Water Supplies: East Grinstead

Debate between Alison Bennett and Emma Hardy

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know she raised on the call her concern about livestock and the impact on animals. Water companies have a statutory duty to provide wholesome water—it is literally their job to provide that—and their requirements are set out in the security and emergency measures direction. They have a duty to provide water, so during a supply outage they have a duty to provide water to vulnerable customers and people who cannot otherwise access it. The Drinking Water Inspectorate will be looking at where we have seen failings.

Quite frankly, this is outrageous and it is unacceptable. I accept that the company cannot be held responsible for the freeze and thaw, but if there is a problem with the supply for whatever reason, it can be held responsible for the way it has responded to the crisis. There is no justification for its failure to get water to vulnerable customers or people who need it, and I will be picking that up directly with the company as soon as we are out of this latest crisis.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I sincerely thank all the Ministers for all their work over the past four days, supporting me and my constituents. My constituency has by no means had the worst outages, but a secondary school has been closed, multiple villages are out of supply, a hospital was out of supply overnight and 1,200 homes last night were out of supply. There are multiple points of failure not just in Mid Sussex, but right across the south-east. Frankly, I have been shocked by the fragility of the water supply system in our region. Quite simply, our infrastructure is not adequate to cope with normal weather events that we should all expect in January. We are on the edge of the supply area in Mid Sussex and East Grinstead. Will the Minister look at a duty to co-operate with neighbouring water authorities to ensure that those of us at the end of the pipeline are not cut off in the first instance?

[Emma Hardy]

The hon. Lady is quite right: it is a fragile supply system. We have had years of under-investment in resilience and there are too many points in the system where it can fail. It is not resilient. Other parts of the country are able to move water more effectively around their system, which creates much greater resilience. This system simply does not have the resilience it should. That is partly because of the historic problems around maintenance—historically, all water companies fix on failure, rather than undertake proactive maintenance—and partly because the system, as it is set up at the moment, does not allow the easy transfer of water across an individual water company. These are fundamental things that we need to address through our water reforms and changes in regulation. We can only build a resilient system if we are able to move water around some of the network. On the hon. Lady’s other points, the impact on schools is obviously appalling, especially at the moment as I know many pupils are doing their mock exams—my daughter has been doing hers as well.

Water Scarcity

Debate between Alison Bennett and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy]

Apologies, Mr Stuart; I should gaze upon you at all times.

Protecting customers, of course, must be one of the top priorities, so I have been chairing one of the multi-agency responses. Normally agencies talk to agencies and Government, but I felt the need to intervene personally in this matter—which I have done three times in the last week—to look at every step that has been taken to resolve the issue, and particularly the concern around communication and making sure that vulnerable people are getting the water that they need.

[Alison Bennett]

Does the Minister support Liberal Democrat calls, including those of my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), for the chief executive of South East Water to resign over this issue?

[Emma Hardy]

At the moment, the chief executive needs to focus on getting the boil water notice removed and getting drinking water back into everybody’s house. Of course, the Drinking Water Inspectorate will be doing a full investigation into exactly what has caused the problem and why it has taken so long to resolve. South East Water is responsible for compensating customers. The changes that we introduced to the guaranteed standards scheme mean that for the first time compensation can be given to people who are under boil notices. Under the previous Government someone under a boil notice did not receive any compensation; we have introduced compensation. Customers will be compensated not only for not having water but for the duration of their boil water notice.

On water scarcity, I agree with many of the points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) talked about the over-abstraction of chalk streams and he is absolutely right that that is crucial. Over-abstraction and pollution are the main causes of problems for our chalk streams. One of the reasons that we have such a demand for future water is because we are committed to reducing abstraction, particularly from our chalk streams. He is right to say that we cannot think just about having the reservoirs; we need more actions, including strong and stringent targets to reduce leakage, and we need to look at all our water needs going forward. He was right to highlight—although there seemed to be some amnesia in the Chamber—the years of under-investment in water and in infrastructure more widely. We are getting on with doing many things that should have been done in the last 14 years.