Surviving Drought (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Grand Committee

Motion to Take Note

17:44

Moved by

[Baroness Sheehan]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Environment and Climate Change Committee Surviving drought: reclaim the rain (3rd Report, HL Paper 298, Session 2024–26).

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who are taking part in today’s important debate on the Environment and Climate Change Committee’s report, Surviving Drought: Reclaim the Rain. I thank Members of the committee for their sterling work on this very timely report. We were fortunate to have the perspectives of the hereditary Peers the Earl of Leicester and Lord Mancroft, both of whom brought valuable understanding of the impact of drought on farming and the wider countryside. As they are no longer Members of this House and cannot take part in this debate, I place on record my appreciation of the insight they brought to the final report.

I also thank the six schools which took part in our youth engagement programme: Boston Grammar School, Bullers Wood School for Boys, Chesham Grammar School, Darlington College, Northfield School & Sports College, and Stamford College in Lincolnshire. Their energy, enthusiasm and knowledge were impressive and their presentations helped to remind us that this is a national issue that young people will inherit. Indeed, the title of our report was inspired by a booklet produced by students at Stamford College: England’s Water Wake-up: Reclaim the Rain.

While I am thanking people, it would be remiss of me in the extreme if I omitted to thank Alastair Taylor, the committee clerk, and his team, who provide expert support in making people like me appear knowledgeable. They are policy analyst Lily Paulson, committee operations officer Hanna Ghufoor, and media and comms officer Alec Brand. I am always deeply grateful for their support.

The committee began this inquiry in November 2025, having just witnessed the driest spring in 132 years, the hottest summer on record and repeated heatwaves. The summer of 2026 was even hotter and drier. The Met Office has provisionally confirmed that summer 2026 was the warmest on record for the United Kingdom. It also found that such a summer was made around 130 times more likely by human-induced climate change.

Breaking an all-time seasonal temperature record two years in succession is unprecedented in the modern record, which dates from 1884. These are not distant projections: they are the lived experiences of households, farmers, businesses, firefighters and communities across the country. Large parts of the United Kingdom remain in drought, and on 15 October the first ever “severe drought” declarations for parts of south-west and south-east England were issued. The Environment Agency estimates that England needs around 120% of normal rainfall between September and April for every area to recover. That is a tall order.

Our report recognised that we were fortunate that the winter of 2025-26 was one of the wettest on record. But how fortunate do we feel entering the winter of 2026-27? The news gets worse: leading meteorologists have warned that the unusually early disruption of the polar vortex could bring prolonged dry conditions, raising the possibility that our reservoirs and groundwater stores may not refill over winter.

I pay tribute to the Minister, for whom I have considerable regard. While the Government’s response to our report was in many respects positive, in that they accepted in whole or in part the substantial majority of our 17 recommendations, I must point out that acceptance is only the first step. It is the intent to deliver that we must be—and remain—persuaded of. Delivery requires clear ownership, firm timetables, adequate funding and visible progress that Parliament and the public can scrutinise. The Government’s response contains too many commitments to work that is “under way”, “being considered” or “expected later this year”. The Government so far are not convincing in their intentions to deliver the recommendations that they have labelled as accepted. The Government’s response was in July this year. In the light of the dramatically worsening drought situation, I hope to hear greater urgency from the Minister today.

The scale of the challenge is stark. The Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources 2025 warns that in a do-nothing scenario, England’s public water supply could face a deficit of 5 billion litres per day by 2055, driven by climate change, population growth and water-intensive industries. More than 60% of that future shortfall must be met through demand management and leakage reduction while new infrastructure is built, says the report. In regulatory speak, that means we must all use less water. As Minister Hardy said in evidence to the committee,

“The cheapest way to increase water capacity is to reduce demand”.


That is the threat I wish to pursue today: reducing demand by reducing waste, improving efficiency and making better use of the rain we already receive, because these are immediate, urgent actions that will bring the results that we desperately need.

Our report is clear that water security for people and the natural environment requires a whole-of-society effort to waste less water and to use it more efficiently, from Whitehall to water companies, from farmers to businesses, and in every home, school, hospital and community. We heard evidence that the public want to play their part. Friends of the Earth told the committee that 68% of people are willing to reduce their water consumption to protect the environment, yet a recurring theme of our inquiry was the lack of public awareness of how much water people use, where it comes from and how scarce it can easily become.

There remains a persistent belief that we are a wet country surrounded by rain, but rainfall is not the same as reliable water supply. Rain that falls heavily and quickly can run off land, overwhelm drains and cause flooding while reservoirs and groundwater remain depleted. England can experience flooding and drought at the same time. We must get better at capturing and storing rain rather than letting it run out to sea. There is a strong argument to invest in measures such as soil moisture monitors and rain gauges—easy things, easy tools—that could help improve soils and our management of soils so that they are able to hold moisture better, something that was recommended in the report. The Government’s response was vague, yet they labelled this recommendation accepted. It would be helpful if the Minister could give clarity about the intention to use tools such as those to give us the data that we need.

The Government also accepted the recommendation to conduct a full economic and environmental assessment for each of their drought scenarios, citing their possible delivery of a drought data hub and early warning system. Can the Minister say whether the lackadaisical commitments—because that is what they were—to soil moisture monitors and rain gauges augers well for a drought data hub? Can he confirm the status of the drought data hub? Is it a possibility? Is it a probability? Does it exist? Will it exist?

The Government have accepted our recommendation calling for a whole-of-society approach to water resilience by promoting a year-round communication plan by December 2026, working with stakeholders across the water system. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, their national framework for water resources prioritises water demand reduction. The Government in their response point to the water efficiency campaign launched this summer by Ofwat and water companies across England and Wales, which aims to reshape the public’s relationship with water and embed water-saving behaviours in daily routines. I welcome that initiative but I must confess that I did not see any of the ads. They did not reach me.

I must ask the Minister how its effectiveness has been measured. How are the Government able to point to that as success, when the Environment Agency’s figures say that total leakage rates show no improvement and remain at 19%, and that household water use has gone up from 136.5 to 136.9 litres per person per day? Households can help to identify leaks, choose efficient appliances, take shorter showers, run full loads, turn off taps and use rainwater. We heard this repeatedly in our evidence. There is also a particular issue with leaking toilets; a continuously running or quietly leaking toilet can waste a huge volume of treated drinking water, often unnoticed behind a closed door. Individual actions matter, but they must be enabled by the Government. The mandatory water-efficiency label, which we are told is currently under consultation, should help consumers to compare products and choose those that use less water. Can the Minister update us on that consultation?

Enhanced water-efficiency standards in building regulations should ensure that new homes are designed for a water-scarce future and do not lock in wasteful consumption for decades. The report’s recommendation 5 calls for urgently strengthening Part G of the Building Regulations 2010, so that new homes use no more than 105 litres of water per person per day. The Government told us that the outcome of the consultation on the regulations is expected in 2026. We are nearly at the end of 2026, so can the Minister tell us what is happening there?

New developments should incorporate water efficiency from the outset: efficient showers, taps and toilet appliances, and well-designed plumbing, metering and leak detection. Where appropriate, homes should include rainwater harvesting and grey water reuse for watering gardens, flushing toilets, vehicle washing and other non-potable uses. These measures, multiplied across millions of households, will make a substantial difference.

I have spent a great deal of my available time speaking of actions that must happen now to prepare the country for possible emergency drought situations, given the drought events this summer and the distinct risk of failed winter rains. The Government must get the urgency of the message across; there is no reason why they cannot undertake to do so straight away.

The public are being asked to play their part. The water industry must now visibly and consistently demonstrate that it is playing its part too. Looking down the speaker list, I have confidence that the shortcomings of the water companies will be exposed again, and that the anomalies of water pricing for industry, the required reform of abstraction licences, measures to facilitate the building of on-farm reservoirs, nature-based solutions and many other issues pertinent to delivering water resilience will receive good coverage.

In conclusion, the Government have accepted many of our recommendations and now they must deliver them. I call on the Government to give a commitment that they will publish clear milestones, identify responsible organisations, report publicly on progress and ensure that households, businesses, farmers, firefighters and the natural environment are equipped with the resources, information, incentives and protection that they need. With large parts of England still in drought, severe temperatures persisting in the south-west and south-east, and a daily projected shortfall of 5 billion litres, this is not a challenge that the country can afford to meet unprepared. The taps must not be allowed to run dry. I beg to move.

17:59

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and I thank the committee for its report. Contemporary science shows that human consumption is accelerating global warming, which increases the variability of rainfall. There could be more in some periods and places and less in others, so we are faced with a greater prospect of droughts and flooding. Droughts increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which decreases land productivity and reduces the amount of vegetation storing carbon dioxide. Dry conditions produce wildfires and soil erosion, which in turn releases carbon dioxide sequestered in trees and plants back into the atmosphere. In short, droughts threaten crops, water supply, housing, energy production, transport, livestock, biodiversity and our own existence.

Climate change has no boundaries. We need global and local co-operation. Countries with technologies for mitigating global warming need to freely share them with others, but successive Governments have reduced aid to poorer countries, which are then forced to return to the use of fossil fuels. On water usage, the UK ought to learn from Israel, China, India, the Middle East and African countries about how they have greened deserts through efficient water usage and storage, and created more resilient crops. Millions of new trees ought to be planted to reduce the effect of droughts.

The committee’s support for limiting water usage to 105 litres per person per day is intriguing. I do not know what person it had in mind. The super-rich enjoy golf courses, water sports and heated swimming pools. They roam the world in private planes and yachts and use carbon-emitting appliances. The same super-rich have economic interests in promoting fossil fuels and polluting technologies. They use their financial and political muscle to organise threatening issues off the political agenda. We cannot deal effectively with climate change and droughts without shackling the power of the super-rich.

The UK’s richest 0.1% produced 46 times more carbon pollution per person than someone in the poorest half of the population. Oxfam reported that, in 2025, there were 66,931 private jet flights from the UK, producing around 424,000 tonnes of CO₂. The flights spent more than 155,000 hours in the air—equivalent to more than 17 and a half years of continuous flying—and covered around 85 million kilometres, equivalent to more than 2,100 trips around the globe. The “polluter pays” principle is rarely applied to the wealthy. If anything, fuel for private airplanes enjoys exemptions from fuel duty and VAT. I hope that the Minister will explain what curbs the Government would place on the wealthy to curb pollution, and explain how they would ensure that they bear the social costs of their polluting activities.

The Government’s commitment to economic growth is at odds with the threat of drought. Indeed, local droughts are being manufactured. There is a huge increase in housebuilding, but it is not accompanied by the required level of infrastructure. England’s water companies are focused on profits, and little attention is paid to the need for national infrastructure. We do not have a national grid to transfer water from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity. The familiar neoliberal reply is that it will cost too much. Of course, they take no account of the social cost of droughts.

Water companies have not risen to the challenge of water scarcity. Successive Governments have permitted them to pay dividends and neglect investment in new reservoirs and desalination plants. Large parts of the UK water network were installed 130 to 150 years ago. Thames Water infrastructure has an average age of 79 years, compared with the industry average of 56 years, and 40% of Thames Water assets are over 100 years old. Some companies still do not have a full map of their pipe network. Some 2.6 billion to 3 billion litres of water in England are lost every day to leaks. Hosepipe bans save around 577 million litres of water a day. Since privatisation, around 44 trillion litres of water have been lost through leaks, equivalent to eight to nine years of household water supply.

At the current rate of investment, it will take 700 years to replace the 425,000 kilometres of main water supply pipes. Existing reservoirs also need to be modified. They are too shallow for hot weather, and a large volume of water is lost to evaporation. Meanwhile, the Government are hobbled by self-imposed fiscal rules which constrain their ability to bring water into public ownership and invest in infrastructure. With the threat of drought, we cannot have business as usual; we need radical change.

18:06

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to serve on the Environment and Climate Change Committee and to speak in this debate. I too thank the staff who supported this inquiry and whose expertise contributed so much to the report.

We are a country that has long taken water for granted. Turn on the tap and the water appears, yet ensuring that it continues to do so is becoming an increasingly significant challenge. When we began this inquiry in November 2025, following a prolonged dry summer, few expected the following year to be even more severe. England avoided a serious water shortage only because the drought was followed by an exceptionally wet winter. Quite frankly, we got away with it. But relying on good fortune is not a water strategy. Given the current state of our water infrastructure, we must hope for another even wetter winter, because our resilience is not yet where it needs to be.

Our report concludes that England could face a shortage of 5 billion litres a day by 2050 if action is not taken. Yet there is reason for optimism. England receives around 10% more rainfall than it did in 1970. The challenge is one not simply of supply but of storage and management. We are experiencing wetter winters and drier summers. The committee found that we must improve the way that we measure, capture, store, supply and use water. Better data and infrastructure and a more strategic approach are all essential.

I welcome the Government’s positive response to most of our recommendations, including commitments on drought monitoring, water efficiency, smart metering and infrastructure investment. However, acceptance is not implementation. Leaks still account for around 19% of water leaving the system—almost 3 billion litres every day. In the oil industry, any leakage is regarded as unacceptable. It has smart pigs to regularly check pipeline integrity, so why not do that in the water industry? Can the Minister say more about the timetable for delivery? The key question is not whether the recommendations have been accepted but when they will be achieved.

In the time available, I shall focus on three issues: storage, demand and governance, starting with storage. England’s population has grown by around 7.5%, or possibly a bit more, over the last decade, yet no major new reservoir has come into operation. At the same time, climate change and economic growth are increasing demand. Major reservoirs currently under development will help, but they remain years from completion. We must therefore think about storage at every scale. That means restoring wetlands and reconnecting flood plains. It means supporting farmers who wish to build on-farm reservoirs that can be shared among them. In the last five years, just 34 reservoirs with a capacity greater than 25,000 cubic metres have been constructed, while the Country Land and Business Association estimates that around 450 will be needed annually until 2050. I am sure that my noble friends Lord Leicester and Lord Mancroft would have had a great deal more to say on this topic if they were still with us.

It also means expanding sustainable drainage schemes and encouraging rainwater harvesting in homes, schools and businesses. Every year, water that causes flooding in one part of the country is, only months later, during drought, unavailable elsewhere—indeed, sometimes in the same places. We must become far better at capturing and storing it.

Secondly, on demand, future water security cannot rest solely with the Government and water companies. We need a cultural shift in how we regard water. We now understand the importance of conserving energy; water should be viewed in the same way as a valuable resource that should not be wasted—mend that leaking loo, fix the dripping tap and use water wisely. Government can help through higher efficiency standards in new homes and buildings. Businesses can reduce consumption. Above all, however, tackling leakage must remain the priority.

Public engagement will be crucial. I regret to say that the Government’s “Let’s Save Water” campaign, in May this year, passed me by and I suspect that I am not alone. Lasting change will depend upon people understanding why it matters. Water companies inevitably also have a major role to play. It is difficult to persuade customers to save water when they see leaks left unrepaired for weeks. Public confidence matters if behavioural change is to succeed.

Finally, I turn to governance. There are many organisations involved in managing our water system. Each no doubt has an important role, but responsibility can appear fragmented. Who is responsible? The committee recommended clearer planning frameworks, better co-ordination between agencies and improved drought monitoring, data sharing and early-warning systems. I welcome the Government’s commitment in these areas, but I regret that water companies are not being given a stronger voice in planning decisions. They are, after all, responsible for ensuring adequate supply. Water availability must become a central consideration in planning, just as electricity connections increasingly are today. One need look only at the growth of data centres to appreciate the challenge; these facilities place substantial demands on local water and energy resources, often on a scale unmatched by other users.

Drought preparedness is fundamental to economic growth, food production, public health, biodiversity and national resilience. The Government deserve credit for responding constructively to our report. The challenge now is delivery. Future generations will not judge us by the number of recommendations we have accepted; they will judge us on whether rivers continue to flow, nature recovers, farms remain productive and households enjoy a secure supply of water. The title of this report captures the challenge perfectly: to survive the drought, we must first learn to reclaim the rain. I hope that the Government will continue to show the urgency and leadership that this challenge demands. I commend this report to the Committee.

18:13

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank our excellent chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for her comprehensive introduction to our report, and at the same time thank the outstanding clerk, policy analyst and committee operations officer who support all our work. This report appeared shortly before the driest July since records began in 1836. It was the right product at the right time.

You can build drought resilience by increasing the supply of water, reducing demand or both. The supply of water is ultimately rainfall, which can be stored or transferred from one place to another. The demands on water include use by households, industry, agriculture and nature, as well as the water that is wasted and ultimately ends up in the sea. As we have already heard, the supply—rainfall—has increased slightly over the past few decades, but it also appears to be getting lumpier, with periods of dry weather and periods of intense rainfall. Demand has increased because of population growth and the emergence of new water-intensive industries, such as data centres, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, just mentioned.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, told us, the Minister, Emma Hardy, said that the most cost-effective measures to mitigate against drought are to reduce demand. I want to focus briefly on two areas of demand: the home and the farm. As we have already heard, household water use in England is profligate. We use over 136 litres per person per day, which is 30% more than in many other European countries. The Government have a target of reducing per-capita consumption to 122 litres by 2038, but even this is more lavish than in many other countries in Europe. The reasons for this are quite simple. On the one hand, water is too cheap. On the other, we have not legislated to require more efficient use of water in the home.

Several witnesses told us that water is too cheap, although simply increasing the price of water without reducing the amount used would have a negative effect on the cost of living crisis. However, we were told that some water companies use carrots rather than sticks to encourage more frugal water use. Anglian Water has a summer tariff and a reduced winter tariff to incentivise water saving in dry periods. South West Water offers credit on water bills to customers who reduce their water use. Does the Minister agree that these approaches should be more widely adopted by water companies?

We have already heard that Part G of the building regulations sets the rules for water use in new-build homes. The current standard of 125 litres per person is too high, and the Government accepted our recommendation that the standard should be tightened to 105 litres. They said that the policies for achieving this are expected to be published this year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has already asked, I reiterate that it would be nice to have an update on these policies. I particularly ask whether the policies will include rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling, which could reduce per capita consumption to 80 litres per day. The standard does not apply to existing buildings, and I therefore ask the Minister to tell us how the Government propose to address water use efficiency in these homes.

I turn to farmers. They often rely on abstracted water for irrigation. Witnesses told us about a number of problems with abstraction. One is that the cost of abstraction licences does not reflect water scarcity. Another problem that farmers complained about is that the Environment Agency is sometimes obliged to reduce the amount of water available for abstraction in order to meet the needs of nature. At the same time as these problems exist, the demand for water by farmers is very likely to increase in the future because of summer heat and drought.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network argues that a combination of on-farm reservoirs, rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation are essential parts of the solution to increased drought resilience. In addition, it emphasises the need to foster spongy soils with high organic content that can successfully retain water. It cites figures suggesting that soils with higher organic content retain substantially more water and reduce the need for irrigation. However, a recent review of the scientific literature also suggests that spongier soils may reduce groundwater recharge, so there may be costs as well as benefits to improving the organic content of soils. Can the Minister tell us what the Government’s assessment is of the benefits and costs of spongy soils? I look forward to the Minister’s responses.

18:18

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the committee for this excellent report. Noble Lords may be wondering why on earth a Bishop from the notoriously damp Manchester is worrying about drought, but I am. Access to clean water is both an environmental matter and a question of justice. That and environmental care form two of the five marks of mission of the global Anglican Communion, of which the Church of England is one of the founder members. Moreover, as a Christian, I believe that human beings have a unique vocation of stewardship towards the natural world. While it was encouraging to see that most of the report’s recommendations have been accepted, a truly effective response requires faster action, greater corporate oversight and accountability, and targeted measures to support those most at risk.

As pressure on water supplies is projected to increase in the coming decades, the Government’s commitment to fast-track some new reservoirs in England is welcome. Long-term investment will be an essential step for sustaining water security into the future. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, reminded us, many of these projects will take years to deliver. In the meantime, droughts will continue to threaten agricultural production, and those with the least will be hit the hardest. Making water more expensive might reduce consumption, but it may have a disastrous impact on the poorest. Water security is also not simply a matter of reservoirs. My daughter and her young family, living in rural Devon, pump their water directly from the stream that flows through their land. They do not have a second source.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, helpfully drew our attention to water use in farming. The Church Commissioners, whose meetings I used to chair—they pay my stipend and costs—recently met with one of their farming tenants in Cambridgeshire. The tenant explained that their yields of beans and spring barley were 50% down as a result of dry weather and limited water availability. They also suffered from significant wind erosion, including soil being blown from fields and damaging the crops. In 2026, this kind of extreme weather contributed to England’s worst cereals and oilseed harvest on record, which again drives up prices for ordinary consumers.

To address this crisis with adequate urgency, the Government must also invest in natural infrastructure such as wetlands, so that water can be stored more immediately. I am planning to attend a meeting tomorrow afternoon that will look at making wetland water storage an investable product, which will help farmers to make more land available. Removing barriers to the building of farm reservoirs would reduce pressure on rivers, help manage flood risk and create more wildlife habitats. There is one just below where I live. Crucially, that would enable our farmers to adapt high-value cropping to climate change to bring down food prices and tackle food poverty.

Unless these measures are implemented, the poorest families will face severe hardship. They are the ones for whom stockpiling advice—we have heard a lot on that recently from the Government—is particularly unrealistic. They must be supported through a strengthened social security net and have targeted incentives, so that they can meet their most basic needs.

While the Government’s agreement on a full environmental assessment of the impact of drought is encouraging, their efforts will only be hindered without proper oversight of where demand is growing. We have heard quite a bit about demand; the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, already alluded to data centres, yet these are increasingly being built in areas that have existing water stress. One estimate indicates that, overall, AI-related infrastructure could soon consume six times more water than Denmark does. The true scale of water demand may be even greater than currently available statistics suggest.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Katz, recently told us that data centres currently account for roughly 0.2% of England’s non-household water use. But that statistic relies on voluntary and anonymous surveys; in fact, data centres are currently under no formal obligation whatever to report on the volume of water they are using, where they are sourcing it from or how it is being consumed. If the Government are to effectively fulfil their commitment to improve accurate data collection and the assessment of drought impacts, formalised reporting obligations must be introduced for data centres. That is essential not only so we can understand their impacts on water conservation targets but so that communities are not asked to bear the consequences without real transparency.

The Government have also agreed to improve public engagement and communication on water use and drought preparedness. That is an essential measure for reforming our relationship with the natural world. I and other Christians believe that humans have a unique responsibility to care for creation. We are called to imitate God in exhibiting qualities of care, service and responsibility for all other living beings, and to be shepherds for the natural environment. Bishops carry a shepherd’s crook, of course.

So, while I am encouraged by this commitment, we must understand that public trust in key institutions with environmental responsibilities is alarmingly low. According to the BBC, Thames Water pumped at least 72 billion litres of sewage into the River Thames between 2020 and late 2023, while water bills were continuing to rise. If the public are to be reassured that their actions at home can make a real difference—why they should save water—they must see water companies being properly held to account for environmental abuses, not just leaks but sewage into the waterways.

They must be held responsible for investment in infrastructure and river restoration. There should be meaningful consequences when environmental abuses are discovered. It is no answer that all the value was extracted by the people who bought the companies originally and they have now been loaded with debt. Water insecurity is not a challenge for future generations. Its impacts are already being felt, and disproportionately so, as I have said, by those already experiencing poverty—I make no apology for repeating that.

In order to meet the challenge, we need to invest in natural infrastructure, greater transparency and accountability from private companies entrusted with our water system. Churches and food banks have long supported communities facing hardship. We have emergency support and community initiatives. As food scarcity continues to drive up prices, we will not be able to address these inequalities alone. If individuals are to be expected to prepare for climate-related disruption, the Government must fulfil their responsibilities to their most vulnerable citizens. There must be targeted support for those most at risk, and social security must ensure that basic needs are always met.

18:25

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the committee. This is an excellent report. It is very irritating to me to have to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester because he has covered issues I wanted to cover. That is the problem with coming sixth in a debate in a room full of people who know and understand climate change.

The report has made one thing abundantly clear, which is that drought is no longer a rare or occasional problem. It is becoming a defining challenge for England’s environmental and economic future. This summer cost farmers an estimated £390 million with cereal harvests set to be the lowest ever recorded. It is clear that this crisis goes far beyond simple hosepipe bans to potentially developing into a severe risk to our food supply. What we grow has to change, and the Government have to help farmers to make that transition and do it quickly.

One of the most striking conclusions of the report is that we are not facing a simple shortage of rainfall. In fact, the UK receives more rain than it did several decades ago. The problem is that climate change is altering when and how that rain falls. We are seeing wetter winters, more intense downpours and hotter and drier summers. Too much water arrives when we do not need it and too little arrives when we do. Hotter temperatures mean greater evaporation, lower river levels and more pressure on agriculture, ecosystems and public water supplies. If we fail to address climate change, the challenge of drought will become increasingly severe. For Greens, this is a crucial point because nature is not simply something that is nice to have, to look at and to walk our dogs in. It is part of the solution that we need for this problem. We do not need wildlife and ecosystems damaged because we are failing to address the problem. Healthy wetlands, restored floodplains, thriving peatlands and better managed catchments to help retain water in the landscape are needed. They increase resilience during dry periods while reducing flood risks during wetter months. Clearly farm reservoirs have a role to play in that.

It is not enough to tell consumers, that is, households, that they have to cut their water consumption because clearly people do a lot. I already flush my loo with washing up water and things like that. What has made it really bad is the privatisation of the water industry. First, there was the failure to build any new reservoirs despite English water companies going £72 billion into debt. That money went to shareholders, not infrastructure. Secondly, there is the failure to fix broken pipes. The hose-pipe bans this summer saved a bit of water and ruined a lot of gardens, but leaks lost five times more water. Thirdly, there is the massive expansion of housing and consumption without regulations to limit water use and encourage reuse in new and old buildings.

Reservoirs are needed, but the public do not necessarily trust the water companies to build them. I have been involved with local councillors and campaigners in Havant because the new Havant Thicket reservoir is coming online. At the moment, it is a beautiful watery space, absolutely gorgeous, but South West Water is planning to put recycled effluent into it. That will be a problem. Local people are already asking whether they want to drink that water, whether it is going to be healthy and whether is it going to be okay. South West Water does not have a good reputation. It is dumping sewage and all sorts of chemicals into local rivers and on to the seashore. I have mentioned the Havant Thicket reservoir before; it is a problem. A water industry driven by profit and debt cannot adapt quickly enough to the new climate and new needs. Only public ownership can get us through the coming crisis.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester also mentioned data centres. A detailed set of amendments has been drawn up by experts at Manchester University who were raising concerns about data centres. They wanted water reuse and some restrictions on where you put the data centres so it did not impact on areas already subject to drought conditions. They were sensible ideas but the Government ignored them.

We are on track to be living the hottest year on record, and the frightening thing is knowing that the new record could be broken next year or the year after. Climate scientists working via the UN have been making predictions for decades, and every single one of those predictions has underestimated how bad things are going to be and how fast things are going to change.

I have come to all the things that I have scribbled out because other people have said them, but I will try again. Water availability must become a far more important factor in planning decisions. It makes little sense to recognise the risk of future shortages while continuing to approve developments that place ever greater pressure on limited resources. On the Government’s insatiable obsession with data centre expansion, I point out that it will only place further demand in areas where demand is already rapidly increasing due to housing developments.

The solutions are available. We can reduce leakage and use water more efficiently. We can restore natural systems that help store and manage water. We can ensure that development takes place within environmental limits and, above all, we can recognise that tackling climate change is fundamental to securing our future water supplies and our future well-being as a human population.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, came up with all sorts of really good ideas. I did not make a note but I will check in Hansard—I am sure they are already Green Party policy. However, the biggest thing we can do to fight climate change, or to slow it down at least, is to stop using fossil fuels. I ask the Government, when they talk about growth, to please focus on climate-friendly growth. It is not enough and it is not good enough to talk about constantly expanding all sorts of development when we need to put the climate first. It is not just the climate; it is the future of us, our children and our grandchildren.

18:32

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to serve on this committee under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the wonderful support of all the staff that we have.

At the end of October, the major part of England was officially in drought or severe drought, and much of England had severe drought in 2025, but the paradox is that the UK currently experiences 10% more rainfall than it did in 1970. Our failure has been not to adequately value our water and not to ensure appropriate capture for storage and usage. One serious consequence has been that the Government have now had to commit to fast-tracking nine new reservoirs by 2050, which will be a serious challenge.

In the time I have I want to focus on two issues: namely, the provision of adequate water for farming and food production, and consideration of how we might reduce domestic usage of potable water. I have not connived with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who chose to highlight similar things.

A recommendation in our committee report was for the need to prioritise water supplies in the event of drought, and I suggest that the production of food should be a national priority to support food security. Can the Minister assure us that His Majesty’s Government have determined or are determining priorities for water usage in the event of shortages, and that agriculture is one of those priorities?

I acknowledge that there are difficulties in formulating an overall drought planning policy for farming because of the diversity and highly disaggregated nature of the industry. However, I note that Defra is considering where responsibility for this might lie, so can the Minister indicate whether any progress has been made in this respect?

Not only is water essential on our land for food production, but a multiplicity of on-farm water storage sites would assist in the control of the increasing incidence of wildfires and the consequential huge damage they do to nature habitats and biodiversity. Improving the link and extending the licence terms for water abstraction would facilitate the topping up of existing farm reservoirs during high winter precipitation and de-risk the investment for new on-farm reservoir building.

Although many farmers have managed to create small reservoirs, they are inhibited by planning and other regulatory complexities as well as capital costs. Water management grant funding has been extremely welcome to aid the construction of small reservoirs, but will His Majesty’s Government consider another round of such grant funding, and will they plan to simplify and accelerate the planning and regulatory processes around building more on-farm reservoirs?

My other major point is on the domestic use of water. Over 90% of the total consumption of water is through the public water supply, of which the major part, 59%, is for household use. So, to reduce overall water usage, it makes sense to tackle this major source of use. Currently, we expend much effort and money on collecting and purifying water to drinking standards, and we then use it to flush the lavatory, wash clothes, water the garden and wash the car, and for a variety of other uses. This may consume 45% to 50% of the total household potable water demand.

Current per capita consumption, as we have heard, is over 130 litres per person per day. But Part G of the building regulations requires a dwelling not to use more than 125 litres per person per day, a regulation of which I—like most people, I am sure—was totally unaware. His Majesty’s Government consulted on these regulations in September 2025, as several noble Lords have mentioned, and are still considering a response. When are the results of this consultation due to be published?

The consultation also called for evidence on water reuse in new developments. It has been estimated that harvested rainwater could reduce potable water consumption from current levels to perhaps 80 litres per person per day. We heard evidence from the Good Homes Alliance that distinguishing between potable water consumption and total use in water consumption would be and should be a policy priority to aid in promoting a separation of these resources. It took years before we saw solar panels routinely integrated into the roofs of new buildings. With regard to water, while retrofitting existing buildings with means to separate the source and use of rainfall and grey water from potable supplies is likely to be extremely expensive, what are we doing to develop, encourage and incentivise this installation in new builds? This is not an immediate solution, but in the medium term it could be a game-changer in water conservation. Are the Government considering this approach?

Similar opportunities apply to non-domestic uses, where the use of potable public supply is relatively cheap, providing no incentive for industry to use non-potable sources. Discounted rates have even been provided for higher water users. At a time when there can be water shortages, this is an obvious own goal. Has this practice been discontinued? I know that we in this country are terribly slow at capital innovations, but after all, the Romans were harvesting rainwater in the home 2,000 years ago.

18:39

[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I chose to speak today partly because I very much enjoyed my time on the Environment and Climate Change Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, but also because I want to set out some reservations, not about the global climate but about the intellectual climate that has shaped this report, which is interesting in many ways. That intellectual climate has crept up on us; it is a reluctance to accept that providing more of the good things of life is a necessary and desirable aim of public policy. This aim has given way to a rather miserabilist vision, in which the task is to restrict consumption, manage expectations and persuade people to be content with that. That was symbolised for me by the Minister’s remark in the evidence session that the cheapest way to increase water capacity is to reduce demand.

The noble Lord, Lord Trees, mentioned the need in this country to be self-sufficient in food or to get closer to it. By that logic, the best way to achieve that would be simply to tell people to eat less rather than to grow more. I do not think that this is a satisfactory prospectus for prosperity, and it is frustrating, because there is a lot in the report on which we could build a better approach.

The summary acknowledges the key facts: we are not short of rain; in fact, we have 10% more than we used to, even if it falls at different times of the year. This could have been the basis for a clarion call to build more infrastructure and to get on with it but, unfortunately, we do not quite get that. It is not that it is not mentioned, and it is acknowledged in the Government’s response, but that it feels half-hearted. Much more is said about the need to exercise restraint, reduce demand and manage human behaviour.

With that in mind, I will briefly mention four issues. First, the report slips into overly alarmist language at times. In the summary, it says that

“drought impacts will, without mitigation, endanger life as we know it today”.

I ask whether that is really consistent with having 10% more rainfall in the country. The problem with the alarmist language is that it makes a particular set of choices about consumption, investment and regulation seem like they follow naturally from an existential challenge rather than being what they really are: highly contested.

Secondly, we are asked to accept a faintly Soviet-sounding permanent campaign for good behaviour—a whole-society approach to drought, sustained all year long, and a government communication plan to that end. The Government’s response tells us that:

“We all must go further and faster to … be mindful of our water consumption”.


We are even told that some stakeholders think temporary use bans are not about reducing consumption but

“an effective awareness mechanism for educating the population”

about changing their behaviour. The feeling, sometimes, is that citizens are seen as kind of conscripts in a permanent national struggle against drought, not customers entitled to expect reliable provision.

Thirdly, I think the deepest problem is a suspicion of abundance as a policy goal. In paragraph 138, the National Preparedness Commission is quoted as saying:

“Allowing the myth to perpetuate that water will always be in plentiful supply, is in some way a citizen’s or business’s ‘right’”.


It regards that as a myth. Of course, no system can guarantee unlimited water in every circumstance, but plentiful, reliable supply ought at least to be an ambition to realise, not an expectation that has to be educated out of the public. People might be entitled to ask why the answer to growing demand should so readily become a campaign to suppress demand instead. For that is what is intended; paragraph 86 quotes figures and a planned balance in which 50% of the projected supply deficit is met by “customer-side demand management”. In other words, reduced consumption becomes the dominant answer, rather than asking what it would take to provide enough and whether that is the better way forward.

Demand management starts by being voluntary but ends by being compulsory, which has already been alluded to a little. We see it in the recommendation that the new building regulations for new homes should require a maximum water usage of 105 litres per person a day. The Government have accepted that recommendation, although I guess they did so before the Chancellor said in the Budget that there will be no further major changes to building regulations for the remainder of this Parliament. Can the Minister, in winding up, say whether this is still government policy or whether it has been superseded by events?

My fourth and final point is on affordability. The word does not actually occur in the report, and its discussion of price seems to see it primarily as a tool for managing demand down. It seems to think that water is fundamentally too cheap, in some sense. That is fine—well, not really fine, but understandable if you are well off. What about those who struggle? Do they not deserve some concern in policy-making in this area too? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester has already alluded to this issue. By all means, introduce more of a market in water, but only if there are also measures to increase supply. I think that we will instead see supply restricted, in practice by state fiat, coupled with demand managed through high prices. That is a regressive policy and one that I think the report could have commented on a little more.

The right objective is more reliable water and more of it at prices that people can afford. To repeat the committee’s own phrase, we need

“better storage, supply and reuse”,

not more public enthusiasm for having less of it. I worry that we are importing into water policy the same mistaken instinct I see in energy policy: treating scarcity as something to organise society around, not a problem to overcome. The public are entitled to expect better than that, and the policy really ought to be a determination to provide it.

18:46

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, it is always good to follow my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Frost —opposites attract, I think I might say. It has been a pleasure to be a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee for the last two years and to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, as a highly effective chairman, and with our excellent staff.

As our report makes clear, climate change is one of the key factors causing drought. I will just say a word about climate change itself: it is of course an international, not a national, crisis that we face at the moment. Despite the difficulties at present, in particular in Washington and elsewhere, it is essential that the international community takes climate change seriously, not least at COP 31, which is going on as we speak. I must say that I am not sure that flying a thousand people to Turkey is a particularly good example to the rest of us—an online COP might be an option for the future—but, even so, I am glad that the Prime Minister and other Ministers will be there and I hope that, at COP and thereafter, the United Kingdom will lead by example in what it says and does.

Climate change is not of course the only cause of drought in the United Kingdom. Population growth and water-intensive industries, notably data centres, play their part too. Nor is drought an annual occurrence. None the less, drought in summer and flooding in winter looks like becoming, if not the new normal, at least a regular occurrence, hence the relevance of the committee’s report. It is clear from the Government’s response to the report that the Government and the committee are broadly on the same page. That is not always the case, in my experience, on this committee or others.

I therefore welcome the publication of A New Vision for Water earlier this year and the report by Sir Jon Cunliffe that preceded it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said, however, it is execution that matters. I want to focus on two main issues, the first of which is the need to make us all realise that water is a scarce resource. We know when electricity is scarce because the price goes up and we know when gas is scarce because the price goes up. We use less electricity and gas as a result. We all know, I think, that the electricity price is too high and that the Government are rightly trying to get it down. However—I know this is an unpopular thing to say—the price of water is too low by any standard and we use it too liberally.

I know how hard it is to raise prices at a time of economic difficulty for people and for businesses, but does the Minister accept that at a time of scarcity the price of water may need to rise? I know that the price mechanism is not everything, and I applaud the Government’s campaign earlier this year, “Let’s Save Water”, as an attempt to change attitudes in England and Wales. The chief executive of the Environment Agency, Philip Duffy, told the committee this morning that the early signs suggested that the report had had a positive effect. It was an impressive evidence session and the suggestion of a positive impact is good, but can the Minister tell us how the Government intend to maintain the momentum to change attitudes to water and to use less? Like others, I urge the Government and the committee to keep the pressure on the water companies to reduce leaks. Nothing so disincentivises the rest of us to cut back on water use than seeing the street outside our houses running with water from a burst main.

I turn to the need to preserve water, a matter for all of us as individuals. Many of us are using less water and some of us are mastering the technology of rain butts. It is also a question of building regulations, and I am glad that the Government accept our recommendation on this. It is more than that though: too much rain is running into rivers and out to sea. We need more and deeper reservoirs, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. I know the difficulties in winning local support for new reservoirs, but I do not see how we can meet the challenges and crises of the future without building them. The Government have talked of simplifying planning rules and the water companies have talked of compensatory measures for affected communities, but progress is worryingly slow. Can the Minister assure us of the Government’s determination to see new reservoirs built and used soon?

We need large reservoirs but more on-farm reservoirs too, as others have said. I am glad that the Government accepted the committee’s recommendation on this and announced in August this year their intention to encourage local water supply and streamline planning barriers. But does this go far enough? The Country Land and Business Association makes a powerful case for constructing many more reservoirs than would be possible with the £15 million so far allocated by the Government. Like others I am sorry that we no longer have the Earl of Leicester with us to make this point more effectively than I can. Does the Minister agree that we must do much more?

Finally, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, we had excellent presentations from six schools during our work on this report. One of them gave us the title of our report, reclaim the rain. Their commitment was palpable, and it is their future and not just ours that is at stake.

18:52

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have joined the committee in January 2026, which was part-way through the inquiry, and it is a privilege to serve on it. I declare my interests: I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Water Group and vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities, and I have minor shareholdings in Pennon and United Utilities. I co-authored four reports, and am now undertaking a fifth, on water and flooding policy in a series entitled Bricks and Water with Rob Allen from Westminster Sustainable Business Forum. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Sheehan for her excellent stewardship of the committee, for chairing it so well, for this excellent inquiry and for securing this debate. I echo the thanks of all on the committee to the support staff who are with us today.

The summer of 2026 saw the worst drought for 50 years. The impact on consumers, farmers and businesses was palpable. In North Yorkshire, we had ongoing wildfires that were very difficult to control. They threatened farms, livestock and livelihoods. I praise the North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service and other emergency services for their huge efforts to bring those fires eventually under control. It is essential to have access to water for livestock, poultry producers, the horticultural sector and households.

Climate change is now a fact of life. We have to learn to live with the consequences. We have to do more between droughts and between floods. It is essential that we store more water in times of flooding. We need to have not just the large reservoirs but, as others have said, smaller on-farm reservoirs of around 20,000 cubic litres. We need to have nature-based solutions, and I pay tribute to the Pickering Slowing the Flow pilot scheme project, which, in storing water upstream, has protected the town of Pickering from flooding since its construction.

We must have measures to mitigate and adapt to the impact of droughts and floods. We need to use building regulations intelligently and effectively to make houses more resilient. We need to reduce water consumption per household to 105 litres per person per day. This is not unique to the United Kingdom: Denmark and other Scandinavian countries are already well ahead in this field.

In considering the report, I will refer to certain recommendations and, in particular, the Government’s response to them. First, the committee recommended that water companies be made statutory consultees on all major planning decisions, particularly for houses. Why is this important? In the Pitt review in 2007, Sir Michael Pitt recommended ending the automatic right to connect, so that water companies would not be forced to make false connections or connections that would put undue pressure on wastewater—sewage—in adjacent developments to those for which planning permission was sought. Sadly, the Government have rejected that recommendation, which in my view is ill advised.

Far too often, planning for major housing developments is being sought in inappropriate places—on functional flood plains and in areas of water stress. Also, too often, wastewater in the form of raw sewage is making its way into rivers, watercourses and the sea because these developments are proceeding against the advice of the Environment Agency. The Government have also yet to implement Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, allowing excess surface water to continue to enter the combined sewers. This situation will continue until water companies can formally reject inappropriate applications as statutory consultees.

We proposed to strengthen building regulations to reduce potable water demand to a maximum water usage of 105 litres per person per day. Although the department has accepted this, the Government—and the Budget, as we heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Frost—have announced that no new building regulations will be adopted any time soon. That is very disappointing indeed.

Internal drainage boards—I have declared my interest—have an essential role to play in the maintenance, drainage and flood prevention of watercourses in low-lying areas. Crucially, the role of IDBs should be recognised in the forthcoming water Bill so that they will have a recognisable role to play in any catchment management system of watercourses. Bizarrely, the department has rejected our recommendations to expand the remit of IDBs.

On storing water, creating reservoirs, the use of abstraction licences, environmental permitting and nature-based solutions, Defra is ambivalent. It accepted our recommendation of moving abstraction licensing into the environmental permitting regime, but we heard from the Environment Agency today that there is simply no timeframe to do so and therefore, it seems to me, no sense of urgency. Given the scale of the problem identified in this report, I would argue that urgent action is needed and we need to do more to prepare for future droughts and times of flooding.

Small on-farm reservoirs should be given priority. The department urgently needs to address the issue of the Balmforth review on reservoir safety and the de minimis rule contained in the Reservoirs Act 1975, recognising that small on-farm reservoirs of between 20,000 and 100,000 cubic metres simply do not threaten public safety—when they are ring-fenced so that no one enters them and drowns—but will manifestly contribute to preparing for and surviving future droughts. I urge the department to act now to implement all our recommendations or give us today a very good reason for not doing so.

19:00

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for bringing this debate and for the thorough report by the Environment and Climate Change Committee. As always, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. About 15 years ago, when I was chairing the forestry and woodlands advisory committee for the Forestry Commission in the north-east, I visited Pickering to see that excellent work holding the water higher in the catchment area. I think beavers would also do a good job. There are two environmental areas on which I would like to focus: the impact of drought on soil health and chalk streams.

First, I shall offer a few reflections as a Lord spiritual. Drought is a recurring theme throughout history, bringing hardship, uncertainty and a stark reminder of humanity’s dependence on the natural world. My question is: has this been the hottest summer on record or the coolest summer of our futures? Has this been the worst harvest on record or the best harvest of our futures? The Bible offers some striking descriptions of drought and its consequences. The prophet Jeremiah describes the distress of people sent to draw water only to discover that the cisterns were empty. Similarly, in the story of Elijah the brook dries up because there had been no rain in the land. These accounts illustrate how quickly the things we take for granted can disappear and how vulnerable human life becomes when essential resources become scarce.

We should resist viewing drought as simply an act of nature beyond our influence. Climate change, excessive consumption and the pressures we place on natural resources all invite serious consideration of our responsibilities. We are reminded that water is precious, that its availability cannot be taken for granted and that we have a duty to protect and preserve our environment for future generations. I recall a time in the very north of Ghana when there was very little water, and we were given basically a calabash each to wash in every day. It was a salient reminder of how water in so many places around the world is utterly treasured.

Drilling down into the two areas of soil health and chalk streams, we are totally reliant on six inches of soil to sustain human life. Healthy soils store water, support plant growth, provide habitats for countless organisms and play an important role in maintaining the balance of our ecosystems. When soil is rich in organic matter and has a healthy structure, it can absorb and retain moisture, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, outlined, helping plants and crops withstand periods of dry weather and, vitally, holding water higher up in its catchment—a sort of natural flood management infrastructure. Conversely, compacted, depleted or degraded soils struggle to hold water, making the effects of drought more severe. As a simple experiment, pour water on to hard, dry soil, and it just runs off; pour it on to healthy soil, and it soaks in. Spongy soils are good, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said.

Drought causes a slowdown of the soil microbe activity that drives nutrient cycling and supports plant growth. Microbial communities’ structure, function and interactions can all be disrupted in periods of drought. Drought also leads to nutrient stagnation. Without moisture, nutrient transport to roots halts and uptake by plants decreases. Drought impacts soil invertebrates—earthworms, woodlice, millipedes and the like—reducing population numbers, and this results in less supply for their predators and a greater challenge for birds to extract them from the soil.

The depletion of soils means that during drought conditions, soils become exposed to wind erosion as well as topsoil erosion when it rains too hard, causing flash floods. When, as we have heard, peaty soils dry out, carbon is released into the atmosphere, and they become susceptible to fire, as we saw with moorland fires last summer. The soil moisture deficit in west Norfolk at the end of September compared with the long-term average reached an all-time high of more than 160 millimetres.

Perhaps the lesson of drought is not simply that we need more rain but that we need to take better care of the ground that receives it. A healthy future begins under our feet. Improving soil health and having spongy soils is the first practical step towards greater drought resilience. Thus, my first question to the Minister is: where does soil health come in His Majesty’s Government’s priorities about responding well to a drier summer future?

My second point is the impact of drought on chalk streams. These precious ecosystems, of which about 85% of all the world’s 200 chalk streams are found in England, well up out of aquifers. Consecutive months of below-average rainfall mean that aquifers fail to recharge during the winter. Drought extends the time when there is no flow in winterbournes—temporary streams in the upper reaches of chalk stream systems that contain water only when groundwater levels rise high enough to feed the channel—thus threatening species that depend on these seasonal patterns.

The River Pang in Berkshire dried up in places never seen before this summer. In fact, poor old Ratty, Mole and Mr Toad would not be able to get into their boat. It is not helped by the level of abstraction to meet water demand. In August, the River Wensum, which flows through the centre of Norwich, experienced a mass death of fish and of species that are not visible—the fish all floated when they died, but many other species were killed as well—after a heavy downpour of rain flushed contaminants out of the city’s drains into the Wensum. Thus, my second question to the Minister is will His Majesty’s Government fulfil their promise in the White Paper to further “embed action” to protect chalk streams, including during periods of drought, in the long-expected clean water Bill?

19:07

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests in the United Kingdom and southern Spain. I mention that because I am more than aware of what farmers suffer when there is a lack of rainfall. In southern Spain, we never expect any rain between May and October—none—so we have what members of the committee would think of as a drought every year. We are very conscious of conserving water, using it efficiently and building small, on-farm reservoirs, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords.

I am interested in this report and welcome it. It has been informative for me. I am no longer a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, but I wish to comment briefly on an element that is referred to in the report but has not yet been given the priority it deserves, which is leakage. The figures have been quoted by various noble Lords. Some 20% of our daily supply of water is lost through leakage. That is an incredible figure. If I understood the graphs correctly, that is nearly 3 billion litres of water every single day lost through leakage. I find it extraordinary that that does not concern the public and the department more than it does. It is a very serious situation.

The noble Lord, Lord Katz, answered a question from me in the Chamber only two days ago, and I have put questions to the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, when he was the Conservative Minister, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the present government Minister. The Government’s ambition, their target, is to reduce water leakage by half in the next 24 years. We should be doing better than that. The report helpfully tells us that the government target has been accepted by the Government as what the water companies have committed to do. That is the wrong way to form public policy. The Government should set a target and make the water companies achieve it. We have got that wrong.

I also read with great interest in the report that Ofwat is quite often reluctant to authorise expenditure on leak prevention. That astonishes me. Again, I hope that the public will become more aware of that. As my noble friend Lord Jay said, nobody likes to see the water mains in their street leaking down the side of the road. That is when it is visible, but, unfortunately, a lot of leakage is not visible; it is in old underground pipes that have been there for maybe 100 years. Again, with modern technology, which is referred to in the report, there must be ways of detecting these leaks. Smart meters were mentioned and are obviously sensible. There should be more meters along the system, which would be a way of catching leaks.

I would like the whole question of leakage to be moved up the list of priorities, even more than the committee has said. There are two or three very interesting pages in the committee’s report about leakage, but it is more important than the committee has suggested, if I may say so. Three-quarters of the leaks, I understand, come from the water companies’ pipe systems, and only one-quarter comes from domestic residences and businesses. I hope I read that correctly. So the major problem, which we must tackle, is the leakage from water company systems. The report says that in 2055 we will have a deficit of 5 billion litres a day. As I have just said, we are currently losing 3 billion litres a day, so surely part of that problem can be solved by reducing leakage.

I very much commend the committee on the report and its recommendations. I am disappointed that this Government, like the previous Government, have not been prepared to look again at the target. Although the noble Lord, Lord Katz, said two days ago in the Chamber that he was not minded to ask Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look again at that target, I again ask him to pass on to his ministerial colleagues that this is something they really should look at. They should not just take as a target what the water companies have suggested.

19:13

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a board member and director of The Water Retail Company. I thank our clerks and committee staff for their exemplary work, the many witnesses and the schools which worked alongside us. I also pay tribute to and thank my noble friend Lady Sheehan for her excellent leadership of the committee.

I welcome the Government’s response; 11 of our 17 recommendations were accepted in full and four in part. That is not something that the committee counts on. It matters—I will not set out all those recommendations because others have done so—and it is a constructive response, but as others have said—here is the central nub of the issue—what matters now is the pace of delivery, which must match the pace of the problem. I think we have said with one voice that acceptance is not implementation and that urgent action is now absolutely required on these matters.

The truth at the heart of the report is simple: our climate is changing faster than our policies can keep up with. As my noble friend Lady Sheehan said, we wrote much of this during last winter’s floods, yet here we are back in drought. Indeed, we need 120% of rainfall every month between now and April just to come out of drought. So floods and drought are two sides of the same coin.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, pointed out that the Met Office has shown us that we get 10% more rain now than we did in 1970. The difference is how it falls. We have the lumpier rain in the winter that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned; that runs off, and then we have this hydrological whiplash that our witnesses talked about when, in the summer, the heat bakes the soil and any rain we get simply does not soak in. Beyond that, our infrastructure is also built for a different climate. The steady rain of my childhood no longer exists. At two degrees of warming, droughts like that in 2010 will become 86% more frequent. At four degrees of warming, they will become 150% more likely. The increasing risk of multiyear events has the real potential to do absolute damage to our water security. I respond politely to the noble Lord, Lord Frost: I recognise his points, but he is asking us to report on a world that does not exist any more.

Our overall conclusions are not complex: we must capture the rain where and when it falls. It is the change required to get there that is complex. It starts, as others have said, with big infrastructure projects. We have not built new reservoirs in way too long. I welcome what the Government are doing on that, but these projects take a long time. The Government need to make progress and they must be honest about who pays.

Water infrastructure is also the very landscape itself—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Our wetlands, peatlands and river restorations slow water flow in the winter and recharge it in the summer. Our dried peatlands also become carbon emitters, with underground fires when they are not kept moist. I absolutely agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich that we need more beavers—nature’s own engineers. We need to reduce licensing costs and put more into funding rangers, so that we can manage their reintroduction. I welcome the £300 million for natural flood management, but it falls short of a first line of defence. I want to see the Government go further.

Our report was absolutely clear about demand: 80% of the reduction in the next decade must come from the demand side. The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, is absolutely right to point out that 19% of treated water is lost to leaks; one-fifth of all the water we clean and pump is gone. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, pointed out that our consumption is still too high and is getting higher. Halving leakage by 2050 is a reaffirmed target but not a new one. I wonder whether the Minister would commit to having milestones on that journey.

Water companies are not delivering on the water efficiency measures. They are not the right vehicle, so I ask the Government to look at them. On Part G, we welcome that but when will the Government respond? Every home that we build to the old standard is one that we retrofit later at greater cost. We need grey water systems, rainwater harvesting—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, made—and smart meters in half of our properties by 2030, giving us near-instant leak detection. We also need better-designed taps. With one of the taps I have at home, it is almost impossible to control the flow of water. Would the Government consider mandatory labelling for fittings and improving fittings?

I turn to where the response falls short. The Government rejected statutory consultee status for water companies, pointing to the requirement to assist. I wonder whether that will really have an impact and how it will work in practice. We are not asking for a veto, but these pressures and tensions need to be better planned for and understood. The Government also rejected extending the remit for internal drainage boards. Again, that needs better consideration. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, said, the water Bill offers an opportunity to change that. Will the Government take that up? That is my challenge.

On data, we have just 50 soil monitoring sites. I recognise the Government’s response but they must give us the detail. How many will there be, and when will that be done? The Environment Agency projects a deficit of 5 billion litres of water by 2055. Our evidence suggests that it is probably greater than that, and, as others have said, AI data centres and hydrogen production are outside of that and are projected to require another 767 million litres of water by 2050. The AI sector does not report its water use—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. The Government need to require mandatory reporting for its water use. There need to be adequate guardrails for reporting and for the water it uses.

I welcome the new flood and drought resilience taskforce. Fifty bodies around the table is really good, but this kind of integrated working is what we really need. Will it have the powers required?

To conclude, as I have gone over time—I apologise, but I am trying to sum up this debate—I want to ask the Minister a final question. We have an El Niño coming. What preparations are the Government making for if the winter rains fail and we have another really hot summer? If that happened, we would be in a really bad situation.

19:21

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for this debate and for her work as chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee. I also join the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe in particularly thanking my noble friends the Earl of Leicester and Lord Mancroft, who sat on this committee but who have since been excluded from this House and so unfortunately are unable to be here today to debate this report. I draw the Committee’s attention to my register of interests as a farmer and land manager, including engagement in peatland restoration, riparian tree planting and the River Walkham landscape recovery scheme.

A 10-year weather survey conducted by the NFU found that 68% of respondents have seen an increase in drought, and this July was the driest on record for England and Wales. There is no denying climate change on our Benches. Many of our reservoirs have hit record lows and even now are 17 percentage points below seasonal norms. As others have already pointed out, we need more than 20% above seasonal rainfalls to leave us even partially prepared for another year like this one.

It is not that we lack rainfall, the expertise or opportunities for private capital. However, a phone alert from the Government banning barbecues over the summer just did not cut it. Genuine resilience and adaptation are needed. So many of these issues have a knock-on effect beyond water supply: on our farmers, food prices, housing development, businesses’ growth and essential infrastructure. It is estimated that broader water scarcity could cost the UK between £8.5 billion and £13 billion in lost growth over the next five years, which, frankly, seems a low estimate.

The report has called for the Government to publish a prioritisation plan for an emergency drought situation no later than this autumn, as well as to foster a whole-of-society approach to drought management by putting in place a year-round engagement plan on water use by December 2026. Can the Minister update your Lordships’ House on this and reassure us that agricultural water needs and usage will not be left as an afterthought? This is especially important when the Government have launched their Be Ready campaign.

In the remainder of my comments, I want to focus on the supply of water and, in particular, on storage. The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, addressed leakage comprehensively. The report states:

“Nature-based solutions … in both the urban and rural environment must be prioritized as a first line of defence to manage the increasing risk of both flooding and drought”.


The first new reservoir is not due for five years at the earliest, and the remainder are not expected until as late as 2040. The country needs solutions that deliver now. The Government have announced only £15 million to help build on-farm reservoirs. Can the Minister say whether the water management grant will still be open this autumn, how many on-farm reservoirs it will fund and what impact that will have on our total water storage? My suspicion is that it will be incredibly valuable to the rural economy, but wider society will not benefit. I have visited an irrigated cotton farm in Australia. Land intensity for on-farm reservoirs tends to be high. They tend to be quite shallow and use quite a lot of land. There is also an issue with the release of carbon from the soil underneath them.

Further to that, what is happening to SFIs that fund nature-based water solutions? How can they contribute meaningfully when there is a cap of £100,000 per applicant? Those applicants might value other SFIs more highly. Can the Minister update us on uptake levels for 2026 SFI round 2 related to improved water volume management? I can find only two: management of ponds and ditches. Why are there so few? In August, the Minister said they had been working closely with MHCLG to update planning guidance to support agricultural infrastructure, such as on-farm reservoirs. What further planning reforms are planned?

The adoption of nature-based solutions could move so much more quickly with a proactive, enabling, risk-tolerant Defra and its ALBs. We on these Benches believe that the current complex structure focused on prescribing actions is not fit for purpose, nor is it helpful that much of the infrastructure that needs protection through NBS—nature-based solutions—is transport or energy-related. We know that officials from those departments have shown serious interest in nature-based solutions. Will the Minister ensure that Defra leads this effort and ensures that the resources of all these departments are harnessed to allow those industries to fund nature-based solutions appropriately? Endless consultations, planning cycles and approval requirements seek to gold-plate these schemes when the Government could place so much more trust in a properly incentivised and deregulated private sector to deliver the desired outcomes. The Corry review made many sensible recommendations for how that could be achieved.

We on these Benches urge the Government to go further and faster in simplifying Defra to focus on outcomes, risk tolerance, accountability and, more important than all of that, attracting private capital to nature-based solutions. The science is there to support investment in restoring soil structure, rewetting, decanalising our rivers and streams and riparian planting, but the Environment Agency continues to penalise these measures with a 4x risk multiplier versus grey infrastructure. A portfolio of many of these actions will surely reduce the overall risk of using nature-based solutions to levels at or below grey infrastructure. What can be done to encourage the Environment Agency to take a more constructive tone? The £3 billion targeted at nature-based solutions in the current water sector investment cycle is good, but why are we not open to much more given the speed of delivery and the evident benefits?

Landscape recovery schemes are impressive but they are moving too slowly, hampered by contracts that threaten to withdraw funding with 12 months’ notice and limited by five-year spending reviews when the schemes themselves may last 20 or even 30 years. There are difficulties in quantifying values from these investments in resilience in our national water infrastructure and in ensuring that all beneficiaries contribute fairly. The Evenlode scheme shows what can happen when an effective leadership team brings together the owners of downstream infrastructure with the water companies to deliver a comprehensive investment package. Why is this not happening in every river catchment now?

The Environment Agency requires companies to plan future supply on the assumption that demand targets will be reached, but demand reduction has underperformed expectations, with an estimated shortfall of around 220 million litres per day. Can the Minister shed light on what the water Bill will do to tackle this? Will there be changes to the price review process for water companies? Finally, what progress have the Government made on accepting round 3 landscape recovery schemes? How many round 1 and round 2 schemes have moved into the implementation phase in order to deliver these long-term, large-scale projects for the environmental benefits we all want to see?

As climate change compounds manmade pressure on our natural environment, as well as on our water supply system, the great beauty of nature-based solutions is the dramatic improvement they bring to nature protection, restoration and recovery. Salmonids benefiting from more consistent flows in our rivers increase biodiversity within healthy soils, particularly for many unpronounceable, I am afraid, but highly beneficial fungi, bacteria, insects and ground-nesting wading birds, such as Eurasian curlews from rewetting drained land. I hope I am sufficiently persuasive on this subject. We could be planting riparian trees right now, although the soils are probably still too dry, but right now is the planting window until March. Soils remain dry enough to use swing shovels now to decanalise rivers and restore peat hags. Where is the action?

Several noble Lords mentioned data centres. I should declare an interest that I am an unpaid advisor to a data centre development and a member of the APPG for Data Centres. I am sure that the Minister will make this point too, but all the UK data centres use recycled water. Their water footprint is de minimis. It is the US data centres that use water on a run-through basis for cooling; it does not happen in the UK. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, will, I hope, be reassured by my view that hydrogen will never be economic in this country and, therefore, will never use much water.

I am conscious that I have asked a lot of questions, many of which I asked in the Chamber on Monday and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe asked in the Chamber yesterday. I hope that the Minister’s officials have prepared him very thoroughly. If there is not time to answer them all, a reply in writing will of course be very welcome.

19:30

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to respond for the Government to this interesting and in-depth debate on the Environment and Climate Change Committee’s report. I thank all those who have brought their experience of sitting in the committee, but also their life experience, to bear on this debate and the consideration by the committee. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for securing the debate and to the present members of the committee and indeed past ones; I take a moment to mention the Earl of Leicester and Lord Mancroft in that cohort. The experience demonstrated across the Committee today reflects the importance of the issues that we are discussing and the growing challenge that drought poses to our environment, economies and communities.

I say right now, because I might forget at the end as I will be in a rush, that I am sure I will not be able to answer all the questions, however hard I try, from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, opposite. I will do my best and will of course reflect on Hansard and reply to Peers on those questions that I miss.

As everyone has noted, this debate comes at a particularly important time. Parts of England are currently experiencing severe drought conditions, reminding us that drought is no longer a distant risk that may arise at some point in the future. It is a challenge that we must confront now, while also strengthening our resilience to the droughts that climate change is expected to bring in the years ahead.

While severe drought is the highest classification in the Environment Agency’s drought framework, it does not in itself mean that public water supplies are at immediate risk. We have to be clear about that. It does, however, underline the need for the Government, regulators and water companies to act early and prepare for the possibility that conditions could worsen. The Government therefore welcome the committee’s report and all the recommendations that it contains. As has been noted, the Government have, with a couple of exceptions, accepted the report. Noble Lords rightly ask, where is the action and follow-up? I hope to be able to address at least some of those concerns in my response.

As we set out in our response earlier this year, the Government agree that action is needed across society to improve drought preparedness, strengthen water resilience and ensure secure supplies of water for people, businesses, agriculture and the natural environment. As many noble Lords have noted, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, the committee’s report was published before the severe drought conditions we are now experiencing in parts of the country. Those conditions only reinforce the importance of the issues raised by the committee and the action that is already under way across government and the water sector.

Before turning to longer-term resilience, I want first to address the current situation. Since severe drought was declared in parts of England, the Government have been working through the National Drought Group to co-ordinate the national response, alongside the Environment Agency, water companies and local partners. The National Drought Group plays a vital role in bringing together organisations responsible for managing water resources, protecting the environment and maintaining essential services. It is that cross-government, multi-agency and whole-society effort that many noble Lords mentioned, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Through this collaboration, we are ensuring that action is informed by the latest evidence and that appropriate measures are implemented as conditions evolve.

We have increased engagement with water companies in the areas facing the greatest pressure, worked alongside local resilience arrangements where necessary, and have continued to assess the measures available to protect public water supplies and minimise impacts on the environment wherever possible. Water companies are implementing their statutory drought plans, while the Government and regulators continue to monitor conditions closely and prepare for further deterioration should that be necessary.

Managing the present drought is of course essential, but we cannot forget to build drought resilience. We must also address the underlying pressures on our water system and prepare now for the conditions we expect in the decades ahead. Many Members of the Committee, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Russell, spoke about the El Niño effect. However, responding to drought, as has been noted this afternoon, is just one part of the challenge. We must also strengthen our resilience to future droughts. Most if not all noble Lords spoke about the importance of better information, monitoring and planning. I agree that effective drought management depends on access to timely reliable data and governance arrangements. That is why the Government accepted the committee’s recommendations to strengthen drought data collection and accessibility.

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, that work is under way with the Environment Agency and partners to explore the development of the drought data hub. This will bring together key information on drought conditions and impacts in a more accessible and integrated way. Alongside this, monitoring capabilities continue to improve, helping us to identify emerging risks earlier and support more informed decision-making across sectors.

Clear governance is equally important. The Government are working with the EA and the National Drought Group to improve the understanding of the roles and responsibilities of organisations involved in drought planning, preparedness and response, ensuring that action is co-ordinated and effective. A number of members of the committee, including the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lords, Lord Ashcombe and Lord Krebs, also highlighted the importance of reducing demand and using water more efficiently. The Government agree that improving water efficiency is one of the most effective ways of strengthening resilience while protecting the environment. That is why we continue to work with MHCLG on proposals to improve water-efficiency standards while supporting the accelerated rollout of smart meters to help customers better understand and manage their water use.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about the consultation on strengthening water-efficiency standards in new homes. I am afraid that all I can say right now is that the response is expected in due course. That is the finest of Civil Service language, but I am afraid I cannot give any more detail: this is a timeline of which we are very much aware.

My noble friend Lord Sikka and others asked about improving water efficiency. The Government have a statutory target to improve public water supply consumption per person by 20%. These demand reduction measures are expected to save around 2,000 megalitres of water per day. Ofwat and the water companies launched the national water-efficiency campaign to promote water-saving behaviours earlier this year. We have also introduced mandatory water-efficiency labels that will help inform consumers on the water efficiency of products—I cannot be specific but, to respond to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, perhaps this might relate to taps—and help to save water and money and meet the demand reduction targets. Water-efficiency labelling is a key government intervention to support consumers and should save households around £1.9 billion on water bills and £1.8 billion on energy bills over 10 years.

Leakage reduction, as many argued, must remain a key priority: this was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. Water companies have a responsibility to reduce leakage and to improve the resilience of their networks. Regulatory reporting on water company performance is expected shortly, and those water companies not on track to meet their leakage commitments will face appropriate regulatory action. We are very clear that they have a responsibility.

I owe the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, an apology in response to his question. Was it on Monday or yesterday?

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

It was on Monday.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

Yes, Monday. They all blend into one sometimes. I realise now that I misunderstood the noble Duke’s question. We do have an ambition to urge water companies to act quicker. Perhaps I did not understand what he was asking. The Government have set an interim target to reduce leakage by 30% by 2032. We are expecting regulatory reporting this month, so watch this space. We are on it and we expect Ofwat to make sure that the water companies are too.

It is beyond unacceptable that 20% of the water supply is lost, whether we are in drought conditions or not. I think the water companies clearly understand the Government’s view on this, and I know that my honourable friend Minister Hardy has been very clear with them about this and the Government’s expectation of them, not least in the context of the forthcoming water Bill. An updated communications strategy, led by the National Drought Group, is in development to help promote year-round water efficiency and encourage more sustainable water use.

The noble Lords, Lord Ashcombe and Lord Frost, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, asked a number of questions about development and building regulations. The Government have committed to lower water usage in homes to reduce consumption to 110 litres per person by 2050, and we are, as I said, working with MHCLG to explore where building regulations could tighten water efficiency standards and enable consumers to save on their water and energy bills by using less water. Building regulations provide an opportunity for government to ensure that the water requirements of new housing are reduced to create environmental headroom for growth.

There was a fair amount of discussion about the Government’s decision to reject the third recommendation of the committee’s report on water companies being statutory consultees. To be clear, it is not that we do not understand the importance of this, but the dynamic should be reversed. The baseline is that there is a clear expectation that water companies plan properly for growth, and they have water management resource plans that drive them to do this, including preparing for one-in-500-year drought events. I am sure that many Members of the Committee are aware of that. So water companies have to plan for growth, which is why we are prescribing in the requirements that water and sewerage companies assist regulations, so they are obliged to assist with plan-making where reasonably requested. Water and sewerage companies are also listed as consultation bodies, so they will be made aware of key plan-making consultations where they have an interest. I hope that gives some comfort that we absolutely understand the importance of this.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked specifically what we are doing in existing homes. There is a really important role here for smart meters in improving resilience, as I said. We expect to install around 10 million smart meters by 2030, which will help customers to identify where they have leaks and better understand their water use. It will also help water companies to detect leakage and manage demand more effectively. So that area feels really important for the current housing stock, as well as for taking action with the new housing that we hope to build.

There was a lot of discussion about data centres. I am aware of the time, so I will not spend as much time as I could on this. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, all mentioned the impact of data centres. It is always pleasant to be able to say that I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, on this. It is important to understand that current evidence suggests that most data centres are not intensive water users. Another figure I will cite to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester is that a techUK survey in 2025 indicated that 55% of data centres surveyed use dry or waterless cooling, 44% use hybrid and only 5% are water-cooled. Environment Agency analysis suggests that data centres in England currently use around 1.9 billion litres of water from the public water supply each year.

I will give some reassurance. The Committee will probably be aware that, on 28 October, Minister Hardy—I mention her again—issued a Statement on enabling sustainable data centre growth through responsible water energy. This set out that data centres will be asked to follow a water-use hierarchy, prioritising demand management, efficiency and alternative water supplies, before requesting a public water supply connection. We see what is happening in America. There is a very different landscape in this country, as the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, said, but we are very clear about the potential dangers. We want to expand data centres, as the Committee will be aware, but this is how we will do it.

Improving resilience is not simply about reducing demand but about ensuring sufficient and reliable supplies of water for the future. The scale of that challenge is significant. As many have noted, the EA’s national framework forecasts a water shortfall of around 5 billion litres per day by 2055. That is why we continue to support, as a Government, a twin-track approach: reducing demand while investing in new and enhanced water resources. That includes major strategic infrastructure. We are accelerating the delivery of nine new reservoirs, alongside strategic water transfer schemes. Construction is already under way, as we have heard, on the Havant Thicket reservoir, while local solutions will also be important in helping communities, farmers and businesses strengthen their resilience.

I want to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, that we are accelerating the construction of those reservoirs. It is a key part of improving long-term resilience. It takes time, but that is why we have a twin-track approach of making sure that we reduce leakage in the present while preparing for the future by building this infrastructure. I think we can all agree that we should have done more much earlier. We are where we are and would not be starting from here if we could help it.

Several noble Lords spoke about the role of agriculture and local water management, including the noble Lords, Lord Ashcombe, Lord Trees, Lord Krebs and Lord Roborough. I am not going to cover all the ground that was raised. I will leave some comments about the strategic finance incentive to correspondence. I want to be clear that the Government continue to support water abstraction groups, which help local abstractors collaborate and participate in planning water resources. Since the start of the programme in 2024, the number of water abstraction groups has increased from eight to 14, with further groups expected to be established in the coming year.

We are supporting local water resilience through the Environment Agency’s local resource options programme, which has enabled groups of farmers and growers to identify and develop projects that improve water security, including irrigation reservoirs and water storage schemes. More than 30 projects have been completed, with several already progressing towards implementation. The Environment Agency is developing a multisector approach to explore shared water resilience solutions across a wider range of water users.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lords, Lord Trees and Lord Jay, all wisely raised the importance of letting those who know local landscapes and hydrology contribute to the effort to save water, and we are very keen and alert to ensuring that that can happen. The Government are also supporting farmers directly as part of this year’s drought support package. Up to £15 million is being made available through the water management grant to support the development of on-farm reservoirs and strengthen drought resilience across the sector.

The committee was also right to highlight the importance of modernising water management and regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was one of those who mentioned this. We remain committed to reforming abstraction licensing and moving towards a more modern, digital and responsive system. Defra and the Environment Agency are also conducting an innovative smart abstraction trial in the Cam catchment, using real-time monitoring data and alerts to help farmers abstract water when conditions allow, while protecting river flows. Early findings of this trial are encouraging, and the pilot will continue until March next year.

Many noble Lords talked about and raised the importance of nature-based solutions, not least my noble friend Lord Sikka and the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Trees. The Government agree that nature-based solutions have an important role to play in strengthening resilience to both drought and flooding, while delivering wider environmental benefits.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked about spongy soils. I agree that improving soil health and reducing soil compaction can help land absorb and retain more rainfall, reduce surface run-off and allow more water to infiltrate into the ground, thus helping groundwater recharge.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich talked about peatlands and moorlands. Restoring degraded peatlands can improve the landscape and the landscape’s natural water storage capacity by slowing the movement of water through the catchment, reducing the incidence of drought and flood risk. Previously, we have had discussions that I have enjoyed participating in about the regulations around burning. That is very much what those regulations are designed to tackle.

At this point I will also address the question from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich about chalk streams. I reassure him that the Government are focused on protecting and recovering chalk streams through investments across a wide range of areas in our Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan and locally led project funding. Between 2025 and 2028 the water restoration fund is investing over £1.4 million of water company fines and penalties in chalk stream projects.

I am going to run out of time. Throughout today’s debate, there has been a consistent theme: the need to ensure that England is prepared for a future in which droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe. The committee’s report has made an important contribution to that discussion, and its central message is clear: we need to take a more proactive and long-term approach to drought resilience, ensuring proper investment and innovative and strong partnerships. Progress is being made but we also recognise that there is more to do. Climate change means that drought preparedness must remain a long-term national priority.

I have not had time to touch on the issue of food security that the noble Lord, Lord Trees, rightly raised, but I say to him that we have refreshed our approach to food resilience and stakeholder engagement through the establishment of a food preparedness group. We understand the importance of food security; it is of course national security.

Our ambition is clear: a country that uses water more efficiently, has secure and resilient supplies, protects and enhances the natural environment and is better prepared for the challenges of the future. In closing, I hope that I have demonstrated both the progress already being made and the Government’s determination to go further. I know that I have utterly failed to answer more than a fraction of the questions posed, and I have been slightly selective—are we not always?—but I beg the Committee’s indulgence in that. Once again, I thank all those who participated in this debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for securing it.

19:52

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister very much for his full engagement on the issue, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It has been exemplary—an exemplar of the breadth and depth of the experience that Members of your Lordships’ House bring to debates such as this. I am in awe of the quality of the contributions that I have heard. I will not keep noble Lords very long; I want to make just two points.

The first relates to the circumstances in which the inquiry was carried out. It was following the drought, as we have heard, and in the confident knowledge that winter rainfalls would be 10% above where they used to be in the 1970s. The conclusion was that to survive drought, we had to capture and store the rain that did fall using solutions including nature-based solutions, reservoirs, household efficiency measures, et cetera. But I have been shocked. I thought I was not complacent about climate change, but I have been shocked by what we have seen this summer. Two droughts in succession is unprecedented. What has shocked me even more is the possibility that the winter rains may fail. That was not a possibility that we considered when we were doing this report.

I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who said that climate change is moving quickly and things are going to change. They certainly are. It was in that context that I concentrated my remarks on the most immediate measures that we could take. I hope very much that it will not be necessary but, just in case, let us not just trust our luck. Let us put in place some emergency measures now, other than just asking people to stockpile water bottles.

The only other point I want to raise, which was not covered and which I wanted to cover in my opening remarks but did not have time to do so, is the use of water by businesses. Some 59% of potable water is used by households, 20% is leaked into the environment through sheer negligence by the water companies and the other 20% is used by industry and businesses. Of the water that is abstracted from the environment, businesses use far more than farmers. Businesses are big users of water, but they do not have to tell us how much water they use. I fully take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, that data centres could be efficient users of water because they can have closed-loop cooling systems et cetera, but the temptation to use cheap water, which becomes cheaper if you buy in bulk, must be great. We do not have mandatory reporting of water use by businesses. That is something we require for absolute transparency. It is what the Environment Agency and Ofwat told us they want to see. I leave the Minister with a final question: when will we see that?

I thank everybody again and commend this report to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 7.56 pm.