Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate her Department has made on the average amount added to domestic water bills as a result of constructing new sewer systems.

Water infrastructure is funded through customer bills. Every five years, Ofwat sets an overall cap on the total amount that each water company may recover from their customers, through a process called the Price Review. As part of this process Ofwat balances the interests of the consumers with the ability for companies to finance the delivery of its services, including the removal of sewerage from homes and its treatment.

The current price review period runs from 2020-2025 and the level of investment in this period is £51 billion. The average household bill is £448 in 2023-24, of which £233 is spent on sewerage services, which includes building and maintaining sewer pipes, pumping sewage to treatment works, treatment, flowing cleaned and treated wastewater back into rivers and the sea and converting solid material from sewage into gas for energy.