Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

It is a great irony for us in the south-west, surrounded by water as we are, that we have the highest water bills in the country. I represent a coastal city that sits on three rivers and the injustice of the expense of water bills in Plymouth aggravates almost everyone I know in my constituency and the wider region. Water bills in the south-west are, on average, 43% higher than in the rest of the country and we have 200,000 households under water stress—paying, as we have heard several times, more than 3% of their income towards their bills. A Government Member said that there were more people in his region to which that applies, and that is true, but we have the highest percentage of people in that position. Those people are pensioners and families with high and essential water needs. They are often supported through WaterSure, but only about a third of those eligible get that help. People have been paying through the nose for a basic commodity. I accept that it needs to be valued because, with climate change and other pressures, it could become more scarce. If we do not prepare well for the decades and century ahead how we manage the future costs of the necessary work and, from my perspective, prevent a repeat of the mistakes that were made when water was privatised and the south-west paid a disproportionately high price, we will all fail water bill payers. The Bill clearly tries to set out some ground rules in that regard. The high cost of water is not a new problem, but it has dominated concerns in Plymouth throughout my time in Parliament and for many years before that. It has posed problems for Governments of all political persuasions and it will clearly continue to exercise the current Minister in the months and years ahead. As we have heard, for many years, I and other south-west Members have campaigned to address the higher bills left us by privatisation. The detailed Walker review did, to Anna Walker's credit, much of the groundwork for the announcements that followed, including the Chancellor's announcement of the £50 refund for households in the south-west, and ultimately led to the Bill. Through parliamentary questions, Adjournment debates and the work of the all-party parliamentary water group, which was initially chaired by Linda Gilroy, who has rightly been lauded in the Chamber today, then by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and then by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), Members of all parties have sought to keep the issue high on the agenda. At a time of soaring utility bills, high inflation and stagnant wages, action on water bills is welcome. However, it needs to be meaningful and lasting to make water bills more affordable in the long term. The continuing upward pressure on the south-west, despite the refund, will mean that many families dip below the poverty line. It is not acceptable to increase the number of children and pensioners in poverty. Although I welcome any help that the Government are able to give—it would be churlish not to welcome the £50—it is small relief from ever-rising bills. This is not the end of the debate and the problem extends beyond the south-west. That said, all of us who live in and represent constituencies in the south-west—I should declare an interest as a South West Water bill payer—have a duty to ask whether the bill will effect meaningful and lasting changes. Sadly, my conclusion is that it will not. There is a strong view that this gain will be temporary, and that even with the changes, water bills in the south-west will be back at their current levels within two or three years, for the reasons I have set out—wages are stagnant and inflation is high. Will the Minister look at the issue of water companies overcharging for surface water drainage, which affects water bill payers specifically in the south-west, but also more generally? Very many households do not connect their waste water into the sewerage system and water companies do not have complete data on where those properties are—I have been out in my patch trying to identify them. In Plymouth, no council data exist for the 1950s from the plans, and it is believed that later plans are inaccurate in terms of the connection of mains sewers to properties. It is wrong that the default position is to assume that people are connected and charge them. As a result, the onus is on the bill payer or house owner to understand exactly where their water goes and whether they have a direct connection into the mains sewer. That adds further unfairness to the system, and I ask the Minister to address it at some point. I wholly support the comments of the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on park home owners. Many people in Glenholt park in the north of my constituency are anxious about how the proposals will play out for them, and I am afraid that not all park home owners are responsible or willing to be generous with the people on their sites. A number of related issues, including the adoption of private sewers, will impact on the cost of water nationally, and they need to be understood with regard to the Bill. I note that the explanatory notes state that the Bill gives the Secretary of State"““a power to give financial assistance””" with regard to the"““construction of…sewerage infrastructure””." I assume that that is partly designed to reassure Thames Water bill payers on the linked new ring main sewer. However, civic schemes are not mentioned in the Bill, so when the Minister winds up, will he tell the House whether assistance could be applied for by a water company that finds it has a much more extensive private sewer commitment than it believed it had inherited? The Minister will know—we have written to each other on the subject—that we are unclear what the burden is likely to be for some water companies in that respect. The Government need to introduce measures to tackle long-term water affordability, not just in the south-west but nationally, and they should consider the feasibility of a national social tariff. We have heard that from other hon. Members and I hope the Government consider the proposal. Anna Walker, who dedicated a whole chapter to the injustice felt and experienced in the south-west, set out a number of main challenges nationally, including the cost that other bill payers incur as a result of bad debt—it is around £15 per person, as we have heard. She looked at the implications of metering and considered how future costs should be met, acknowledging some of the issues that we have debated. She was also clear that it was appropriate for water customers to pay for improvements to the quality of water and the disposal of sewage, because they ultimately benefit from such improvements, but she was also clear that customers should be fully consulted before the Government agree to such changes to avoid the accusation of imposing a stealth tax. I believe that the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the shadow Secretary of State, on parliamentary oversight of specific schemes, should be debated seriously in Committee on the Floor of the House. The Bill will be a waste of time if, within a short period, the problem of affordability comes back on to the agenda, not just in the south-west but nationally, and if customers feel that they have not had input into the reasons for the higher bills that they pay. The Government will do them no favours if they simply appease us in the south-west who have kicked off over the years and made a lot of noise about our bills, and they will miss an opportunity not only to consider water affordability in a more strategic and inclusive way but obviously to tackle the historical injustice in our region. Whatever the new regime, basic standards must apply, but that is not entirely clear from the Bill, and it needs the appropriate regulation, which also is not entirely clear. As has been said, the House must be able to consider every proposal on its merits, but that is not in the Bill either. So more work needs to be done. Given the expertise and experience of Members across the Chamber, I hope for further and more detailed debate in the short Committee stage because it would be of benefit to the Bill.