Open consultation

New penalties for water company offences

From:
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Published
22 October 2025

Applies to England

Summary

We’re asking for views on strengthening the Environment Agency’s penalties against offences committed by water companies.

This consultation is being held on another website.

This consultation closes at

Consultation description

We want to know what you think about the proposed introduction of new penalties for offences committed by water companies in England.  

Our proposed changes are:  

  • allowing the Environment Agency to impose variable monetary penalties to the civil standard of proof for a range of permit and licence breaches, as well as other permitting, abstraction, impounding and drought offences

  • setting a cap for variable monetary penalties imposed to the civil standard  

  • introducing new automatic penalties that are designed to streamline enforcement for offences that can be identified and evidenced quickly 

  • setting a value for the new automatic penalty

Updates to this page

Published 22 October 2025

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