Bill on water industry ‘fails to address key issues’

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference, Yorkshire Water chief executive Richard Flint attacked the “loss of ambition” shown by Ministers in their long-awaited Water Bill, which was published over the summer and will come before Parliament later this year.

The Bill includes plans to allow business customers – although not domestic users – to pick and choose their water company, so introducing competition into the industry for the first time.

But Mr Flint said it failed to address the most important issues facing the country – how to deal with increasing flood risk due to climate change, and how to keep people’s bills down.

Contrasting the published Bill with the more wide-ranging proposals plans set out by the Government in an earlier White Paper, he said: “There seems to be a loss of ambition.”

Attacking Ministers for focusing on “relatively small points about competition”, he said: “It’s the big issues that people today want us to address.”

Colin Skellett, executive chairman of Wessex Water, said competition within the industry is “almost a sideshow” compared with flooding, droughts and affordability.

And Russ Houlden, chief operating officer of United Utilities, which supplies water in the North West, said: “The Bill is frankly a disappointment. The Bill has missed a lot of those issues in the White Paper, and indeed the Bill does not deliver a lot of the promises that were set out in the White Paper.”

And he added: “The way the Bill is currently drafted will almost certainly increase prices for domestic customers.”

Businesses, Mr Houlden said, will now be able to “opt out” of certain water costs by choosing their supplier, leaving domestic customers to take up the slack.

And as costs rise, water firms may decide to end the pricing system which means customers pay an average price for their water supply rather than a cost specific to their home. “That will mean higher costs, particularly for those in rural areas,” Mr Houlden said. “Which is something we do not support.”

All three industry leaders called on the Government to privatise the nation’s system of flood defences in the wake of the ongoing austerity drive.