Ofwat to get Growth Duty from April

The Department for Business and Trade has confirmed it will take forward its plan to extend the Growth Duty to Ofwat, Ofcom, Ofgem.

This is with effect from April 2024, subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary secondary legislation. The Government will also be proceeding with the refreshed statutory guidance (with only minor changes) it drafted for the Regulating for Growth consultation, which ran between November 2023 and January 2024.

The Growth Duty is set out in section 108 of the 2015 Deregulation Act and establishes that any person exercising a specified regulatory function must have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth.

The department said it had considered concerns raised during the consultation regarding weaker environmental protections as a result of the Growth Duty but that it had “concluded that it is not expected the extension of the Growth Duty to Ofcom, Ofgem and Ofwat will cause environmental harm. The Growth Duty does not override the existing environmental protections to which these three regulators must conform.”