Member

What I want to say to the Government, therefore, is very simple. Because we know that people will have to pay more for their water, we have to be very careful to make sure that those who are providing it and those who have to deal with these problems are behaving properly. The reason I am attracted to tougher measures —although I would not support exactly the wording of this amendment—is really that we have to carry the public with us. There is no point in pretending that we are not all going to have to pay more for water. It is not because we have got to build reservoirs if we are going to have enough water for people to be able to drink. We are going to have to do much more about moving water from the north of England down to the south because, at the moment, it goes off on the way, and by the time it gets to Southern Water or to any of the other water companies in the south, they have real difficulty, and one understands that.