Speeches by Hardy.

“On resilience, one of the things that we want to introduce for the first time is asset standards for water company assets. At the moment, those do not exist; there is no rule or criterion for the standard to which water companies need to maintain their water treatment work, waste water treatment work or pipes, or for h…”

“I know how passionately my hon. Friend cares about this issue, and I genuinely pay tribute to him for championing this issue and for the work he has done in Parliament to bring people together. As I have mentioned, the White Paper talks about setting up a transparent process to look at whether a company should transiti…”

“The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out the consequences of getting it wrong. Just to reassure him, we are looking at using tools such as the water delivery taskforce where we have shortages, to see what we can do. That is for not just water, but waste water capacity too, because both are crucial. We want to see…”

“I thank my hon. Friend and all members of the EFRA Committee for their excellent report, which was forensic in looking into the failures of South East Water. It was a brilliant, useful document. He is right that tough consequences are needed if concerns are raised and ignored; that cannot be allowed to continue to happ…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for asking this question. I will update the House on the water supply disruption in Kent, and I want to begin by expressing my sympathy for those affected by the disruption. Being without water is distressing at any time, but particularly during a period of hot weather, alongside school…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her work on the EFRA Committee. She is entirely right: it is unacceptable. I feel that I am a fair-minded person. I know that water companies cannot control the weather, and I know that they cannot build a reservoir overnight. However, they certainly can contact their Members of Parliament, co…”

“I share the right hon. Gentleman’s outrage at the situation. He is quite right to say that one of the answers is the reservoir, which will take a long time to build, but this is not just about the reservoir. It is also about desalination plants, and the need for more urgent action to tackle leakage; too much water is l…”

“I share my hon. Friend’s outrage at the situation. He has been a fantastic champion for his constituents in raising this matter with me a number of times. On the immediate action that South East Water can take, we have said to the company that it needs to be prepared for future hot weather during the summer. What is it…”

“My hon. Friend is right. It is astonishing that although, owing to climate change, we will experience wetter and wetter winters and drier and drier summers, we have no capacity to store water in the winter and use it in the summer. That seems to me to be absolute nonsense. As for the issue of data centres, there is one…”

“Access to water for livestock was raised with me after the last outage—I think by the hon. Member and the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). This time, South East Water did make deliveries of alternative water to farms across the region during the incident—or that is what I have been informed, b…”

“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As the White Paper set out: “Where a water company might want to transition to a new ownership model, such as a not-for-profit, the regulator will develop a transparent process to assess whether a water company’s requested move to a new model should go ahead”. We are looking at de…”

“The short answer is yes. The previous chief executive of South East Water—or rather the current chief executive, who has not gone yet—met members of the water delivery taskforce a few weeks ago, with some of the councillors from the area, to discuss exactly that issue of how both water supply and housing demands can be…”

“South East Water is a water only company, not a sewage company, so we can criticise it for many things, but sewage pollution is not one of them. When the Government came to power we introduced customer panels on day one, and since then we have secured £104 billion of private investment, passed the Water (Special Measur…”

“South East Water has broken its licence conditions, and it is currently in breach of its licence. It has been downgraded by Moody’s credit rating agency because of its performance—I think it is the first time that a credit rating agency has downgraded a water company over performance rather than insolvency. Its licence…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful question. The water companies have a statutory duty to provide wholesome water. In the event that they cannot do that, they must include provisions of alternative water supplies, as set out in the Security and Emergency Measures (Water and Sewerage Undertakers and Wat…”

“Committee rose.”

“I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s point on fishermen now—let me rearrange my papers. Regarding the impact of the statutory instrument on fishers, we are actively considering how best to engage marine users, including fishers, in the development of wider compensatory measures, particularly where those measures may aff…”

“I am grateful to hon. Members across the Committee for the considered points they have raised. Without these reforms, vital offshore wind projects will continue to encounter obstacles in securing appropriate environmental compensation measures, delaying progress towards clean renewable energy. This SI puts forward a ba…”

“I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a list of all the people that we have engaged with. I have been reassured by the Department that the engagement has been substantive and extensive across all the different organisations. Of course, if what I have just said is found to be not correct, I will make sure that I correct it f…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Conservation of Habitats and Species (Offshore Wind) (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Mrs Harris. The draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 26 February, are a critical part of delivering th…”