Independent Water Commission

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

We have to take a rational, not ideological, approach to tackling this problem. Nationalising the water companies would cost £100 billion. Those are not figures, as I have seen my hon. Friend claim, from the water companies; they are provided by officials in my Department under the influence of nobody externally. To pay that money—£100 billion—we would have to take it away from public services, such as the national health service and education, to hand it to the owners of the companies that have been polluting our waterways. That makes no sense to me and it makes no sense to the public. Frankly, I am surprised that it makes any sense to him.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that he is going to merge all four water regulators into one. However, I offer a slight note of caution: it is no good moving the deckchairs around the deck unless the situation has been improved. When will he produce the White Paper and what teeth will he give this single new super-regulator?

[Steve Reed]

I welcome the hon. Member’s support in principle for Sir Jon Cunliffe’s proposal, which I have accepted, to merge the four regulators’ water functions into one single super-regulator. I will publish the White Paper containing the Government’s full response during the autumn. If the hon. Member would like to peruse the 450-page document that Sir Jon has provided, he will find 88 separate recommendations in it, many of which will significantly strengthen regulation so that the new regulator can enforce much more harshly against the kinds of abuses that water companies got away with in the past.