by Megan Darby and Roger Milne
A draft water bill will be published before Parliament’s summer recess, the Queen confirmed at the state opening of Parliament last week.
The document will be open to pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation but not formally introduced to Parliament this session.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs released some further details on the content of the upcoming bill.
The legislation will enable the introduction of a competitive Anglo-Scottish retail market for non-domestic customers plus upstream market reforms in England and Wales.
Following on from completion of the Red Tape Challenge water theme last month, government plans minor amendments to cut and simplify existing regulation.
And abstraction licensing will
be brought under the environmental permitting regulations that currently cover pollution prevention.
Environmental groups criticised the government for missing an opportunity to promote universal water metering.
Rose Timlett, freshwater policy officer at WWF-UK, said: “With half the country in drought and aquifer levels still resoundingly low, time is running out for the government to take action on water.”
As expected, the Queen’s Speech promised an energy bill detailing the coalition’s proposals for Electricity Market Reform and an enterprise and regulatory reform bill. The latter will include measures establishing the purpose and remit of the Green Investment Bank and the creation of a single competition markets authority.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change pledged that a draft energy bill would be published “soon”. Utility Week understands this to mean by the end of this month.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 18 May 2012.
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