Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that businesses affected by the water outage receive suitable compensation in East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency.

The Government recognises the disruption that consumers have suffered and takes the need for appropriate compensation to customers seriously. The Government is clear that it is the responsibility of the water company to provide compensation that is commensurate with the scale of the disruption.

The Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) sets the minimum standards of service for all customers of water companies. Where a company fails to meet any of the standards, it is required to make a specified payment to the affected household or business customer. The Government announced a major update to the GSS as part of its initial package of water sector reforms in July 2025. The updates reformed the GSS, improving consumer protections by further protections for customers – increasing the payment values, to double or more, and by expanding the scope to include additional standards. South East Water must make mandatory payments to affected customers in line with the GSS following the water outages in East Grinstead and Uckfield.