New penalties for water company offences
Applies to England
This consultation has concluded
Read the full outcome
Summary of responses and government response
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Detail of outcome
Defra received 12,159 responses in total:
- 172 were via Citizen Space (Defra’s online consultation tool)
- 8 were submitted via email
- 6,559 were from a response led by Organise
- 5,420 responses were from an E-actions campaign
This publication provides a summary and analysis of responses to the public consultation and the government response.
Following consideration of the consultation responses, and the consistently high levels of support for the proposals, Defra has decided to proceed with the proposals that were consulted on.
Original consultation
Summary
We’re asking for views on strengthening the Environment Agency’s penalties against offences committed by water companies.
This consultation was held on another website.
This consultation ran from
12:01am on 22 October 2025 to 11:59pm on 3 December 2025
Consultation description
We want to know what you think about the proposed introduction of new penalties for offences committed by water companies in England.
Our proposed changes are:
- allowing the Environment Agency to impose variable monetary penalties to the civil standard of proof for a range of permit and licence breaches, as well as other permitting, abstraction, impounding and drought offences
- setting a cap for variable monetary penalties imposed to the civil standard
- introducing new automatic penalties that are designed to streamline enforcement for offences that can be identified and evidenced quickly
- setting a value for the new automatic penalty