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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the amount of water in the UK that is lost through leakage between source and consumer; and if she will take steps to end the current position where the consumer pays for such losses through price.

The most recently available figures estimate that across England and Wales around 3.1 billion litres of water leaks each day. The Government and Ofwat have worked with the water companies to reduce total leakage by one third since its peak in the mid-90s.

Ofwat, as the economic regulator, agrees leakage performance with water companies. In the last decade Ofwat has entered into legal agreements with those companies that have not met their leakage targets, committing them to investing more than £230 million of their shareholders’ money in improvements on leakage.

In its current price review (PR14), Ofwat has agreed with water companies a commitment to save over 200 million litres a day through water efficiency and 144 million litres a day through reductions in leakage by 2020. This amounts to a 4.5% reduction in total leakage.

PR14 has seen companies consult with more of their customers than ever before, engaging directly with over a quarter of a million of them. Companies have worked with the independent customer challenge groups to deliver better quality plans that reflect their customers’ priorities. This means that while companies must meet their obligations on leakage reduction, they can only pass the cost of additional leakage work on to their customers if there is a demonstrable willingness to pay.