Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the draft water Bill will contain provisions on social tariffs and tackling bad debt—I do not know whether there is any more recent news as to when it may be published. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the Anna Walker report and water efficiency measures. Again, I wonder why he did not include any more detailed provisions on water efficiency measures in his amendment. I also wonder what the Minister and the Government are thinking on such measures, given that we are on the brink of the worst drought for at least 40 years. Anna Walker proposed some imaginative measures that households and businesses could take, and it is disappointing that they were not elaborated upon to a greater extent in the natural environment White Paper or the water White Paper. It would be helpful to know the Minister's thinking on that. A lot of unfinished business on the 2010 Act could have found its way into this small Bill, but we await confirmation that such things will be dealt with in the wider and more comprehensive draft water Bill. On new clause 1, I am not sure that I entirely followed the hon. Gentleman's thinking on minimum standards for water company social tariffs. In what regard are these to be ““minimum standards””? Are they to be minimum standards for comparative purposes or will they govern how the social tariffs would apply?