Clause 38 - Consumer Council for Water
Water Bill [Lords]
6:15 pm
Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)
I am extremely grateful to be called to speak to this amendment. It has been tabled by a fellow west country MP, albeit one of a different political persuasion. The clause is weakly worded. It says that the council shall have regard to sustainable development, and the amendment would go some way to tightening it up.
I am very supportive of the amendment, and I believe that the hon. Lady made some extremely pertinent points. People in the south-west have a sense of great and increasing injustice as we look forward to incredible rises in water prices over the next few years.
I agree with Water Voice, which will soon be replaced, when it says that the whole structure of charging is unsustainable and needs to be looked at. We in the south-west are in an invidious position. We have a small population who must not only pay for the restructuring of our water and sewerage infrastructure system, but comply with an increasing number of directives from the EU such as the water bathing directive. We have to meet a disproportionate amount of those costs. Every study shows clearly that the south-west has to pay way and above what the rest of the country pays. The recent statistics, if I can find them, make for difficult reading.