Select committee: Industry and Regulators Committee
Conclusion 12
1st Report - The affluent and the effluent: cleaning up failures in water and sewage regulation
Published 22 Mar 2023
Paragraph 99
Industry and Regulators Committee The work of Ofwat All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We welcome Ofwat’s recognition of the need for a significant increase in investment at the next Price Review, given the challenges facing the sector. The Price Review process is appropriate for iterative improvements to underlying assets but investment in environmental improvements and increasing water supply has remained low, potentially due to the regulator’s focus on efficiency and the limited time horizon of the Price Review process. Given the likely shift in the sector towards large, long-term strategic infrastructure projects that are required to ensure future water supplies and resolve environmental issues, more of the sector’s investment will need to take place outside of the Price Review process in future.
From: Industry and Regulators Committee, 1st Report - The affluent and the effluent: cleaning up failures in water and sewage regulation, paragraph 99, 22 March 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 5 June 2023 (deadline 22 May 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government points to its Plan for Water and Environmental Improvement Plan as addressing many of the Committee's recommendations, and responds to each recommendation in turn, with some positions stated and others referred to those plans.
- On the Strategic Policy Statement, the Government "does not intend to update the SPS", citing Ofwat's ongoing 2024 Price Review process (PR24).
- On a single social tariff, the response states "There are no plans to introduce a single social tariff".
- On wet wipes, the Government says it "will change the law to ban the sale of wet wipes containing plastic, subject to public consultation".
- On storm overflows, the Government says it has committed to review the Discharge Reduction Plan in 2027, so that companies "remain as ambitious as possible, while balancing the impact on bills".