TACKLING SOUTH WEST'S WATER BILLS

10.50.00am GMT Thu 4th Feb 2010

Next week I will return in Parliament to the vexed question of water bills in the south west. Recently OFWAT announced that our bills will spiral upwards more slowly over the next five years than they have over the last twenty.

But the unfairness of low paid people in the south west paying almost twice the national average water bill continues. The problem, as has often been remarked, is that 3% of the population has paid to clean up 30% of the nation's beaches.

Although it was the previous Conservative government whose clumsy privatisation of the water industry caused the problem, the current Labour government has taken thirteen years to wake up to the sheer injustice. And it is doing so just weeks before it is booted out of office.

Their report on the problem, which ministers commissioned from Anna Walker, recently came up with various suggested solutions. Some of these are quite sensible: more use of social tariffs, a contribution to South West Water from the Treasury to recognise the extra costs it has faced, or a levy on other regional water companies to help meet SWW's extra costs. Others are a bit more controversial - like moving to universal water metering, or a levy on holidaymakers' hotel bills.

But what is overwhelmingly clear is that time has run out on this government choosing between the various options and taking the necessary steps to introduce any new system.

So, as my name has been drawn for a "Ten Minute Rule Bill" next week, I have chosen to introduce a bill to address this long-running scandal. Entitled the "Water Poverty Bill", it places on OFWAT a duty to set exactly the same water tariffs across the entire country.

Recognising that different regional companies face varying levels of investment to bring their services up to common standards, my bill creates a central Fund - into which they each pay fairly - to help even out these costs.

And it introduces a new measure along the lines of the established "Fuel Poverty" principle, and imposes on all water companies a duty to provide a "social tariff" to people who fall into this category.

Sadly, with only eight weeks until Parliament is dissolved for the election, it stands no chance of completing its Parliamentary processes and becoming law.

But it airs this long-running grievance once again, and puts down a marker for action in the new Parliament. The Conservatives have recently proclaimed the privatisation of water to have been a success. So I would study carefully what south west candidates say about this issue at the election.

This column appeared in today's North Devon Journal