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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will make an estimate of the amount invested in maintenance work by United Utilities in the water network in the North West in each of the last two financial years.

Our Strategic Policy Statement set out our expectation for water companies to have good asset management to support the resilience of their services.

Ofwat, the independent economic regulator, sets the investment, service and performance targets for water companies through the five yearly price review process.

The current price review period (2020-25) set out a £51 billion investment package for the 2020-2025 period, which includes funding for maintenance.

The Government does not assess companies’ expenditure for individual aspects of their work. However, Ofwat reports annually on water companies performance against key performance and expenditure metrics set during the price review, the most recent report was published in December 2022 - Water company performance report 2021-2022.

There are several performance commitments for water companies that provide an indication of asset health, including leakage, mains repair, unplanned outage, sewer collapse and supply interruption.

Companies are required to published annually progress on the commitments set during the price review, details on United Utilities’ Annual Performance Reports can be found here; United Utilities - Performance. Companies published their Annual Reports and Accounts, United Utilities are available on their website - United Utilities - Annual report and accounts.