Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of to Question 122633, on Water Companies: Repairs and Maintenance, whether her Department will publish the initial cost information on ending operator self-monitoring that has been provided by the Environment Agency.

The Government has committed to ending Operator Self Monitoring. The Environment Agency has provided early, high‑level indicative cost estimates to support the Department’s initial exploration of options for future monitoring arrangements. These figures were produced to give a broad sense of potential scale only. Further work is now underway to develop and refine the policy options and to produce more detailed and robust costings.