Government to take on five recommendations straight away
And finally… over in parliament, environment secretary Steve Reed has told MPs he will be immediately taking forward five of Sir Jon’s recommendations. As well as abolishing Ofwat and creating a new ombudsman, the government will be ending self monitoring of sewage dumping into rivers and seas. Reed said this will be the “end of the era of operator self monitoring”. Sewage spills will be automatically recorded and posted online in real time.
He also committed to creating regional water boards which bring together environment groups as well as water companies and local councils to speed up the cleaning of local rivers and lakes, as well as integrating water infrastructure into local plans.
Reed said:
“The lack of water infrastructure that held back Cambridge and Oxford for so long will not happen again.”
Finally, Reed committed to giving strong ministerial directives to the EA and Ofwat- while it still exists and said these will “set out our expectations and requirements”. Cunliffe had recommended ministers showed more leadership to the regulator and ended a “light touch” approach.
Asked by Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, why the report did not consider nationalisation, he said: “we have to take a rational and not an ideological approach” and said Defra had independently calculated that nationalising the water industry would cost £100bn.
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Closing post
Time for a recap…
A new water regulator will replace the powers of Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and the Environment Agency to “reset” a sector tarnished by scandals over sewage spills and financial mismanagement, after a major review of the sector.
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said:
“The government will abolish Ofwat. In the biggest overhaul of water regulation in a generation, we will bring water functions from four different regulators into one.
“A single, powerful regulator responsible for the entire water sector will stand firmly on the side of customers, investors and the environment and prevent the abuses of the past.”
The creation of a new regulator was one of 88 recommendations made by Sir Jon Cunliffe in his review of the England and Wales water industry.
Cunliffe warned:
This sector requires fundamental reform on all sides – how we manage the demands on water, how the system is regulated, how companies are governed and how we manage the critical infrastructure on which we all rely.
Speaking to reporters this morning, Cunliffe compared the current situation to the Great Stink of 1858.
Cunliffe also suggested that it could take two years to set up the replacement for Ofwat, and suggested some civil servants could lose their jobs under the shake-up.
But, there was disappointment in some quarters that the Independent Water Commission was not allowed to give full consideration to the hypothetical renationalisation of the sector.
As Unite general secretary Sharon Graham puts it:
“Water workers and the public will just think this report is a bad joke - it doesn’t even consider returning water to public ownership.
“If the government thinks a new regulator will solve the problems of privatisation they will be badly disappointed. The public’s bills are due to rise by a third over the next five years, we are experiencing hosepipe bans, seeing rivers clogged with sewage and CEOs making millions for overseas shareholders.
“Our collapsing water system is a mark of shame for this country and any sensible government would be taking steps to nationalise Thames Water and all the other failed companies.”
Here’s the full story:
And here’s our key takeaways from the report:
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