Water and Sewerage Charges (South West Water) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Dan Rogerson
Main Page: Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)Department Debates - View all Dan Rogerson's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Water and Sewerage Charges (South West Water)
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Sanders
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I made that same point in a Radio Cornwall interview not an hour ago. It is amazing that that station can be picked up so far away.
My main point is that the development of a solution is fundamentally undemocratic and beyond scrutiny. Deciding which combination of Walker’s recommendations to implement should be down to the political will of Ministers and the Government. It should be for them to take the courageous decision to put an end to this injustice or suffer the political consequences. The solution should not be watered down—excuse the pun—by quangos and officials who have no inherent interest in standing up for water customers, especially not those in the far south-west. Ofwat claims that a levy on other water company areas to bring down bills in the south-west, or to equalise bills across the country, would breach Treasury rules, and it is not keen to explore changing those rules, but the nationwide social tariff suffers from that very same problem, because it involves moving money around between water customers, outside the Government’s coffers.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for all his work on this issue over a great number of years, and I congratulate him on securing the debate.
Does my hon. Friend not agree that there is perhaps a misapprehension among some people that the south-west is a wealthy part of the country, and that that somehow informs the view that costs could not be shared across the country? There is an idea that many wealthy people are sitting down on huge estates in the south-west and being subsidised by poorer people in urban areas elsewhere when, in fact, areas such as Cornwall are some of the most deprived—there are very low incomes there. That is what ought to inform the decision about a more equitable way forward.
Mr Sanders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In my constituency of Torbay, the unitary authority area now has a gross value added level lower than Cornwall’s was when it qualified for objective 1 assistance, and there are other such pockets in the south-west.