B

Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 23 July 2025

Debate

Independent Water Commission

Contribution

Any new board must have the right expertise if it is to deliver what we want for the industry. The noble Lord makes a very important point that whatever that expertise is, we must ensure that any future regulatory systems are set up to do the job they are supposed to do and that they have the knowledge, ability and skills to do that effectively. Otherwise, we will end up with a regulator that is, again, ineffective, which is not how we want to move forward. The noble Lord makes a good point—this will take a long time. I hope the general public recognise that this is a long-term rebuilding programme. We are rebuilding a lot of a very old system, and we must get it right. This is also why will be bringing out the White Paper in the autumn, as quickly as we can, following the publication by the committee. From that, we will do the consultation, which must inform the public of what we are looking to achieve and what the timescales will be. We want to bring in new legislation as swiftly as practically possible following that White Paper. That will also be part of the discussion on how we bring people with us, because people want to see the water industry cleaned up.

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