Data Centres: Water Resources

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I can certainly confirm that the north-west, where I live, has been particularly damp this year, unlike the rest of the country. I think that looks to the bigger question: how are we going to look at our water infrastructure over the coming decades? There are parts of the country, like where I live, that do not have water shortages, where there is still rain, and other parts where there is nothing. It is important that we consider as a country how best to use our water resources more broadly. Where do we need to build reservoirs? How do we support farmers in holding water, for example? The water usage question is a bigger part of that, as is the question of where we build our different infrastructure.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, our uniquely high electricity prices, created by ideological energy policies, already make the UK an uncompetitive location for data centres. Developers need to navigate a tangle of many of Defra’s 34 arm’s-length bodies—of which the Minister has mentioned two—planning authorities and water companies to create cost-effective solutions to cooling without endangering our scarce water resources. What is the Minister doing to reduce this complexity, in particular through the implementation of the Cunliffe commission report? I disclose an interest as an unpaid adviser to a data centre developer.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

More broadly, regarding the complexity and the number of different organisations, the Cunliffe report has made recommendations that Defra is not just looking at but working on, because we realise that we have to be more efficient and effective, as does the whole of government. As I mentioned, water-cooling systems use less electricity, so again we have this balance to make on those resources. We are looking at standards of efficiencies right across; specifically on water, there will be the opportunity to debate this more broadly when we get the water Bill in front of us.