Water industry: updating general duties to reflect government’s resilience priorities

We have been developing proposals to strengthen the draft Water Bill in response to comments made during pre-legislative scrutiny. The government wants to ensure that the Bill makes a strong contribution to the growth agenda and helps build greater resilience into our water resources.

This discussion document sets out our proposal to amend the ‘general duties’ with respect to the water industry which are set out in the Water Industry Act.

Often described as ‘Ofwat’s duties’, these apply to both the Secretary of State for Defra, Welsh Government Ministers and Ofwat and underpin the regulatory framework for the industry. The objective of this amendment is to clarify the role of the regulatory framework in securing the long-term resilience of water and sewerage services; and of water and waste water networks. This change will better reflect the clear policy emphasis on future resilience set out in the Water White Paper.