Asked during Defra parliamentary questions today, what progress he had made on introducing the scheme proposed by Labour, environment secretary Owen Paterson said water companies were “best placed to take decisions on the design of social tariffs as part of their charges schemes”.
According to Paterson, most water companies will have a social tariff in place by 2015-16.
However, Labour MP Grahame Morris argued that the cost of living crisis was affecting “about 2 million households in England and Wales who are classed as living in water poverty”, and asked the government why it had rejected Labour’s proposals during the Water Bill’s third reading on Monday.
Shadow water minister Thomas Docherty, added: “Water bills have increased by almost 50 per cent in real terms since privatisation, yet in the past financial year the regional water companies made £1.9 billion in pre-tax profits and paid out a staggering £1.8 billion to shareholders,” he said.
In response, current water minister Dan Rogerson said: “The biggest thing we can do is to ensure that we bear down on charges for everybody…Ofwat has been clear in the way it has entered into the price review period and companies are now responding. We will see, in the vast majority of cases, bills going with inflation or even perhaps, in some cases, going below inflation.
“That is a real improvement on the last price review period, given the opportunities companies have had with low borrowing.”