Found: not always clear from the evidence, although several witnesses emphasised the difference between the financial

Found: always clear from the evidence, although several witnesses emphasised the difference between the financial

Found: journey—its ‘maturing’ phase—where its focus will “increasingly shift from building to maintaining [its] financial

Found: journey—its ‘maturing’ phase— where its focus will “increasingly shift from building to maintaining [its] financial

Found: survey identifies 56% of women as financially vulnerable (compared to 46% of men), 28% of women lack financial

Found: health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work, and to get financial support; and • To support financial

Found: health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work, and to get financial support; and • To support financial

Found: resilience perspective.

Found: Organisational and financial resilience, both short and long- term, feature prominently in our risk

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.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

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.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to move water companies that do not restrict sewage spills under an operator of last resort.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

There is no operator of last resort for water companies. Ofwat monitors the performance and financial position of all water companies and publishes results on these annually. Ofwat will take action when water company performance is not at the level Government expect, or if their investors need to strengthen their long-term financial resilience.

This Government is holding the water industry to account on a scale never seen before. We have legislated to introduce unlimited penalties on water companies who breach their environmental permits and expand the range of offences to which penalties can be applied. Furthermore, on 20 February, the Government and Environment Agency (EA) announced that they will quadruple the number of water company inspections to crack down on poor performing companies.

We will continue to hold water companies to account and if there are illegal breaches of permits, the regulators will not hesitate to take robust action.

Found: A series of footballing crises including the collapse of Bury FC, the weak financial resilience exposed

Found: resilience objective and the heritage objective (clause 6).

Found: resilience objective.

Found: to in this Act as “the club financial soundness objective”); (b) to protect and promote the financial

Found: resilience of English football (referred to in this Act as “the systemic financial resilience objective

Found: resilience objective.

Found: The latest round of funding is intended to help the longer term energy and financial resilience of the

Found: powers revolving around three core objectives: to improve financial sustainability of clubs, ensure financial

Found: A series of footballing crises including the collapse of Bury FC, the weak financial resilience exposed

Found: resilience objective and the heritage objective (clause 6).

Found: Financial resilience remains a key risk for the sector and charities continue to report challenging circumstances