Water retailers could charge their business customers more under Ofwat’s new proposals for a “small and temporary” increase to the price caps.

The regulator said this change aims to allow retailers to share some of the bad debt-related costs that have appeared as a result of the pandemic.

Ofwat plans to increase the price cap for business customers by 0.31% over the next two years.

Georgina Mills, Business Retail Market Director at Ofwat, said: “During the pandemic, we have implemented measures to continue to protect the interests of business customers.

“This small and temporary upward adjustment to the business retail price caps aims to protect customers in the longer-term by promoting the stability of the business retail market, whilst maintaining strong incentives on retailers to keep bad debt costs as low as possible”.