Government Response to the House or Lords Industry and Regulators Committee Report: The affluent and the effluent: cleaning up failures in water and sewage regulation.

This is the government's response, published 5 June 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".

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