Speeches by Reed.

“I thank my hon. Friend for important question. We have already introduced the “polluter pays” principle, so where there are successful prosecutions and enforcement action against water companies, they pay the price for that enforcement. That funds the additional resources to allow further investigations—and, if necessa…”

“I support what the hon. Gentleman says about the Environment Act, which is a worthwhile piece of legislation passed by the previous Government. I also support what he says about ensuring that people have more involvement at community level. I will certainly take that on board as we work through the consultation.”

“I agree with my hon. Friend; it is a shame that no Reform Members have turned up, although perhaps it is not surprising because they did not bother mentioning this issue in their manifesto either. We did hear at the weekend that their leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), wants to hand £50 billion of taxp…”

“Of course, social tariffs already exist within the individual water companies—Sir Jon has made recommendations about that. We will consult on that later in the year and then take decisions as we bring forward legislation in the new year.”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that important point. His constituents, just like people right across the country, were last year forced to pay the price of 14 years of Conservative failure, because the Conservatives allowed the companies to pay out millions in dividends and bonuses when that money should h…”

“I cannot take credit for the picture—that was Sir Jon—but I can join my hon. Friend in crediting the campaign groups who have done such a fantastic job at keeping this issue at the top of the political agenda. Sir Jon makes proposals in his report about those labyrinthine structures that she is talking about. We need c…”

“I know the River Ver very well because I used to walk over a bridge across it every day on my way to school while I was growing up. I would be very happy to make sure that the hon. Member has an appropriate meeting with a Minister to discuss her concerns.”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point, because of course water infrastructure is critical for housing development, economic development and economic growth in every single region of the country. Today I have accepted in principle one of Sir Jon’s recommendations that will allow us for the first time to align water in…”

“I would be more than happy to write to the right hon. Member with the details he is asking for, but as I have said earlier, we are also speeding up the planning process and treating reservoirs as nationally significant infrastructure, meaning that I, as the Secretary of State, will take the consenting decision so that …”

“I agree with the right hon. Member on one point—that we should be cracking down on tax avoidance; it is always worth looking into that. On his earlier point, I am much more interested in the purity of our water than the purity of our ideology. The figure of £100 billion as the cost of buying out the water companies if …”

“I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ conversion; when they were in government, and when the Water Minister was indeed a Liberal Democrat, they commissioned a report that found there was no need to change the model of regulation.”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point. In Sir Jon Cunliffe’s final report today, he makes recommendations for how customers can be put at the heart of the new model. There are several recommendations; I will not go through all of them, but one is to set up new regional entities, where customers will have direct repre…”

“This Government are going to do what works, rather than what is ideologically correct. We are not going to strip £100 billion out of public services like the national health service to give it to the owners of the water companies who have polluted our waterways; we are not going to wait years to get investment in while…”

“There is a system in place for when licences are breached; it is called special administration. The reason we are strengthening regulation and changing the regulator is so that we can prevent such failures. The £104 billion that we secured at the end of last year will help to upgrade pipes, so that we can reduce the am…”

“I completely agree with the hon. Member, who accurately pointed to the failures of both the SNP Government in Scotland and the nationalised model, which does not fix the problems.”

“My hon. Friend is a vocal champion for his constituents. He is quite right to demand more compensation when outages happen, and an ombudsman. That is what the Government will provide, so that we can give better support to customers who are let down by the water companies. We are on the side of bill payers and the envir…”

“I am afraid that the Green party’s proposals would mean paying £100 billion of taxpayers’ money to the owners of the water companies. That money would have to be taken away from the national health service. It would take years to unpick the current ownership models, during which time pollution in our rivers would get m…”

“A Trent tan is a very alarming and graphic image, but it captures what has gone wrong with our water sector for so long. The changes that we are announcing today will clean up our waterways across the country so that wild swimmers, as well as many other people who like to enjoy our precious rivers, lakes and seas, can …”

“I pay tribute to the young people of my hon. Friend’s constituency. Young people famously care about the environment, and they are devastated to see the scale of pollution in our waterways that she described. We have taken all these steps and put in place the building blocks for change within a year of winning the gene…”

“I hope that the hon. Member will be reassured by the fact that I have ringfenced customers’ money so that it can no longer be diverted for payment of bonuses and dividends, as was commonplace under the previous Government. It will be spent only on what it was intended for, which is investing in better water infrastruct…”