Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

The hon. Lady could lead me down a long path of personal on this subject, which I am happy to share with the Committee. I have a number of park homes in my constituency. Some are well run. It is a style of living that we across the House should encourage because it allows people at a certain age to release some capital and live in a smaller dwelling surrounded by people in similar circumstances, but there are too many park home owners who are appalling human beings. Various Governments, including this Government and the Government whom the hon. Lady supported, have sought to address this. I am working with my hon. Friends in the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that the alternative arrangements that the Government are making for park homes will be fit for purpose. I thank the Committee for that bit of therapy. I can assure the hon. Lady that we intend the £50 to get to precisely the people whom she describes. I am happy to talk to anyone. In my Department we are keen to make sure that that money is not siphoned off by anybody and gets to the householder, even if that householder is a park home owner on a site owned by somebody else. I shall outline some of the other measures available to water companies. We are working to make sure that the issue is looked at holistically. We do not believe that social tariffs are the only method of addressing affordability. All these methods are in addition to the existing statutory WaterSure scheme which provides a safety net for the most vulnerable customers. We fully expect different companies to use these tools in different ways, and make no apologies for that. It remains the case that most water bills are not high in comparison with other household costs, such as energy bills. Customers struggling with water charges are likely to be struggling with other living costs. The Government have other measures in place to tackle the broader problem of low incomes. Universal credit will make work pay and combat worklessness and poverty. Our social tariff guidance will say that we expect companies to keep their social tariffs under review and work with Ofwat on how best to do this. We do not propose to require the kind of annual reporting suggested in new clause 1, which would be just the sort of regulatory burden that David Gray's recent review of Ofwat warned the regulator away from. Ofwat already has a primary duty to protect the interests of consumers and will act in their best interests. A league table would also fail to show the real picture on the ground. The measures of 3% and 5% of a household's disposable income are useful indicators of risk, but they are not absolute measures of the number of households struggling to pay their bills. In short, therefore, we think that enabling companies to work with their customers to design schemes best suited for their area is a much better solution. I therefore ask hon. Members to withdraw their amendments.