Nicola Shaw received over £3m in 2 years despite Yorkshire Water’s dreadful pollution performance.

This is our letter to the Chair of Yorkshire Water, Vanda Murray OBE after the Guardian revealed an additional payment of £1.3m over 2 years from the Yorkshire water parent company Kelda Holdings (also Chaired by Ms Murray). Below ours you will find the letter from Yorkshire MPs to Ms Murray.

Ms Vanda Murray OBE

Chair Yorkshire Water, Chair Kelda Holdings, Chair Kelda Eurobond

3^rd August 2025

Dear Ms Murray

We understand that you Chair Yorkshire Water, Kelda Holdings and Kelda Eurobond.

We hear today that Nicola Shaw has taken salaries of £600,000 in the years 2023-24 and 2024-25, alongside an additional salary of £1.3m in total from Kelda holdings (Guardian 2nd August 2025). However, these also do not include all the additional benefits packages and bonuses taken.

In 2023 Nicola Shaw declined a bonus that (if consistent with predecessors) would have taken her salary to over £1m. She said at the time this was because of the company’s pollution record. In that year she had received a payout from her previous employer of £1m and you paid her relocation expenses of up to £140,000. She may well have also received the benefits identified in 2024 below.

In 2024 Ms Shaw took the base salary (£585k), alongside in cash retirement benefits of £59K and £13K in other benefits, to make a salary of £657K.  She accepted a £371,000 bonus (taking her total to £971,000) taking her salary to £1.028m. That is before the Kelda Holding payment.

In 2025 (7th June) Ms Shaw told the BBC that she would not take a bonus this year because it was not ‘appropriate’ to take a payment on top of her salary.

The revelation by the Guardian today puts Ms Shaw’s total earnings from salaries, and benefits over the 2 years from 2023 to 2025 at over £3m.

This seems to directly correlate to the previous CEOs salary plus bonuses. It appears that the payments from Kelda Holdings bring Ms Shaw’s salary to the level she would expect if she had taken her bonuses.

Ms Shaw is being rewarded not only for her work as the CEO at Yorkshire Water but also for an additional role at Kelda Holdings.

Yorkshire Water Performance

However, Ms Shaw cannot be said to have been an effective CEO requiring rewards for environmental performance.

Last year Yorkshire Water was found to have mis-managed wastewater treatment works and wider sewer networks including their operation of storm overflows and is currently subject to a £40m (reduced from 47m) redress package, £150,000 for polluting the River Don, £19.85m for missing targets on customer satisfaction, supply interruption and drinking water, and £1.6m for polluting a Bradford watercourse. As you know Yorkshire Water is also still under criminal investigation by the Environment Agency.  Serious pollution incidents almost tripled in 2024, totalling one fifth of the national incidents. Yorkshire Water was ‘responsible for at least 68164 sewage overflows in 2024, On average 186.8 times a day. These lasted for 430,262 hours That’s 49.8 years! Affecting 1,949 different locations across their service area’ (https://top-of-the-poops.org/company/yorkshire-water). The EFRA committee notes that “In July, the Environment Agency downgraded Yorkshire Water from three stars to two. It pointed out an unacceptable and disappointing record.”  (Hansard February 2025).

At the same time Ms Shaw appeared in front of the EFRA Committee with the Director of Finance, stating that Yorkshire Water’s asset health is poor, whilst Yorkshire Water reports that in the previous PR19 Yorkshire Water underspent your allowance by 31%, but had also been recording profits year on year.

At every point when Ms Shaw is questioned, she says ‘we are extremely disappointed’ ‘ we take our responsibilities seriously’ and  ‘we are in the wrong place’. This narrative is now unacceptable.

Please advise us as to:

(a) What role did Ms Shaw have with Kelda Holdings that attracted the £1.3m payments.

(b) How are you assured that Ms Shaw is able to execute her role as CEO whilst also taking on additional work with Kelda Holdings, given the appalling performance of Yorkshire Water?

(c) How are you assured there is no conflict of interest between these roles?

(d) How can you justify the total financial rewards to Ms Shaw, given Yorkshire Water’s performance under her watch?

To the customer the additional payments to Ms Shaw look like a way of ‘working around’ the fact that bonuses were causing public outrage and subsequently banned by government. There is in effect no change to eye-watering salaries at the top of Yorkshire Water.

As our bills have increased by 29%, with 51% of our bills being used to pay previous debt and for financing (Paul Inman EFRA Committee evidence), it is shocking to see the persistent pollution performance of Yorkshire water, whilst executives and the company profit.

Kind regards

Prof R Malby BEM, Stephen Fairbourn, Di Lury, Isla Lury, Martin Robertshaw, Karen Shackleton, Owen Wells

Ilkley Clean River Campaign

Supported by Climate Action Ilkley

The letter to Vanda Murray from MPs

4 August 2025

Letter sent via email

Dear Ms. Murray,

It has come to our attention, following an investigation carried out by the Guardian, that Ms. Shaw, the CEO of Yorkshire Water, has received undisclosed extra pay since 2023 via an offshore parent company, Kelda Holdings.

My colleagues and I are deeply concerned by this. It does not represent Yorkshire Water’s ongoing underperformance and it stands in direct contradiction to commitments Ms. Shaw has made publicly, as well as those she has made during our discussions.

Furthermore, in a statement to the public in May 2023, Ms. Shaw committed to refusing a financial bonus, due to the “strength of feeling” over water pollution. In her words, “this is the right thing to do and I’m committed to improving Yorkshire Water’s performance.” Since then, however, Ms. Shaw has accepted a £371,000 bonus in 2024, despite an increase to bills by 41%.

In another contradictory statement in 2025, Ms. Shaw decided “it would not be appropriate” to receive an annual bonus due to the “company’s performance on pollution and a recognition that we need to do better for the communities we serve and earn trust”. Despite this, it appears that Ms. Shaw’s private remuneration has continued, contrary to the spirit of transparency and accountability that you have promised.

Instead of working to rebuild trust with your customers, which is not only sorely needed, but owed, Ms. Shaw has instead accepted discreet payments for the last two years of £1.7m and £1.3m. It is disgraceful that Ms. Shaw has publicly refused bonuses and yet discreetly accepted large payments. We are astounded that such payments have been made.

Please clarify the following points:

1. Why was the CEO paid £1.3 million alongside her salary of £660,000?
2. We note the explanation provided is that the fee reflects the critical importance of the work during this period, led by the CEO, and as a result, shareholders directly invested £500m into Yorkshire Water. Can you explain why this work is not covered by Ms. Shaw’s very healthy salary as the CEO?
3. If it is not covered by the role of the CEO of Yorkshire Water, can you clarify how many hours Ms. Shaw was working for the holding company in the year she received the £1.3 million?
4. Are these discreet payments from the holding company another means of compensating Ms.Shaw’s loss of bonus?
5. When did Ms.Shaw start to work for the parent company, Kelda Holdings?
6. Can you clarify what payments Ms. Shaw has received every year from the parent company- Kelda Holdings, since she became the CEO?
7. How, in your opinion, do you think Ms. Shaw receiving the money from the parent company will help to build public trust?
8. Why is the parent company, Kelda Holdings, an offshore company?

Many of our constituents will be extremely angry that their water bills have dramatically increased, that their rivers remain contaminated and pipes are still bursting, and yet Ms. Shaw and your chief finance officer are earning millions. When will you stop taking your customers, and us, for fools?

We call on you to explain all of the above as a matter of urgency.

Yours faithfully,