THE Government has not been slow to act to improve the performance of water companies, a government minister has insisted.

Health minister Neil O’Brien told GB News: “​Action actually has been being​ taken for quite a long time now to try and improve the financial resilience of these companies. So last year, for example, Ofwat increased the level of resilience that they needed to be holding, and their level of debt to equity fell last year.

“We’ve taken a whole bunch of steps to make them improve their financial resilience. For example, we’ve said that if they lose their investment credit rating that they won’t be able to make any payments to shareholders. In March this year Ofwat said any dividends had to be linked to improve performance on the environment.

“We have been tightening the nuts and the independent regulator Ofwat has been tightening the ​nuts in terms of their financial stability, but I can see that from the media this morning that lots of different things are being done to to ensure that this doesn’t become an issue for government and it remains something for these private companies to sort out themselves and to raise their own finance.”

In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “It’s not that they just woke up in March, I don’t think that’s quite fair. But of course, we are absolutely going to hold all these companies to account, that’s what we’ve been doing on the environment. It’s what we will do on any financial issues.

“But as we stand this morning, this is still a hypothetical question, and we hope and expect that these companies will solve these issues out for themselves because they are private companies.”

He added: “They are still in the process of raising funds and there is action going on at the moment. Obviously, the Government does have contingency plans, of course, we will step in if that is required…

“We now have proper plans in place to make these companies, who I think have got a bad environmental track record, to really raise their game.

“In fact, we’ve got a £56 billion investment plan over the coming years to make these problems history, to sort out these environmental problems and to make these companies behave properly.”