Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan for water and sewerage companies to no longer be statutory consultees on individual applications that are part of a local plan on which they have already been consulted.

Water companies are not statutory consultees on individual planning applications, but they are consulted as part of the preparation of local development plans. We have no plans to change these arrangements.

On 17 November 2025, my Department published a consultation on reforms to the statutory consultee system. That consultation closes on 13 January 2026 and can be found on gov.uk here.