The Department of Food and Rural Affairs has published further details of the draft Water Bill to reform the water industry in England and Wales announced in the Queen’s Speech today.
Defra said the draft Water Bill will meet the remaining legislative commitments set out in the Water White Paper, including:
- Implementing a package of retail and upstream market reforms;
- allowing complementary changes to Ofwat’s regulatory regime;
- allowing the scope of the environmental permitting regulations to be extended from prevention of pollution to include abstraction and impounding of water. This extension will also cover flood defence and fish pass consents;
- making minor changes to existing legislation to reduce and simplify regulatory and administrative burdens
The reforms will mainly apply to England and Wales but will also allow for a joint water and sewerage retail market with Scotland.
The draft Bill will be published before Parliament’s summer recess which starts 17th July 2012 and will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny.
The legislative timetable for the Bill is likely to mean that both Ofwat and the water companies will be operating to an increasingly tight timetable in the run up to the Price Review in 2014 for the next five year investment programme which will start in 2015.
Meanwhile, environment company WWF has commented on the draft Water Bill. Rose Timlett, WWF-UK’s freshwater expert, said:
“With half the country in drought and aquifer levels still resoundingly low, time is running out for the Government to take action on water. It is enormously welcome that the bill includes powers to reform the water abstraction system - which is currently unfair, out of date and a threat to our rivers and wildlife.
“Government also needs to ensure that the bill addresses the huge amount of water that is currently wasted, putting an end to the red tape that currently prevents water companies from installing water meters, even when it’s in the best interest of customers and the environment.”
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