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Water White Paper

I, too, welcome the measures outlined in the White Paper to deal with the affordability of water bills in the south-west. As the Minister said, this issue has been discussed for more than a decade and nothing has been done. It is good to finally see action. In respect of the concerns about whether this sets a precedent for the Thames tideway project, does he agree that a major difference is that the population of the Thames Water area is far greater than that of the South West Water area, so the overall impact of the infrastructure improvements on bills will be far lower?