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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking with regulators to (a) safeguard the interests of consumers and (b) help ensure the financial stability of the water sector.

The five yearly Price Review process is currently underway for the period 2025-30, in which Ofwat sets an overall cap on the total amount that each water company may recover from their customers. As part of this process, Ofwat balances the interests of consumers with the ability of companies to finance the delivery of their services.

Regarding safeguarding consumer interests, Government is mindful consumers are concerned about their bills. For this reason, Defra expects all water companies to make customers aware of available support, including WaterSure, social tariffs, payment breaks, and debt management assistance. We are continuing to work with industry to explore options to improve existing social tariff arrangements and welcome the planned household charging trials in 2024-25.

Regarding financial stability, Ofwat assesses and monitors the financial resilience of each company on an individual and ongoing basis and challenges companies where they identify this is needed. As part of this work, Ofwat produces an annual ‘Monitoring Financial Resilience Report’ to provide a publicly available assessment of the financial resilience of each water company. Through this publication, Ofwat aims to promote a focus on efficient investment that secures long-term resilience and delivers long-term value for money for customers and the environment.