Water Industry: Financial Resilience

Debate between Clive Efford and Rebecca Pow

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. Thames Water is a big water company that delivers on a wide scale. Ofwat is working very closely with the company on its plans, which will be looked over and submitted, and accounts will be submitted in due course, so that we have a resilient pathway. Customers, including his constituents, should rest assured that both their water and wastewater supplies will be protected.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

This privatised industry knows that, at the end of the day, the banker of last resort is the British taxpayer. That is exactly where we are with Thames Water, which has been taking profits for the last 35 years and not investing for the future. Regardless of what went on before, we must have investment in what is in front of the industry, but Thames Water has failed to plan ahead. It has taken money but not done the job expected of it while being in charge of such an essential public service. What will the Government do to protect consumers and ensure that we plan ahead for the industry?

[Rebecca Pow]

Ofwat is the independent regulator and, as the hon. Member will know, the Government direct it through the strategic policy statement. It is Ofwat’s job to ensure that in the price review, when the water companies submit their plans—they are going over the draft plans now—they demonstrate that they will deliver on the Government’s targets on storm overflows, leakage and demand reduction. It is for Ofwat to ensure that companies will be resilient in delivering that infrastructure. There is a firm structure in place. Ofwat also constantly monitors companies’ gearing—debt-to-equity—levels, and the Government are confident that the regulator is taking reasonable measures to challenge companies to reduce those gearing levels where appropriate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Efford and Rebecca Pow

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising these important points. Officials would be pleased to hear about any technologies, because the use of innovation and tech is absolutely the way we are going to solve lots of these problems. So I would be grateful if he would like to feed them in so that I can pass them on. Monitoring is also key, and it is all about science and data, which are very important. Our landmark Environment Bill requires us to set legally binding targets on this fine particulate matter, which is what authorities are mostly monitoring, as well as nitrogen dioxide, and to have separate long-term air quality targets to improve air quality nationwide. So we are moving in the right direction.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

We are hearing commitments and good words from the Government but we are seeing very little action. They have been lackadaisical when it comes to the breaking of legal limits on air pollution, including at 50 sites across London. The Mayor of London has taken effective action, through the ultra low emission zone, and has taken practical steps to reduce air pollution. Is it not time we saw the same sort of determination from the Government?

[Rebecca Pow]

A great deal of action is taking place: local authorities have a duty to tackle air pollution and this year clean-air zones are coming into major cities right across the nation. The Department is working closely with others on the introduction of those zones, about which the House will hear more shortly.

Health

Debate between Clive Efford and Rebecca Pow

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is making a really powerful case. On mortality, I would say that, far from the age going down in Somerset, it is going up. This is a good thing, but the conditions from which people are suffering are getting more complex. This is something we have to address. Indeed, I know the Government are seriously looking at it with many of the models they are bringing in.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

rose—

Local Government Finance Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Clive Efford and Rebecca Pow

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Clive Efford]

Q How much is the capacity to raise money from fees and charges a factor for different local government areas across the country?

Guy Ware: The ability to raise fees and charges makes a significant contribution to local government’s overall financial sustainability. I know that, as a sector as a whole, we will be arguing that there should be fewer restrictions on the capacity to make charges and the rates at which we can charge. A number of them are constrained not only by what you can spend them on, but the levels at which you can charge in the first place, which do not necessarily cover the costs of the services being charged for. Planning is probably the most well-rehearsed example. So, yes, it is significant to the ability of councils to budget and maintain their services, and as a sector we would like more flexibility and control over how we use that ability.

Graham Soulsby: I would like to supplement Guy’s answer. If we are going to move a simpler but more effective needs-based system, obviously a local authority’s ability to generate income in other ways needs to be taken into account, to make it fair to other authorities. To do that in a more effective way, look at the current restrictions that are in place. Many local authorities have, over the last few years and longer, tried to maximise their income base in the best way they can, because they have had to do that. There is probably less headroom than there used to be; but nevertheless if some of the restrictions were lifted it might just help with our overall funding issues.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Q This slightly relates to those issues. Mr Ware commented on incentives being important; I just wondered what your views are about abolishing the levy payments, which basically are a tax on successful business. Would it help to free up more money and make a difference?

Guy Ware: We would support that abolition; we think it does help produce a greater connection between the growth of economic activity in an area and the growth of business rates that can be retained within that area. That is currently what is funding the safety net system so, once we do that, we will need to think through the consequences and how you fund a safety net that is appropriate to manage the risk of significant reductions in resources.

There are two further fundamental restrictions on the amount of business rates that can be raised—one specifically covered in the Bill and one specifically excluded. The provision in clause 5, which changes the indexation that will be applied to business rates in future, effectively from RPI to CPI, is a good illustration of my point that it is not necessarily a fixed pot. That change alone, we estimate, will take £80 billion of spending power out of local government over 20 years. At a time when we are all discussing a crisis in funding for social care—that being a good third of local government funding—to reduce by fiat the capacity and buoyancy of the biggest single tax that local government will be collecting seems to me to be worthy of debate.

The second issue—the one that is not in the Bill— is the principle that sits behind the way in which business rates are determined. Each time it is revalued it is revalued to a fixed sum, so that the yield of the tax is determined in advance by the Treasury and the multiplier is set in order to deliver the amount that the Treasury says it should. Again, that is a policy choice that the Government make. It could allow the yield from business rates to rise with the economic activity that is underpinning it, in exactly the same way that income tax and corporation tax rise with the economic activity that they are taxing. It is only in the case of business rates that we have taken the choice to set a cap for the amount of money that can be raised.

That not only reduces the buoyancy; it also distorts the distribution. The issues between London and the rest of the country become really important here, because what happens is that within a fixed sum, every time there is a revaluation, property prices in areas where they rise faster than average—which is central London, but also lots of other places—go up faster than they otherwise would. The concentration of the tax base is getting greater and greater as a result; fewer and fewer businesses are paying a higher and higher proportion of the national business rate take. That could be cured—it could be solved—and in our proposals we have suggested ways to do so; but it is not a given, as I have said. It is a policy choice that has been made, and we think it is damaging.

Graham Soulsby: On the levy payment, I think the link to the safety net is really important because, obviously, it was used to fund that; so the system needs a mechanism so that it is still able to do that. The stuff in the Bill on the safety net, and additional flexibilities if a major business went under in this particular patch, are welcome. In reality, not having levies in the system is a sensible thing to do overall. What we found in recent times is, because most authorities operate business rate pools in any event—and by operating a pool you do not pay the levy, because you can do different things with it—it is just normalising what most authorities are doing. The evidence from business rate pools is that it is generating more economic growth. For that reason, I would say that it is a good thing to do.

Councillor David Borrow: I do not really have much to add, apart from to point out that generally county councils cover larger areas. Clearly, the risks are much less for a county council than for a district council, simply because if there were a loss and a problem in one part of the county, within a county council it would be lost in the mix, whereas for a district council in a two-tier area it could have quite a significant impact.