§ Lord Jenkins of Putneyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the cost of restoring water to 1979 levels of purity will be borne after privatisation by the consumer rather than by the taxpayer and whether this is fair.
§ Lord HeskethThe quality of drinking water in this country has improved over the last 10 years and is generally of a high standard. Quality improvements were made in the early 1980s in the period before the EC Drinking Water Directive came into force. The improvements have been accelerated in recent years and most supplies now comply with the strict standards of the drinking water quality regulations which incorporate the standards of the EC Drinking Water Directive. The Government have always made it clear that further improvements will have to be paid for, and that customers will face higher charges. However if it were not for the £1.6 billion cash injection we are making, much higher price increases would have been needed initially to cover the full costs of the planned improvements.