Research and analysis

Letter from Chief Executive: Environment Agency response to the Independent Water Commission's call for evidence

Published 3 June 2025

Applies to England

Letter sent by email to Sir Jon Cunliffe, the Independent Water Commission
Date: 23 April 2025
Our reference: 2797_25

Dear Sir Jon,

The Environment Agency welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Independent Water Commission’s Call for Evidence and thanks you for the extensive consultation during its development.

The Environment Agency has a dual mission to protect the environment whilst supporting sustainable development. We welcome the Commission’s ambition to attract necessary investment for the provision of resilient water services whilst improving the environmental performance of the water sector.

Management of the water environment

We value the Commission’s Call for Evidence as a vital opportunity to address long-standing deficiencies in the management of water, as we strive to achieve clean and plentiful water and to maximise efficient beneficial use for all.

Investment in the water industry over the past 30 years has led to real reductions in key pollutants^{[footnote 1]}. A narrow reliance on water industry planning and regulation alone will result in diminishing returns over time. Achieving a step change in performance and the aspirations of the UK’s 25-year Environment Plan will require the adoption of a much more holistic and systematic view of the sources of pollution and how best to invest to deliver improvements.

Many of the issues surrounding water are linked. For example, diffuse pollution from agriculture causes deterioration in water quality and increases treatment costs for the water industry to put it into supply.  

The water industry removes chemicals, nutrients, and microplastics from sewage effluent to ensure discharged water meets required standards. However, these substances often accumulate in the biosolids produced, which are largely applied to agricultural land, potentially leading to run-off that reintroduces them into receiving waters.

This calls for a future water management framework and investment strategy capable of tackling the source of pollution and emerging threats, together with managing rainfall effectively at source where possible.  

The Environment Agency is supportive of a review and possible reform of the WFD Regulations and their implementation. Any review and potential reform of legislation would fall to Defra. But we can offer our experience of implementing the WFD Regulations and technical expertise to support this task.

Water industry framework and regulation

The systemic challenges the water industry must address, ranging from financial fragility to fragmented planning and environmental non-compliance, pose broader risks to climate, environmental and economic resilience. Resolving these issues should not be viewed in isolation, but through an aligned framework requiring coordinated reform across water company duties, regulation, finance and delivery.

The water companies should remain accountable for meeting their performance commitments and for compliance with environmental obligations to build public trust and raise confidence in the industry. Within our Chief Regulators Report 2023-24, we set out how good and effective regulation leads to confidence for investment, innovation and development.

Changes to the framework should aim to deliver a transparent water industry with legal compliance, sustainable long-term management practices and innovation for the benefit of customers, the environment and their operations. Core to this will be ensuring that asset maintenance is properly planned throughout the asset life cycle, and that costs are smoothed over time. We also think that a culture shift – already underway in many companies – to take responsibility for environmental delivery must be fully delivered.   

Overarching management of water

Setting the overall priorities for water management, taking account of the nation’s financial capacity and the desired pace of progress, is a task that can only be delivered by the Government. To deliver against priority statutory requirements such as the Environment Act targets, the Government’s priorities should be underpinned by published sector-based policy delivery pathways (for example, water industry, agriculture, urban). Enhanced legal duties on polluters, along with enhanced powers and capacity for regulators, are essential to drive action and ensure proportionate enforcement through mechanisms such as the polluter-pays principle.

We recognise prioritisation inevitably results in trade-offs. Government should take ultimate responsibility for deciding on these trade-offs, ensuring the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the process. Where there are conflicts, available environmental capacity should be prioritised to prevent further environmental harm, and resources should be invested to maximise public interest and best value for money.

The Environment Agency has considerable expertise in the water space from permitting to planning, which is crucial in helping Government achieve its strategic priorities. We provide an integrated catchment approach by leveraging our knowledge of land use, spatial and water planning including flood risk management. Our comprehensive understanding of local catchments enables us to co-design with partners and deliver effective outcomes that balance environmental protection with sustainable development. This capability is an asset to the nation and, with the right reforms to governance, could deliver the integrated catchment approach that we need.

Alongside this, and within the framework set by Ministers, there is space for more national strategic work on water: not so much using the models we see in energy (which has a completely different dynamic) but, as we have already done, advising on how to steer development to where water availability is better, and how to raise water efficiency where it is not.

Attached to this letter we include our response to your Call for Evidence and our evidence paper on the state of the environment for your consideration. We look forward to ongoing engagement and my teams will continue to work with your teams on the detailed issues covered in the appendices.

We plan to consider any new policies arising from the Commission alongside our work to deliver the Government’s Regulation Reform Action Plan and the recent Corry Review recommendations.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Duffy
Chief Executive

Attachments to the letter:

• Environment Agency - Response to Call for Evidence from the Independent Water Commission
• Evidence Paper - State of the Environment

1. Trends in average annual concentrations of key pollutants calculated from harmonised monitoring sampling points between the mid-1980s and 2019. State of the water environment: long-term trends in river quality in England: 2022 - GOV.UK ↩