In Parliament last week, during an Urgent Question on the financial resilience of the water industry, Richard asked the Environment Minister whether ministers would work to improve oversight of regulators such as Ofwat as the House and Parliament does not have the toolkit to assess regulators’ performance on a systemic basis. The full question and the Minister's reply can be watched at https://youtu.be/RcbOJ8kB5_E.
Richard Fuller MP said:
There was - and remains - a strong underlying logic to tapping private capital rather than taxpayers' money for the significant investments needed by our water industry. However, as I tried to point out in my question to the Minister, doing so effectively requires that our regulators perform well. Though not the worst regulator, I do think that the water industry, OFWAT, has made mistakes.
Ultimately, and ironically perhaps, it is Parliament (not government) that has the responsibility to monitor the performance of regulators. MPs have not done a good job over the years and I have been pressing the Speaker and the Government to introduce new annual assessments and scrutiny.
