00:00The water industry, of course, is at the heart of this, and the industry as a whole has not met
00:04public expectations or maintained public trust in recent years. Some companies have manifestly
00:11acted in their private interest, but against the public interest. That must be prevented in future.
00:17But the industry does not exist in a vacuum. It sits within a framework of law and regulation
00:22that operates under the strategic direction of government, and is not the only demand on our
00:27water system, or the only contributor to the current state of our waterways.
00:32The Commission's report is long and detailed, with multiple recommendations, because, as I've said,
00:37there is no one single reform, no matter how radical, that will deliver what is needed.
00:43We need to act on all of the failures that have brought us to the present past. Our assessment
00:48is that the current environmental and economic regulators have not achieved what is needed,
00:53and will not achieve what is needed. There are many reasons for this. It's clear the
00:57Environment Agency has not had the resources, the people, the skills, to technology, to hold the
01:03water industry and other sectors that impact the water environment to account. And against that
01:08likely background of rising costs and rising bills, there is a need for a stronger safety net
01:13for the most vulnerable who are exposed to water poverty. Water companies themselves and their owners
01:19must bear a major part of the responsibility for the failures we've seen. Water companies are private
01:25companies, and their owners are entitled to return on their investment. But those returns must not come
01:33at the expense of the public interest. Water companies operate under licence, and the public purpose of their
01:39operations is inherent in those licences. Sadly, we've seen over recent decades examples in which companies have,
01:46as I said earlier, pursued short-term private interest at the expense of public interest and at the cost of the long-term
01:53resilience of their companies.
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