Steve Reed MP, the new Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, will meet water company chiefs in England and Wales this morning to set out the Government’s plans to overhaul the water sector.

The Environment Secretary is expected to outline a number of measures the Government will bring in, including:

• ensuring that water infrastructure funding is ringfenced and can only be spent on upgrades
• customer panels to be set up to hold water companies to account, with the companies required to change their articles of association to make the interests of customers and the environment a primary objective
• compensation paid to customers for water outages and other problems will be doubled to around £50

The Minister will meet with the water company CEOs this morning following the announcement of Ofwat’s draft determinations on the water companies’ AMP8 business plans for 2025 to 2030.

Steve Reed said:

“We will never look the other way while water companies pump sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas.

“This unacceptable destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed, but change has now begun so it can never happen again.

“Today I have announced significant steps to clean up the water industry, to cut sewage pollution, protect customers and attract investment to upgrade its crumbling infrastructure.

“That change will take time. Over the coming weeks and months, this government will outline further steps to reform the water sector and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.”