Mr. Jerry Grant:

The Deputy has compared the very different policy positions taken in Scotland and Wales. Meters are not provided for free in Scotland. When householders assess the charges imposed on them in the context of the potential savings in their bills, they can see that it is not economical for them to install meters at their own expense. That is the Scottish scenario. On the other hand, meters are provided for free in Wales on an opt-in basis. Interestingly enough, the authorities in Wales are willing to do repairs on the customer side every two years or so. This is akin to the first-fix scheme here. I suppose this demonstrates that by providing information on leakages and taking a proactive approach to the customer, we can help the customer to identify where the leak is and fix it if it is under the driveway. This is of benefit to the customer and the company in terms of conservation.

The 28,000 repairs mentioned by Deputy Colm Brophy were undertaken as a direct result of the identification through the use of meters of between 50,000 and 60,000 leaks on household properties. We have approximately 50,000 people engaged in that process. It is reasonable to assume that we will continue to gain big benefits from this activity. It is interesting that a leak under a driveway leads, on average, to the loss of approximately 6 tonnes of water per day, which is an enormous amount of water and the equivalent of the figure for 20 houses. It reflects the fact that a reasonably significant leak - it does not need to be a major leak - results in the waste of a lot of water over a 24-hour period. This is where the bigger picture is lost in much of the discussion about conservation. We absolutely encourage the use of water-saving devices in the home. The use of water-saving showers and the employment of rainwater harvesting facilities are good and will result in marginal reductions in water consumption based on standard usage but leaks ultimately dwarf everything else. It is really important to be able to fix leaks and encourage people to do so.

In terms of the powers that exist without the meter, there are clearly legal provisions but they are cumbersome like most legal processes. Their implementation takes an awful lot of resources in terms of following them up, the possibility of appeal to courts by the householder and so on. The provisions in the legislation ultimately provide for a restriction on supply, which was quite a topical matter. It is certainly not something we have done. It has been done by local authorities as a means of trying to help the neighbour who does not have a supply where the householder took no action. None of that makes sense if there are options of helping the customer directly to fix the leak or at least finding the leak for them and enabling them to do so.

Going back to the question of the district meter finding leaks, the district meter tells us what water is flowing into an area. That area could have 500 houses but in a town or city it more typically has 1,000 or so. If we sends crews around at night time, we will find leaks on household properties but that is obviously time consuming. I am contrasting that with the fact that in any quarter, over a two-month period, ten people can read 900,000 meters. That gives us an awful lot of information, not just leakage information but also usage information and information we can use for management purposes. Once we have the meters, using them makes complete sense from an operational point of view and the benefits of that are obvious.