No “navel-gazing” reform to create a single water regulator, Lord Benyon confirms
Defra minister Lord Benyon has rejected a call for a combined economic and environmental water regulator.
During a question in the Lords last week, the Duke of Wellington asked Lord Benyon whether he would consider setting up a review of the way the water companies are regulated? “Regulation is currently divided between Ofwat, as the financial regulator, and the Environment Agency as the environmental regulator. Would it not be better to have a single regulator?”
Lord Benyon replied: “I have considered over many years whether we could have a better landscape of regulation of our water industry. What I want to urge is that there is an urgency about trying to tackle the problems. We have set ourselves very important targets, and if government were to indulge in navel-gazing over many months in trying to create a new body, we would miss our really important 2030 target, which ministers are concentrating on.”
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