The hon. Gentleman hopes that his new clause would require further reports to be made to the Secretary of State. However, that information is already in the public domain. That is why supporting new clause 11 would not be helpful. I understand and respect his desire to ensure that the industry is as transparent as possible. I understand the ambition behind the new clause, but I do not share his enthusiasm for the wording that he has chosen.
The privatisation of the water industry has been a success story in terms of investment. Helpfully, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out that I represent a constituency in the South West Water area. The coalition Government have recognised that there were a few flaws in the privatisation process, so there is now extra money to support bill payers in the south-west, who paid for the clean-up of the beaches around the south-west peninsula.
As was pointed out by my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), there has been huge investment in infrastructure since privatisation. That is one of the key successes that we want to build on and not jeopardise. The stable regulatory framework for the water sector has enabled companies to attract more than £111 billion of low-cost investment to upgrade water and sewerage infrastructure and to improve customer service and environmental standards.
I agree that we should be putting pressure on the water sector to act as transparently and responsibly as possible. Ofwat is already doing excellent work on the issues that have been raised by hon. Members. I do not believe that duplicating the reporting requirements would help. For that reason, I believe that new clauses 11 and 14 should be resisted.
New clause 12, for which the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife argued, would place a duty on Ofwat to have regard to the charges to household and non-household customers. That would simply duplicate Ofwat’s existing duty.
I turn to a number of technical amendments, which the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife charitably referred to. I will move amendments 13 to 50, 52 to 54 and 60 to 87 formally at the appropriate time. They will mainly make changes to schedules 5 and 7. Schedule 7 makes consequential changes to the Water Industry Act 1991 and other primary legislation as a result of our reforms, and schedule 5 makes further changes should the Welsh Ministers decide to adopt the reforms being introduced in England. Amendment 59 and new schedule 1 will provide the Secretary of State with the power to produce transitional orders that allow us to deliver retail and upstream reform separately.
Taken together, our amendments will provide Ministers with the maximum flexibility to commence the different market reform provisions transparently and in stages, as per our commitment to stagger the implementation of our retail and upstream reforms. They will enable the current arrangements to continue without diverting attention from the immediate priority of preparing for the opening of the reformed retail market in April 2017.