Speeches by Hatton.

“So you are confident that the Water (Special Measures) Act will enable you to go into these—”

“That transparency is certainly welcome. If you are now going around the entire estate every couple of years, can the Environment Agency realistically start to work more pre-emptively and take a far more preventive approach, where it looks at ageing, crumbling infrastructure belonging to these companies and says, “This …”

“Take Wessex Water in my constituency. In its latest business plan, it says it has committed £3.65 billion—a lot of which will go on investment to upgrade its infrastructure. Who is actually on the ground making sure that Wessex Water does what it has committed to doing? Again, you are monitoring the situation and I app…”

“Do you feel that Ofwat has the necessary powers to hold those big water companies to account, in terms of them actually investing in the infrastructure that they own when they say they are going to do so?”

“To be clear, I believe you just stated that you monitor what the big water companies do in relation to investing in their infrastructure. But you are not the inspectorate, so you do not have any formal powers to actually say, “You said you were going to invest this amount of money in this infrastructure by this time, a…”

“To start with a simple question, which one of you, as it stands, is actually responsible for ensuring that water companies deliver what they have agreed to do, particularly in relation to their infrastructure? When they make a commitment to invest x amount of money in x amount of infrastructure, how do we make sure tha…”

“Do you accept that many water companies, including the largest water company in the country, are in a very difficult financial position and that that could be a significant concern for the industry in the next five to 25 years, and indeed also for the taxpayer, should they have to step in to help those ailing companies…”

“Some of which are hugely debt laden.”

“To draw together many of the points that have been covered this afternoon, can you offer us further reassurance that the water sector and the big water companies are even remotely aware of the work that needs to be done to win back the trust of the billpayer? Dame Tamara Finkelstein: Some of the action was taken last J…”

“On that point about working with the water industry, I am looking at it from the position of my constituents. They will say, “Nineteen per cent of the bills I pay just goes on servicing debt. Every hour that sewage is dumped by Wessex Water, £188 is given to shareholders.” That gives an idea of what Wessex Water are do…”

“Figure 6 in the Report says that there was a 10.6% reduction over the last six years, which is not a huge change, to be honest. That is from an incredibly high point, as well. Many MPs here will have had endless emails from constituents about leaks.”

“To return to the exchanges at the top of the session, I found it quite striking, David, that given the challenges you set out as facing the water regulators and industry, you felt the industry’s financial resilience was not of severe concern. Could you go into a bit more detail? Do you not share the concerns of many pa…”

“To be clear—”

“Those were very helpful answers. Obviously, I agree that the demand for water, climate change and public trust are big issues. To build on the Chair’s point, is financial resilience not also jointly a serious concern? What explanation can you give the Committee to reassure us that the financial resilience of all the wa…”

“I have a very simple question. When we, as parliamentarians, look at the water sector in this country, the number of deeply rooted challenges is often quite overwhelming. In a nutshell, what is the single biggest challenge facing the water industry over the next 25 years? Are we in a fit state to even begin to address …”

“I appreciate that, but there is a fairly wide understanding that, actually, the levels of debt in water companies are not purely down to good capital borrowing to invest in crumbling infrastructure. A lot of those high debt levels are because of poor, poor financial management. Dame Tamara Finkelstein: And that impacts…”

“It is a small reduction from a very bad starting point.”

“Looking across the board, can you reassure the Committee that Ofwat is in a position to deal with repeated problems, whether leaks, burst pipes or pollution and sewage? I will be brief, but there is one particularly worrying example in my constituency, where for 10 years inadequate sewerage capacity has meant that a ro…”

“Are you confident that Ofwat can do that in the majority of circumstances? At the moment, it feels like there are only a few success stories, if you like, where the Environment Agency and Ofwat are able to leap into action and demand improvements. An example where there has not been any such action is the one in my con…”

“One thing that is quite striking in the NAO Report is that whether we are looking at broken or burst pipes, at pollution and sewage spills or at leaks and the amount of water being wasted in that way, there has not been a significant improvement in performance over the last decade or so. As a starting point, why do you…”