Ex-water minister Richard Benyon sounded cheery this week as he tweeted his followers: “on [the] backbenches!” After three-and-a-half years on the frontbench, Benyon may well be relieved to leave the sector behind. He narrowly escapes being the man in charge when the water sector is opened up to non-domestic competition in 2017, and perhaps more importantly, won’t be responsible for deciding the nature of abstraction and upstream reform. Those duties will now fall to his replacement, George Eustice, pending the next election (or any further reshuffles).
Big questions for the new water minister
