The hon. Gentleman has had his chance to give his speech.
In the course of my remarks, I will point out some of the flaws, but also some of the things we expect water companies to be doing in our constituencies. I hope South West Water and all other water companies will be listening to the debate, because today we can set the standards. Today we can set out our knowledge of what is being done across the country, and ensure that the standards are in place, and that the fines and action are taking place.
Where is South West Water to date? It is absolutely right that it has met its mains repairs and unplanned outage performance commitment levels; it is absolutely brilliant to hear that it was the top performer for internal sewer flooding performance; and it is quite welcome to hear that its sewer collapse performance and prevention was better than its commitment. Those are all welcome steps, but it is not just about recognising successes: it is about seeing the failures, talking about them and seeking to address them, and it is absolutely right that we talk about those failures today.
The first failure is that water supply interruption performance targets were not met. South West Water also did not meet the deadband score for the compliance risk index, which measures the risk of companies not meeting the requirement of drinking water quality regulations. Perhaps most egregious of all, South West Water’s pollution incidents performance was the second poorest in the country. The company has a customer satisfaction rating that is 78.4% poorer than the median of other water companies—it is ranked with one star. If we are concerned by the actions South West Water is taking, we should also be concerned about how it is viewed by the public. We must ensure there improved confidence in water companies to address and tackle the issue with meaningful results to ensure we see
improved water systems, cleaner waterways, enhanced monitoring, and meaningful action from the ground up to enhance wildlife biodiversity.
According to the email we received from South West Water, which by all means is not the only source of information sent to Members of Parliament ahead of the debate—in fact, there was a great deal more—we should reflect on the fact that South West Water has delivered on 80% of its 44 operational delivery metrics and is now looking towards 100% monitoring, but although it talks about bathing water status, it does not necessarily go far enough on our rivers. The company talks far more about keeping our beaches clean, when many of us who are wild water swimmers, such as myself, like to swim in rivers all year round and are deeply concerned about the monitoring systems that are in place.
South West Water has invested billions of pounds over the last two decades to protect and enhance the rivers and coastal waters of the region, but the problem is that people do not recognise it; they do not see it or know it, and too often they do not feel it. That is one reason that I am taking matters into my own hands in my constituency in south Devon. Not only have I met representatives of South West Water and had conversations with them about their new WaterFit programme, which is due to go live in the coming weeks, with a new website specifically designed to give up-to-date, real-time, understandable and digestible information to members of the public about the quality of our water; I will also be getting representatives of South West Water to come to Brixham on 30 March and to Totnes on 27 April to discuss their plans to ensure that action is being taken, so that people can have some confidence and understanding about what needs to be done.
It is clear that a pollution incident reduction plan is working in respective constituencies across the south-west, but we must be able to show that there is an increasingly downwards trend in pollution. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon was right to say that last year was a dry year, and therefore we must take the data with which we are presented with a pinch of salt, but let us use this opportunity to speed up the way in which our water companies deliver their projects.
I have three suggestions as to where we might go. The first is about where we are building. There is a shortage of houses across the south-west. There are a huge number of development projects across our countryside and rural areas attached to towns, but all too often we are building staggering amounts of houses but are not taking into account the infrastructure. When the infrastructure is not taken into account, hundreds of new homes flood our sewerage networks, meaning that they can no longer cope so pollute our waterways and beaches as a result. It must be a stand-alone policy that for any development plan to go forwards, the infrastructure must already be in place, rather than leaving it to chance.
Secondly, it is absolutely right that Ofwat should be able to issue sizeable fines, but all too often the fines take too long to implement, and there is a certain level of opaqueness around where they end up. It must be clear and certain that fines from water companies are put back into ensuring that waterways, beaches and coastlines are clean, and that the process happens in a speedy manner.