Dr. Paul McGowan:

I wish to add a few points to that. An excess charge would be within the context of the circumstances being dealt with within the particular jurisdiction, for example, lifestyle may change consumption over time. Therefore, whatever decisions are taken, they cannot stand forever. Something like that would always be kept under review because lifestyle changes may change patterns of consumption. That is always looked at within the context of national circumstances.

I agree that one of the options that could be looked at as well as new build is mains replacement, but as with any of these options, coming to the value for money piece, we would look at the evidence, where it exists, as to whether the particular investment was a sound one. That would require gathering whatever evidence was available and conducting a cost-benefit analysis. We would recommend that under any approach.

In terms of charging for excessive usage, the key point is that in the absence of a meter, one cannot charge for excessive usage if one cannot measure the consumption. Therefore, the point that we have made is that in the absence of a full-scale metering roll-out, we should look at alternatives which would allow meters to be rolled out gradually. We must look at each of those options and we have already been through many of those, such as mains replacement, new build, bulk metering of multi-unit developments, opt-in and other such initiatives. A report carried out in 2009 in Great Britain, where charging was and is in place, found that there was an additional 15 litres per person, per day to be gleaned from a charging system based on metering. There are benefits from metering in terms of usage but there are obviously leakage reductions to be achieved through other conservation measures as well.