Part 5: Water
The water industry was privatised in 1989 pursuant to the Water Act 1989. The regulatory regime for the privatised water industry is principally set out in the Water Industry Act 1991, and amendments made to that Act (notably in 2003 and 2014). Water abstraction licensing was introduced in the 1960s; the licensing regime is principally set out in the Water Resources Act 1991 and enables regulators to act to protect the environment and the needs of water users. The legislative regime providing for flood risk management by the government and other public authorities is set out in various pieces of legislation; the principal primary legislation relating to the powers and duties of internal drainage boards is the Land Drainage Act 1991.
	The government committed to delivering clean and plentiful water and reduced risk of harm from environmental hazards in the 25 Year Environment Plan.
	The Act sets out measures to provide for policy outcomes for water resources, drainage including storm overflows, and flood management through:
improved water resources planning, which facilitates collaborative regional planning and considers the needs of all sectors of water users, including the environment;
placing on a statutory footing drainage and wastewater planning to assess risks to sewerage networks and network capacity;
adding a new chapter on storm overflows to water industry legislation places new legal duties on the government, sewerage undertakers wholly or mainly in England and the Environment Agency. The chapter requires government to produce a plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows and their harm to the environment and to report on the plan. It also places a requirement on government to prepare a report on the actions needed to eliminate storm overflows. It also places new duties on sewerage undertakers to report on storm overflows in near real time, monitor the water quality above and below a discharge and to progressively reduce the harm of storm overflows. It also requires both sewerage undertakers and the Environment Agency to report annually on storm overflows;
modernising water regulation by reforming elements of the abstraction licensing regime to link it more tightly to the government’s objectives for the water environment; and
enabling updates to be made to the valuation calculations relevant to the apportionment of internal drainage board (IDB) charges in secondary legislation, allowing for the creation of new or expansion of existing IDBs where there is a local desire to do so.
	It also includes measures to protect water quality in surface and groundwater, by enabling updates to the lists of priority substances that pose a threat to water bodies in line with the latest scientific knowledge, in the absence of powers under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.