Water Companies: Licences

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

These are issues that require us to work across government, such as sentencing, but where a crime has been committed and it can be proved that an individual in a senior position in a company has directed that company to operate in an illegal manner, that is a criminal act and therefore sanctions should reflect that.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have said that they will use the evidence of enforcement and litigation in determining whether they will use this new power on dividends for companies, but that requires evidence. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, it has recently been shown that of the storm overflow monitors that the water companies put in, one in six—2,300—are not working. Why are the Government not fining these water companies immediately if their storm overflow monitoring devices are not working, because otherwise no one can get the evidence and Ofwat cannot make these decisions?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Environment Agency has a suite of enforcement actions it can take in those circumstances, including criminal prosecution. Last year it reported 30 monitors that were not recording data properly. Faulty or inactive monitors are identified by the agency through its data monitoring, and where water companies are failing to meet expected levels of monitoring coverage, the agency is holding them to account by requesting plans and monthly updates on progress. Some 15,000 storm outflows exist in this country; we now know where they are and we can monitor them.