A Lancaster University Professor has given evidence about the UK’s water regulator to a House of Lords committee.

Professor Nigel Watson, an environmental social scientist and expert in water governance, who over the last decade has been closely involved in the development of the Catchment-based Approach for water management in England, and serves as Chair for the Ribble Catchment Partnership, submitted written evidence into the work of Ofwat to the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee.

The Industry and Regulators Committee has been investigating the regulation of the water industry, including looking at Ofwat’s performance.

Responding to a call by the committee for evidence on whether Ofwat was meeting its statutory objectives Professor Watson said that “media coverage, and public alarm,” as well as evidence submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report on water quality in rivers “indicate that the statutory objectives are not being met.”

However, Professor Watson added: “In my view, this does not mean that Ofwat is itself failing as a regulator. Rather, I believe the current statutory objectives are too vague, imprecise and not sufficiently integrated to provide a robust and resilient regulatory framework for the water services sector and to provide a high level of public confidence in regulatory and operational arrangements.”

The House of Lords committee also asked for evidence on how well Ofwat manages any trade-offs between its objectives?

In his written evidence submission Professor Watson said: “Historically, Ofwat has tended to focus quite narrowly on the consumer interest and ensuring value for money, and has been less concerned about the broader public interest in the water environment and ensuring sufficient investment to meet water quality and environmental objectives.

“That said, Ofwat’s October 2019 strategy (Time to act, together) provides some encouraging signs that a better and healthier balance among the core regulatory objectives is being sought, and that Ofwat appreciates it has a broader role and set of responsibilities with respect to public interests – rather than water consumer interests and investor interests alone.”

Professor Watson’s evidence has informed the Committee’s report titled ‘The affluent and the effluent: cleaning up failures in water and sewage regulation’.

The Committee’s report can be found here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/517/industry-and-regulators-committee/news/194330/failures-of-regulators-water-companies-and-government-leaving-public-and-environment-in-the-mire/