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Flood and Water Management Bill

May I take this opportunity, now that we have come out of Committee, to thank the Opposition Front-Bench teams and Back Benchers on the Committee, as well as others who have taken a keen interest in the Bill? What was already a good Bill was improved in Committee—and I am sure that it will be an exemplary Bill when it emerges from our deliberations today and goes on to the other place. This group of amendments relates to the role and responsibilities of Ofwat and the water and sewerage undertakers, and to the design of those undertakers' schemes of charges. New clause 22 has been tabled in response to concerns raised in Committee about the affordability of water and sewerage bills for some households. The Government are bringing it forward to enable water and sewerage companies to include social tariffs for groups of customers who have difficulty in paying their bills. Such social tariffs may introduce new cross-subsidies between groups of customers. Ofwat, the independent economic regulator, may not reject charges schemes on that basis out of hand. It still has a crucial role in the process—to ensure that tariffs are in the interests of customers—but it will have to be able to show that any action that it takes in approving or rejecting a charges scheme does not undermine the general principle behind the new clause.