria Derbyshire asked: “So you’re suggesting nationalising them?”

“Yes – before the railways –  and it may be a good idea to nationalise them – surely the waterways, “Fry replied.

The comedian added: “Every single river in our country is polluted and contaminated with a mixture of raw sewage and run-off from organic phosphates and you know, it’s appalling.  It’s a disgrace and it’s one [which] anyone who actually lives in this country should feel in their deepest hearts, it’s an urgent thing to put right.

“Our water is our blood stream.”

His comments came after an annual report from the Environment Agency found there was an increase in serious pollution incidents in 2023, creeping up from 44 in 2022 to 47 last year.

It said that Thames Water, Anglian Water, Southern Water and Yorkshire Water were behind 90% of those incidents.