Independent Water Commission Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Cameron Thomas
Main Page: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)Department Debates - View all Cameron Thomas's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Independent Water Commission
Cameron Thomas Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Steve Reed
My hon. Friend makes an important point. In Sir Jon Cunliffe’s final report today, he makes recommendations for how customers can be put at the heart of the new model. There are several recommendations; I will not go through all of them, but one is to set up new regional entities, where customers will have direct representation in taking decisions about how water infrastructure investment will be spent to tackle the priorities in their own areas.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
My constituent campaigners at SafeAvon and Tewkesbury Friends of the Earth will be delighted to see that, at length, the Government have implemented a core Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge: the abolition of Ofwat. Will the Secretary of State now go further and implement a second pledge to put those campaigners on the board of Severn Trent so that they can hold the water company to account, and continue to show my constituents that Liberal Democrat pressure pays off?
Steve Reed
I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ conversion; when they were in government, and when the Water Minister was indeed a Liberal Democrat, they commissioned a report that found there was no need to change the model of regulation.