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Water White Paper

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words. Of course, he is right. We want to encourage water companies to continue to invest. A key element of the White Paper is to send a very clear message to the investor community that we value the nearly £100 billion of investment in our infrastructure over the past 22 years and want to see more of it in future. There have been two intentions in that direction: first, not to spook investors by giving the wrong indications about how we want to proceed on competition; and secondly, to say to the investor community, ““This is a place of safety and security where you can invest for the long term.”” We will still require greater infrastructure and elements of construction that will make our economy and our environment more resilient to the kinds of weather changes that are happening.