Thames Water Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Baroness Ludford
Main Page: Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Ludford's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Thames Water
Baroness Ludford Excerpts(3 days, 8 hours ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Clearly, the report we have in front of us is an interim one, so we are currently looking at it and considering the recommendations. Further work will then be done and as a Government we will then look at those recommendations and work with Sir Jon Cunliffe on how best to move things forward. Clearly, there are some serious structural issues in the way things have been managed and we need to take this very seriously if we are going to sort out the mess that many water companies have found themselves in. That may well result in a further water Bill in the future.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
What lessons are the Government learning from the water sector experience for other regulated industries? As the Minister said, there have been decades of underinvestment. The 1990s European law should have been implemented, and successive Governments, including the last Labour Government, failed to apply the law on proper treatment of sewage. What lessons from poor regulation ought to be applied in other so-called regulated industries?