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

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of shareholder capital in English water companies.

Ofwat is the economic regulator for the water industry. It is its responsibility to ensure that water companies are able to secure the financing required to conduct their operations, including through equity capital. Since December 2024 water companies have raised over £2 billion in new equity.

As part of this function, Ofwat publishes an annual Monitoring and Financial Resilience Report. This contains an up-to-date calculation of the Regulated Capital Value (RCV) of all water companies. RCV is a measure of a company’s capital base.