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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department made of the potential merits of nationalising the water industry.

The Secretary of State has been clear the Government has no intention to nationalise water companies. Nationalising a water company would cost billions of pounds, and it would take years to unpick the current ownership model, during which time underinvestment in infrastructure and sewage pollution would only get worse. The Government wants to improve the situation in the water industry as quickly as possible, by focusing on improving the privatised regulated model.