NatWest Group has been drawn into the South East Water (SEW) crisis through its pension fund’s ownership stake, after Tunbridge Wells MP, Mike Martin, wrote to the bank calling for an “urgent” meeting on how the situation will be resolved.

It comes as Kent County Council (KCC) declared a “major incident” earlier this week as thousands of homes across the county and Sussex have been left with no, or intermittent, water supply since last week.

Areas affected include East Grinstead, Maidstone, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells, of which the latter suffered a week-long drought of its supply in December 2025.

Having called for SEW CEO, David Hinton, to resign during the December water outage, Martin is now putting pressure on SEW’s owners. Currently, Hinton remains in post.

NatWest Group Pension Fund owns a 25 per cent share in SEW. The pension fund is governed by its corporate trustee, NatWest Pension Trustee Limited, which operates independently of NatWest Group.

In a letter to NatWest Group chair, Rick Haythornwaite, dated 13 January 2026, the Liberal Democrat MP invited him to “urgently” discuss the “ongoing failures at SEW”.

Martin confirmed to Pensions Age that his letter was deliberately addressed to NatWest Group as the parent company and sole owner of NatWest Pension Trustee Limited.

He wrote: “Quite clearly, corporate governance has broken down. We are now in a situation where a major public utility is out of control – failing its customers, risking public health, and treating parliament with contempt. You own this company and are therefore accountable for its actions.

“At our meeting, I would be grateful if you could confirm whether you think the conduct of SEW’s leadership is acceptable and, if not, to set out the steps you are taking to resolve the situation.”

In response to Martin’s letter, a spokesperson for the NatWest Group Pension Fund’s management team said NatWest Pension Trustee Limited was aware of the “significant disruption” caused to SEW’s customers.

“We are extremely concerned by the impact these incidents are having on the households, businesses and other users who rely on SEW for water services. In the short term, the immediate priority for the company’s management team needs to be putting customers first, with SEW restoring and stabilising services as soon as possible,” it stated.

The spokesperson added that the management team is receiving “regular updates” from its third-party manager, Vantage Infrastructure, which oversees its investment in SEW.

“NatWest Group Pension Fund will use its influence as a minority shareholder to direct SEW’s board to ensure these issues are fully resolved,” it added.

In his letter, Martin also detailed how Hinton has “repeatedly” provided MPs with inaccurate information and, as a result, six local MPs have joined him in calling for him to resign.

“Last week Mr Hinton also made inaccurate statements to a Select Committee about the last month’s outage, which contradicted evidence provided by the regulator,” Martin wrote.

Indeed, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) yesterday, 13 January, recalled SEW’s senior leadership back to parliament over alleged inaccuracies the leadership team has provided to the committee.

EFRA Committee chair, Alistair Carmichael, said: “My colleagues and I remain deeply sceptical about the company’s version of events to date, and its Board’s track record of holding the company to account.

"We would be failing in our duty if we now allowed them without challenge to mark their own homework, let alone on a timescale that will add months to the process.”

When contacted for further comment, Martin told Pensions Age: “Delusional – the chair of SEW (Chris Train) has doubled down on defending the company's negligence after it’s CEO was accused of misleading parliament. None of these people can be trusted to manage SEW.

“Does NatWest and its members believe that it's acceptable that one of the firms that they own a quarter of are behaving like this? It’s now time for the shareholders to take control."

Pensions Age has contacted SEW for comment.

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