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Water and Sewerage Charges (Limit on Household Expenditure)

This is a piece of typical Liberal nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense and the kind of thing that we have come to expect from the muddled thinking of the Liberal Democrats. I thought that we had many legitimate concerns these days about water supply. In fact, a current concern here in the south-east—and, I suspect, in other parts of our country—is that the water supply is in some danger, so we should be very careful when discussing the delicate balance that inevitably must exist between consumption of water, the price charged for it, security of supply and future security of supply. The Bill would interfere with all that in a very negative and unhelpful way. This is a very obvious populist pitch by a rather desperate political party, but we must not be seduced by that, must we? We must remain focused on the vital necessity of ensuring that the relationship between water consumers and suppliers remains properly balanced. I, being a great believer in the market—as the Liberal Democrats used to be but seem not to be any more—believe that the price mechanism is still the best means of maintaining that balance. We have to ensure that water suppliers can achieve enough revenue and be sufficiently profitable to invest in security and cleanliness of supply, and to address the environmental concerns that rank so highly these days, not least in respect of sewerage, which the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) mentioned. I fail to understand how on earth the artificial limit on the amount that can be charged for water that the hon. Gentleman is arguing for would allow us to achieve security and cleanliness of supply. If revenue is arbitrarily limited, investment will inevitably be limited—unless the Liberal Democrats believe that the difference should be made up by the taxpayer. Perhaps they are prepared to contemplate passing on that additional burden to the taxpayer, turning the clock back to the bad old days when we had insufficient investment in the water and sewerage infrastructure. But I doubt whether anyone, except, perhaps, the Liberal Democrats, would deny that under the new regime we have seen a dramatic and consistent increase in investment in our water supply, for which we should all—householders and other domestic consumers, business and industrial consumers—be very grateful. That would be put at risk if we were to succumb to the argument that the hon. Gentleman made. I am sure that if right hon. and hon. Members were to study the terms of the Bill, they would find it completely unacceptable because it would destroy the relationship that has been built up very carefully between consumers and producers, which provides the investment necessary to ensure that our water supply is continued as we would wish. A ready resort to capping or limitation cannot be the answer. There may be other answers, and the hon. Gentleman hinted at some of the other approaches that he might favour. However, they are not included in the Bill and, therefore, he undermined the argument for his Bill not only by failing to make the case for it, but by distracting our attention to other possibilities. I hope that the House will not support the Bill and that we hear no more about it. Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Adrian Sanders, Andrew George, Matthew Taylor, Mr. Dan Rogerson, Julia Goldsworthy, Mr. Colin Breed, Mr. Gary Streeter, Mr. Geoffrey Cox, Mr. Anthony Steen, Angela Browning, Richard Younger-Ross and Nick Harvey.