A number of water companies have been banned from paying "unfair" bonuses to some of their senior executives under new rules, the government has announced.
The measures apply to water companies that do not meet environmental and consumer standards, are not financially resilient or have been convicted of a criminal offence.
There has been growing public concern about sewage spills and rising bills for years while water companies have paid out £112m in rewards to executives over the past decade.
Under the new Water Act, six firms are banned from paying some bonuses this year including Anglian Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water.
The ban, which is backdated to April 2024, means regulator Ofwat can force firms to claw back bonuses that have been paid or face enforcement action. It applies to share awards as well as cash.
It is part of new measures in the Water Act which came into force on Friday.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the public had been "furious" over bonuses for water firm bosses "despite overseeing record levels of sewage pouring into our rivers, lakes and seas".
"With this government, the era of profiting from pollution is over," he told the BBC's Today programme.
When challenged on the question of whether companies would try to get around the ban by raising executives' base salaries, as happened with banking bonuses, he said water firms "would be foolish if they didn't realise they need to rebuild trust with their own customers".
"They need to rebuild that broken relationship," he said. "I don't think they will do that, but we're keeping a watching eye, and there are opportunities to intervene if we needed to."