APPENDIX 10
Memorandum from the Water Services Association
(now Water UK)
1. The Water Services Association represents
the nine major water services companies in England and Wales,
supplying drinking water to over 80 per cent of the population
and sewage services to virtually all. We are pleased to offer
this short memorandum to the Committee's inquiry into Green Government.
2. We welcome the inquiry. As an industry which
is directly involved with protecting and improving the environment,
it seems to us to the important that Government policies which
set the framework for all our activities should also encourage
environmental improvements. This applies to all areas of policy,
including taxation, with procedures that are transparent so that
Government is seen not only to be taking its environmental responsibilities
seriously but is assuming a role model for others to follow.
3. The optimum way of ensuring care for the
environment will be legislative, education and training and/or
fiscal encouragement/penalty—or a combination of these.
4. The water industry plays an important role
in sustainable development by collecting waste waters and returning
the treated water to the environment which helps sustain the resource
and ecology of the receiving watercourse; the sewage sludge from
the treatment process can be beneficially re-used in agriculture
where it improves soil conditions and enhances plant growth. It
is important that Government policies—notably on water,
agriculture and socio-economic—are designed to be supportive
of those businesses which can help it deliver the objectives of
sustainable development.
5. All aspects of policy have environmental
implications and we therefore welcome the Government's commitment
for integrating environmental considerations into its policymaking
decisions and into the policies, practices and operations of public
bodies. Water service companies are private companies and of course
will not be included. In fact there are adequate arrangements
to ensure the water industry fully integrates environmental factors
into its affairs.
6. We agree that sustainable development is
the sensible framework for economic and environmental progress
and would support a distinct unit in DETR to highlight its importance
in all Government policies and practices and to assess and propose
measures for achieving it. Regular reporting by all Government
Departments on progress towards sustainable development should
be made and publicised. Again, it will be essential to devise
a stable and agreed baseline against which progress can be measured;
this is perhaps the first task of the Unit in the DETR and should
be subject to full consultation.
CONCLUSION
We welcome the Government's commitment to "greening"
its practices and policies and to careful assessment of how this
might be achieved. We also welcome the commitment to "openness"
through development of appropriate consultation and reporting
mechanisms. The major challenge will be to convert these commitments
into practical reality—and we therefore look forward to
further reviews and reports to demonstrate that real progress
is being made.
February 1998
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