Cunliffe’s reforms for water ought to have occurred 20 years in the past | Nils Pratley

Farewell, Ofwat, quickly to vanish down the regulatory U-bend. Its management has been up in opposition to some severe company miscreants and boardroom monetary engineers through the years, however abolition is the suitable determination. The unique sin – overseen by New Labour – was to permit the leveraged takeover increase of the mid-2000s, which was the purpose at which regulatory management over the sector began to be misplaced. The previous decade has been about attempting to undo the injury, which has solely uncovered yawning gaps in regulatory data, such because the storm overflow scandal that broke in 2021. A “reset” second is overdue by about 20 years.