§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to make a personal statement regarding the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, during Starred Questions on Wednesday 26th February. In a supplementary question, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred to a cash injection of £1.5 billion and the "wholly unauthorised write-off of £5 billion" of National Loans Fund debt.
The question asked by the noble Lord was based on a false premise in the sense that the write-off was authorised by Parliament in the Water Act 1989. However, I was wholly in error to refer to the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, as illustrative and for that I apologise most profusely to the noble Lord and indeed to the whole House for misleading them.