§ Sir Michael Shawasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has received any further response from the Yorkshire water authority following the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report on the water services it provides; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John PattenThe report has been given further consideration by the authority and I am placing a copy of its second response in the Library of the House. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission report had commented on the substantial improvement in the efficiency of the authority in recent years, and Yorkshire Water's initial response in 1985 showed, that the authority was already taking effective action on the five matters to which the report recommended that priority be given.
In the second response, Yorkshire Water reports the action taken on over 50 proposals. It has made significant progress in implementing all the priority recommendations. In particular, I am pleased to report that the authority has embarked on a programme of locational surveys of all sewers and is implementing the recommendations of its working group on water mains. Performance measures have been identified in physical output, manpower, and financial terms, and a data base of unit costs for most services has been established. Yorkshire Water has also fixed levels for investment based on targets for improvement in levels of service, and assesses individual investment projects on the basis of the ratio between customer benefits and cost. Resources were allocated within the region with reference to these processes for the first time in 1985.
The MMC report pointed the way to greater efficiency and effectiveness in the authority's performance. Marked improvements have been made and I congratulate the management and staff, as well as the chairman, Mr. Gordon Jones, on the positive way in which Yorkshire Water has responded to the report.
I will be drawing Yorkshire Water's second progress report to the attention of the other water authorities, and inviting them to consider which of the lessons learnt here could be applied in their region.