§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley)I have today issued a consultation paper "Reductions for vulnerable groups", which invites views from individuals and organisations on the Government's proposals for amending the protection offered to vulnerable metered water customers under the Water Industry (Charges) (vulnerable Groups) Regulations 1999.
The current regulations offer assistance, in the form of a capped bill, to certain low-income households with water meters who need to use a great deal of water for essential household purposes. To qualify, a household 10WS must be in receipt of an income-related benefit, and contain either a large family, or a person who has special water needs because of a medical condition. The current definition of a large family is three or more children under the age of 16 years, while a medical condition is defined in the regulations. The cost of this tariff is borne by other customers.
The consultation paper discusses a range of options for amending the regulations to improve the protection of vulnerable households. The main recommendations are to extend assistance to include children up to the age of 18, instead of 16 as at present, and to extend the list of qualifying medical conditions.
The consultation will run for twelve weeks and will end on Friday 9 May. Following this we shall consider all the responses and will publish the Government's response to consultation along with a regulatory impact assessment. Any changes made to the regulations as a result of the consultation will come into effect on 1 April 2004.