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Water and Sewerage Charges (South West Water)

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I made that same point in a Radio Cornwall interview not an hour ago. It is amazing that that station can be picked up so far away. My main point is that the development of a solution is fundamentally undemocratic and beyond scrutiny. Deciding which combination of Walker's recommendations to implement should be down to the political will of Ministers and the Government. It should be for them to take the courageous decision to put an end to this injustice or suffer the political consequences. The solution should not be watered down—excuse the pun—by quangos and officials who have no inherent interest in standing up for water customers, especially not those in the far south-west. Ofwat claims that a levy on other water company areas to bring down bills in the south-west, or to equalise bills across the country, would breach Treasury rules, and it is not keen to explore changing those rules, but the nationwide social tariff suffers from that very same problem, because it involves moving money around between water customers, outside the Government's coffers.