I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear with me as I take the House through it.
In the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on the draft Bill, we reiterated our previous recommendations that the Department should implement without delay the existing provisions of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 on bad debt, to which I have referred. In our view, it is unacceptable for honest customers to be forced to subsidise those who can pay but refuse to pay their water bills. To answer my right hon. Friend’s question, the specific provision is section 45 of the 2010 Act, which introduces new section 144C to the Water Industry Act 1991. That is what we propose
in new clause 3, which would require landlords to arrange for information on their tenants to be provided to water companies.
Instead of implementing the existing bad debt provisions, the Government currently rely on a voluntary approach, whereby landlords share information on tenants on an online database set up by the water companies. Before I go further on the voluntary approach, it might be helpful to ask my hon. Friend the Minister this question: what is to prevent a customer who happens to be a tenant from marking on their electricity bill the fact that they have no problem with it being made known to the electricity company and the Department for Work and Pensions, whichever works best, that they are in receipt of benefits? The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was fortunate to enjoy the company of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife for a time. I am sure he remembers our exchange, but the Committee has great difficulty in understanding what the problem is for the Government—either the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—in permitting that flow of information.
The House will recall the tragic case of an elderly couple who sadly passed away because they could not afford to pay their utility bills for heating. No one had informed the electricity company of that fact. I believe that what is good for electricity companies—in law, such information can be provided to those utility companies —should be equally good for the water companies, which are also utility companies. They should have access to the same information.
A close reading of proceedings in Committee shows that Water UK acknowledged the new database for landlords and tenants, but claimed that
“experience has shown that a voluntary approach simply does not work.”––[Official Report, Water Public Bill Committee, 3 December 2013; c. 15, Q19.]
It gave the example of Northumbrian Water. It has had an easy-to-use website for landlords to provide information for two and a half years, yet only 7% of all rented properties have been registered. That is a problem and this is a matter of some urgency. The Government need to press ahead—the House would support that.
In Committee, the Opposition tabled a new clause that would have meant landlords providing contact details of their tenants to the water companies, but it was voted down. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee produced a report on the water White Paper—we have worked hard on the issue and I hope we have made a positive contribution. My hon. Friend the Minister nods because he, too, was a member of the Committee when we adopted the report. I find myself in good company this evening. The report recommended that DEFRA work with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that all means-tested benefits claimants are given the option to consent to the sharing of their data with their water company for the purposes of help with affordability issues.
I and hon. Members who have put their names to new clause 3—a number are members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee—believe that there is a difference between electricity and gas bills and water bills. If people do not pay their heating bill, their supply can be cut off, whereas if people do not pay their water bill, the water company is simply not permitted
to turn off the supply of clean water going in or prevent waste water—sewage—going out, for reasons of hygiene and good health.
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My hon. Friend the Minister must recognise the urgency. This year, it will be four years since the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The legal basis exists. New clause 3 and amendment 9 would give the Secretary of State the power to make the regulations on the disclosure of benefits information relating to tenants to water and sewerage companies in connection with the bad debt provisions in the Act. The benefits information should include all information held by the Department for Work and Pensions on benefit entitlements.
All the Secretary of State needs to do is introduce appropriate safeguards in regulations to protect data. As I have indicated to the Minister, there could be a box on the bill for the customer to tick to indicate that they are willing to have information shared with the water or sewerage company. The Committee has previously recommended a simple tick-box on a customer’s bill consenting to such information disclosure. I urge him to tell the House what has changed since he endorsed such a provision in the previous Parliament—he was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the last Parliament, and was so until recently in this Parliament.
The Committee believes that the proposal is a helpful suggestion to the Government in closing a loophole and preventing an omission from the Bill. The legislation is in place. The new clause would enable companies to determine which customers cannot pay and those who will not do so. There is a clear distinction between the two. Those who can pay but will not pay are costing £15 per household. The provision would allow water companies to target information about the charitable funds and social tariffs they operate on the most vulnerable customers—those who simply cannot afford to pay, perhaps even for a temporary period—and allow them to make arrangements for which they are eligible.
There is a precedent for the disclosure of information. I understand that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs implements the warm home discount scheme, which has been regulated pursuant to powers granted to the Secretary of State in the Energy Act 2010.
The information provided by Ofwat following recent submissions of water companies’ business plans in December, which was part of the current price review round, shows that three companies have social tariffs, that 12 companies will have a social tariff by 1 April 2015, and that five companies have proposed not to introduce a social tariff.
In conclusion, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to follow through on what he so eloquently supported when he was a member of the Select Committee and allow consumers to benefit by making benefits information available at the earliest possible opportunity. That will enable those who cannot pay to be on the radar screens not just of landlords but of the Department for Work and Pensions and their own water utility company.