Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Dan Rogerson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Clearly, I am delighted that the Bill has been introduced. I would have liked to have seen it some time ago and I am very pleased that the coalition Government have responded to the call from people in the south-west for a measure of support towards the incredibly high costs that they pay for their water—or, more accurately, for the disposal of their sewage, as that is what we are talking about. We talk about water bills, and as a generic term I suppose that is fair enough, but in reality we are talking about the cost of dealing with sewage. As we heard from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), that is clearly an issue in other parts of the country, too. This is very much a Bill of two parts and I shall not seek to comment on the question of what is required in London, other than to say that I sympathise with London MPs who see the costs that their constituents will pay in the future. Whatever scheme we use, and, clearly, the hon. Gentleman thinks that this is the right scheme, there will be greater costs for their water—or sewage—bill payers. From a south-west perceptive—that is, from a Cornish and Devonian perspective—people have been paying these bills for a long time, as we have heard. They are not worried about the future; they have been dealing with this problem since privatisation and, as we have heard, it goes back to the way in which the water industry was privatised.

My speech is somewhat timely. I shall not seek to comment in detail on the inquest that has just reopened in Taunton, but we need to remember just how controversial the process of privatisation and how it was undertaken were. The water poisoning incident at Lowermoor in my constituency still concerns people today and I shall follow with interest the outcome of the inquest into the death of Mrs Cross and the question of whether information was withheld from people as privatisation was introduced.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

On the broader, rather than the narrow, point, may I say that those of us with London seats do not try to make the case that our bills are as high as those for people in the south-west and have always argued for a better deal for them? Any argument about the Bill, for us, concerns part 2 and the terms and conditions under which the Government might support Thames Water with any funding for big projects.

[Dan Rogerson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bill offers opportunities for other parts of the country in that if the Secretary of State felt subsequently that measures should be put in place to look after the interests of water bill payers—or sewage bill payers—in other regions, the Bill would allow them to do that. That is very welcome to all parties.

Let me return to my point about privatisation in the south-west. I do not have the figures to hand about whether much of a receipt was realised at the time, but, clearly, the liabilities companies were being asked to take on were quite high. I suspect that some income was coming into the Treasury at the time of privatisation and a small “green dowry”, as it was called, was provided to the south-west to deal with the recognised cost of clearing up the woeful underinvestment in sewage treatment around a very long peninsula. If a fairer assessment of the real picture had been undertaken at that time, bill payers in the south-west could have been spared a great deal of hardship. It is worth putting on the record that more account could have been taken of the situation at the time. Rather than everything being rushed through, there could have been a better deal at that point that more fairly reflected the burden being placed on my constituents and those of other hon. Members in Devon and Cornwall.

Members from other parts of the country have said to me, “Well, you live in that wonderful part of the world and have that coastline. You enjoy it, so you’ve got to pay for it.” They should try saying that to a young person living with their family in the ward in which I live and in which I spent the early part of my life, St Mary’s ward in Bodmin, which is one of the most deprived wards in the south-west. I would venture to suggest that a young person growing up in that ward might well spend far less time on the beaches of Cornwall than people from other constituencies who come down and visit, or than those who are fortunate enough to own a second home in my constituency that is very close to the beach. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has already discussed the costs sometimes involved in connecting water and sewerage systems to isolated and remote properties, which may be unoccupied and have low water bills because they are on meters. Those costs are borne by people living inland, on the peninsula, who probably do not get the benefit of going to the coast very often.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dan Rogerson]

I suspect we will hear more about people in Plymouth who are in that situation.

[Alison Seabeck]

Actually, I rose to talk not about people in Plymouth but about the additional costs that the water company has had to bear of placing pumping stations in places that will not spoil tourists’ views of a harbour or a beach. That is certainly the case in some places in Cornwall. People do not see those costs but South West Water bill payers have been burdened with them.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, and we can set that against the background of what others have said in this debate and in our previous debate on this. People in our part of the world have low incomes and comparatively high housing costs—not as high as those of constituents here in London, but much higher than in the north-west or the north-east. When combined with a low income, those costs are a significant pressure on people’s spending power.

I am delighted that the coalition Government have recognised that this problem needs to be dealt with, but it is not easy. The previous Government looked at the issue for some time and I pay tribute to those who have previously campaigned on this, including many Members who are still in the House. Members from my party and some Conservative Members, as well as Linda Gilroy, who was very useful to have involved, along with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), all helped to put pressure on the then Labour Government to take action. We got as far as getting the Walker review, so I suppose we should be grateful for that.

[Alison Seabeck]

Before the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) leaves the Chamber—oh no, he has gone—I wanted to draw attention to something he said earlier about the problem being partly due to the fact that there were only three Labour MPs in the south-west. Clearly, it is about quality, not quantity, but on that premise, given that we have a very large number of MPs from the Government parties in the area now, I assume that everything we want in the south-west will happen. That was a little churlish because the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) is right that there was complete cross-party effort on this.

[Dan Rogerson]

I think we can point to the time before the Labour Government, during the early days of the privatised industry, when, although there was a preponderance of MPs in the area from the Government party, we did not get anything. We have to recognise that there has been a problem and that it is being dealt with to some extent.

The company still has work to do, so we are not looking at a static position. We are looking at the fact that, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) said in his excellent contribution in our previous debate on this issue, raw sewage is still being washed out. That happens in London, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith has described, and in coastal locations such as Trevone, which I mentioned in an intervention. Water companies argue that that is a very rare event, happening two or three times a year, but the statistics show that it happens far more than that. Rainfall patterns are changing and development patterns have changed. We have, fortunately, got some affordable housing and market housing built in some of those communities, but that has added to the burden on the sewerage systems, which are just not up to the job. South West Water still has work to do and it also has to take responsibility for taking over the private sewerage systems. I welcome that change, but it will add to the costs going forward. The measures are long overdue and will, I hope, help to offset some of the burden on bill payers.

I have some concerns about the debt model that has been agreed between Ofwat and the water companies. The debt that has been taken on over previous decades to provide infrastructure is not being paid off to any significant degree. Under the debt model, those loans are repackaged periodically.

The water companies and Ofwat argue that that is a great deal because it keeps the cost of borrowing down—if we were to start to pay off these things now, we would put bills up even higher. I see that, but I am concerned that, essentially, we are saying that the Government’s sensible proposal will have to continue for ever, because we will never, ever pay off some of the significant debt that has been arrived at to put in the infrastructure. I hope that Ofwat will continue to look at the issue, because my constituents come to me and say, “At least we must have paid off a lot of this money by now and we must be getting to the point where the bills will start to go down.” No we are not, because the debt is constantly repackaged. That issue perhaps needs to be examined.

Hon. Members have talked about national WaterSure, or social tariffs. I know that the advice from the Treasury is that that effectively amounts to a tax—we need to examine that—but any scheme that seeks to help those who are struggling the most ought to do so regardless of where those people live. Even after the welcome investment in tackling inequality in bills across the country, people in my constituency and in other constituencies across Devon and Cornwall—because of low income, high housing costs, and high water and sewage costs—will still be worse off than people in other parts of the country.

I accept that other hon. Members will say, “Come on, you are getting this and surely you must be satisfied with it,” but I will be satisfied when I think there is a fair deal for people in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year—or perhaps at the end of last year; memory fails me—I hope that we reconsider having some sort of national tariff. If measures are kept within region, the pressure on the other bill payers will be so high that those measures will not be allowed to be significant enough to meet the need.

We also need to keep a close eye on the profits of the water companies. In an excellent contribution to the first part of the Second Reading debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) mentioned the sometimes arcane business models and the layers of companies that manage to pass on significant dividends. Ofwat could do more to look at the profits there. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives said, the leadership at South West Water is far better than it was and those people have engaged hugely with the campaign to deliver on this issue. They are being open and realistic about what is achievable, but all water companies need to consider the contribution that they, too, could make to perhaps providing a more generous WaterSure or social tariff scheme. We need to be vigilant about that.

[George Eustice]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another shortcoming of the WaterSure tariff is the fact that it is available only to those who are on meters? That is good if it encourages people to go on to a meter, but there is a problem with blocks of flats where it is not practical for people to go on to a meter. Some of those people are in temporary rented accommodation, and it is not their call whether they go on to a meter.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and we might be talking about some of the people who are worst off, because they live in smaller flats or houses in multiple occupation. I hope that as the Government move forward with their review of water policy they will consider whether any resource could be put into finding technological solutions to overcome those problems. At a time when we are considering smart metering and all sorts of things to do with energy, there must surely be a solution that allows metering for all water consumers, no matter where they are. A small investment, perhaps in that, or some encouragement to companies that might be coming up with such ideas, would help to deal with the issue. The sooner we can get everybody on to a meter, the sooner we will take the burden from those who, thus far, have been unable to take advantage of metering. The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point.

I should perhaps conclude by returning to the issue of fairness and who these measures are designed to help. South West Water feels strongly that it would like to see help for small businesses—it is concerned about that. I sympathise with that point of view, although we have to be realistic about how much money there is, and therefore about the support that will be available to residential customers if businesses are covered as well. It is difficult to distinguish between the smaller and the larger businesses, some of which are national and quite profitable. They would see a benefit that was nothing to them, but which would suck up money that could go to a residential customer down the road.

Second homes are an issue, as one might expect me to say. The Government’s proposals contain a careful appraisal to make sure that nobody gets £50 off their bill if they are currently paying less than £50, or we would be giving them money. I suspect that many in that category are people on water meters who are not using much water because the property is empty much of the time, as a second home. If, as the Bill moves beyond Second Reading, anything more could be done to examine the issue and make sure that it targets people who live in the area and pay higher water bills, I would welcome that.

I am delighted that the Government are moving on the matter at last. I hope they continue to examine ways in which we could help the very poorest consumers through social tariffs. I congratulate the Minister on tiptoeing through the various minefields surrounding the subject and coming up with the Bill that we are debating. I look forward to it making progress and becoming an Act.