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Interview A s this article went to press on 3 December, Business Stream chief executive Mark Powles was giving evidence to the committee scrutinising the Water Bill in the House of Commons. The committee was wise to invite him; as incumbent retailer in Scotland but new entrant in ngland, he can offer a unique insight E into retail competition from both sides of the fence. Speaking to me at Business Stream's Edinburgh HQ last week, he is clearly excited by the Water Bill's retail competition plan. For five-and-a-half years he has had to deal with the possibility of his Scottish customers switching supplier, without a real mirror opportunity to win customers in the English market. So he is understandably full-square behind the principle of the legislation that will enable all non-household customers south of the border to choose their supplier from 2017. Needless to say, not everything in the garden is rosy, but Powles will be picking his battles carefully when he gives evidence. "If you ask for too many changes, you run the risk that the Bill gets delayed. That would be tragic because customers have been taken to the altar so many times [on competition]," he says. "I don't think they'd forgive us so much if we jilted them again. We need to get the Bill through." His priority battleground looks set to be ensuring there is a level playing field for new entrants in the English market. He clarifies: "Creating a level playing field is about making sure the incumbent doesn't have an unfair advantage: can't cross-subsidise, can't find back doors, can't do deals. It's price, service and behaviour." He argues that following the Scottish model more closely on level playing field issues would be a smart move. First, there is the matter of separation. Defra favours retaining the current vertically integrated structure of the English water companies so as not to shake investor confidence. But Powles believes legal separation as in Scotland (where his company was fully split from its parent and wholesaler Scottish Water) is the cleanest, simplest way to ensure the retail arms of incumbents don't get preferential treatment. He cautions: "If you don't have at least functional separation, you've got to put a very robust and a quite Draconian compliance regime in place. You can't just rely on competition courts. If there's one thing we've learned from the Albion experience, it's that they take a long time and a lot of cost, and that can't be right." Alongside separation, Powles would also like to see licence conditions imposed on incumbent retailers to UTILITY WEEK | 6th - 12th December 2013 | 9