The Chair of the Independent Water Commission will be questioned
by Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in
an evidence session at 10am on Tuesday 17
June.
The cross-party committee has today published its ‘Priorities for water
sector reform' report, which follows the MPs' evidence
sessions with the leadership of ten of England and Wales' major
water and sewerage companies in 2025.
The Committee's report says the water sector “has completely lost
sight of its purpose and increasingly operates as a network of
financial services businesses rather than custodians of a public
good”. MPs say the sector is in need of “root and branch reform”
and call for “a major refresh of the incentives and drivers” and
“much more regulated management of financial incentives for
senior executives”.
The report also calls for safeguards “to prevent egregious
dividend payments” and says that examples of excessive dividends
contrasted with poor performance, are “symptomatic of a culture
of profiteering over duties to regulators and customers”. MPs say
that dividends should correlate to a company's
performance.
Tomorrow's evidence session will be an opportunity for MPs to
question Sir on his assessment of the conclusions and
recommendations made in their report, and probe into his own
report, the interim report of the
Water Commission, published two weeks ago.
The Committee will seek to understand how the interim conclusions
of the Commission were drawn and will ask how limited Sir was by the fact that nationalisation of the water
industry was out of scope of the Commission.
MPs will question Sir Jon on the five main problem areas within
the water sector which the Water Commission identified in its 3
June report and will probe into the areas where the Commission's
interim report differs from their own, including on bonuses and
debt in the sector.
Witnesses on 17 June
At 10am:
- Sir , Chair, Independent Water
Commission
