The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has launched an Independent Commission into the UK water sector, chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England.
With concerns about pollution, infrastructure resilience, and consumer protection, the Commission is set to deliver a roadmap for a more sustainable and resilient water industry, guided by a series of targeted objectives.
The Commission’s objectives include:
- Clear Vision: Establish a long-term outlook to deliver environmental, public health, customer, and economic outcomes, with defined, transparent goals for the sector’s future.
- Strategic Planning: Promote a catchment-based, collaborative approach to managing water resources that addresses pollution and works toward ecological restoration.
- Better Regulation: Streamline regulatory requirements to ensure companies can achieve better environmental and customer-focused outcomes, simplifying compliance to make real improvements possible.
- Empowered Regulators: Strengthen the role of regulators to hold companies accountable for pollution and other regulatory breaches, ensuring greater accountability across the sector.
- Improved Delivery: Enhance the industry’s ability to meet obligations like clean rivers, lakes, and seas, while fostering a culture of innovation to tackle emerging water challenges.
- Stable Framework: Develop a regulatory environment that encourages investment and promotes financial resilience among water companies, creating stability for long-term infrastructure projects.
- Consumer Protection: Safeguard consumer interests, focusing on affordability and ensuring transparent governance and fair practices.
- Resilient Infrastructure: Build and maintain robust, climate-ready infrastructure that anticipates future demands, delivering projects on time and with an eye toward long-term sustainability.
Under Sir Jon Cunliffe’s leadership, the Independent Commission will provide comprehensive recommendations to drive reform, foster accountability, and position the water sector as a steward of environmental health and consumer trust. Through these objectives, the Commission seeks to build a more resilient and sustainable future for the industry and the communities it serves.
“I am looking forward to working with experts from across the water sector, from environment and customer groups and investors, to help deliver a water sector that works successfully for both customers, investors and our natural environment.”
Sir Jon Cunliffe, Water Commission Chair