Clause 43 - Guidance to authority on
Water Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
I shall try to do that. I was distracted, as you will appreciate, Mr. Amess.
The reason why I mentioned water charges—this is relevant to the clause and the amendment—is that if people paying way more than DEFRA's yardstick of 3 per cent., the problem is exacerbated by the difference between water company charges across the country. If the Government have a water poverty strategy, which they ought to, and want the 3 per cent. figure to be adhered to, they could try to eliminate the differences in water prices between water companies. That is why I raised that particular point.
The National Consumer Council has another point. I agree that
''a perverse cross-subsidy exists through optional metering''.
I do not want to go into metering in any great detail, but some of the country has been metered by stealth while other areas have not been metered. The Government intend to introduce metering but they do not want to say so, so they let the water companies and individuals introduce metering over a long period. I ask them to recognise that a strategy that fails to introduce one thing or the other leads to perversity in the system, which makes the situation even worse.