Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

I look forward to the recommendations in the White Paper being implemented in legislation. I hope that that will happen in the next Session and that we will not have to wait another year or more, but there is talk of the legislative process being clogged up by House of Lords reform. We need this legislation as soon as possible to address the problem once and for all. I will end my remarks on this point. The Bill is a welcome development, as far as it goes. Of course the £50 cut is welcome, regardless of the fact that it will be wiped out by the big increases in water bills this year and next. However, it is only a temporary solution to the problem in the south-west and nationally. Although it will assuage the public anger in the south-west over the cost of water bills temporarily, if those bill continue to go up every year, this bit of help will be but a distant memory in a few years' time. I address my final remark as much to those on the Opposition Front Bench as to the Government. Whoever is in power has to grasp this nettle once and for all and reform this industry properly, so that it operates for the benefit of the consumer and the customer.