Lord Rooker
Main Page: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I do not believe that it is the intention at this stage to introduce legislation. The water companies do not want to have bad debt; clearly it is not in their interest. But because there are such difficulties, particularly with customers in vulnerable circumstances, there are social tariffs. At the moment they help 30,000 households; by 2020, the companies forecast that it will be about 380,000 households. But, clearly we want to ensure that bad debt is reduced.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I am afraid that I am not technical at all and will need to take advice on that. Because of the technicalities of all these matters, the best thing I can do is to write to the noble Lord with some of the very technical details. But it is a very pertinent point.