Written question WQ87931

The Welsh Government works closely with Wales’ water companies on a broad range of issues and with relevant partners including Ofwat, the water industry economic regulator and the Consumer Council for Water on customer bill matters including ensuring access to fair and affordable water and sewerage services to ensure Wales has a resilient water sector that delivers for customers, the environment and wider society.

The scale of water company investment and impacts on customer bills are determined through Ofwat’s statutory price review process.

The Welsh Government established the Price Review (PR24) Forum which brings together senior officials from the water companies, Consumer Council for Water, NRW, Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and independent challenge groups to develop an evidence based shared understanding of the requirements and priorities for future investment by the water companies, the impacts on water bills, and the views of customers. The Forum is helping to inform water company business plan development and long-term direction of travel.

Significant investment by water companies, largely funded through water bills is required to meet net zero targets, ensure a clean and resilient supply of drinking water, improve reservoir and dam safety, tackle storm overflows and improve wastewater treatment works, and adopting the learning from recent droughts and freeze thaw events. Inevitably, difficult decisions will need to be taken to carefully balance the timing and scale of investments while keeping bills affordable for customers.

Water bills are affected by a number of factors including inflation, population changes, previous deferrals and yearly performance targets. The high rate of inflation has affected the price of energy and chemicals in particular, and reflects the global and national factors affecting our economy.

Whilst a complete stop to storm overflows would require major infrastructure investment, we are encouraging water companies to take action to improve water quality and reduce costs, for example by encouraging people to be more aware of how to use water more efficiently, which will reduce the volume of wastewater entering the sewerage network, and encouraging them not to flush wet wipes and other disposables down the sewerage system. Changes in behaviour such as this will relieve the pressure on the water and sewerage network, meaning less costly interventions to remove sewer blockages.

The Welsh Government is playing it’s part in this for example by making sustainable drainage systems mandatory on new developments and making the the Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations 2021 and providing guidance to farmers on how to adopt more sustainable farming practices

Water companies have in place social tariffs to help people with real difficulty in paying their bills. Details of those support schemes can be found via these links;

Hafren Dyfrdwy Social Tariff – Social Tariff

Support with bills | Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (dwrcymru.com)