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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to widen the markets of the water companies to enable home competition in areas where one sole provider has a monopoly.

The Government continues to support competition where the evidence demonstrates that customers will benefit. Ofwat’s recent analysis of the costs and benefits of extending competition to household customers is an important part of the evidence basis. Other evidence, including learning lessons from opening up retail competition for business water customers, will be important, before reaching a decision on extending competition to households.