Water Management

Olly Glover Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

As I said at the beginning, we certainly need some reservoirs; I completely accept that. However, as I have explained, we do not assume that the only solution with energy is massive, centralised power stations. In the same way, collecting water on our roofs and in our homes can make a massive contribution. That contribution —some £6.5 billion back into people’s pockets—is not to be sneezed at.

Done at scale, the approach simultaneously tackles water scarcity, water excesses and carbon emissions. Toilets flushed with rainwater reduce demand for new reservoirs and enable more new development. Soakaways, green roofs and property-level sustainable drainage systems help to slow run-off and reduce flood risk and storm overflows. Less pumping and treatment means lower operational carbon. Less concrete and excavation means lower embodied carbon. Crucially, decentralised rainwater management delivers the benefits exactly where people experience them.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is showing his usual erudition on these topics. He mentions SUDS—sustainable drainage systems—which can be an important part of the solutions he outlines. However, many homeowners in my constituency find that those sustainable drainage systems do not work as intended because they are not properly designed and maintained. We have unenacted legislation that means developers are not being held to account. Does he agree that we need to do more to make sustainable drainage systems work effectively?

[Gideon Amos]

My hon. Friend is characteristically right, and I will come on to schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which he and I tried on several occasions to have enacted during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

Crucially, decentralised water management delivers the benefits I have listed: homes that are more resilient, bills that are lower, streets that flood less and rivers that have less sewage being discharged into them. Before I was elected as an MP, my campaign was to get the River Tone designated as a bathing water at French Weir. Working with the friends’ group, we succeeded, but unless we take action to reduce sewage volumes in the Tone catchment and around the country, we will not be able to meaningfully reduce sewage discharges into those rivers and beaches.

Crucially, none of this requires an AI data centre to make it happen; what is required is a shift in mindset: managing rain before it becomes a problem rather than using it to make a problem and then trying to manage that problem we have created. We can personally do our bit. My son thinks that the enormous water butt I am trying to make in my back garden is a Heath Robinson creation—well, he would if he knew what Heath Robinson was, but he is far too young. Following all the regulations is challenging, but I am working on it. However, what is really needed is the Government to take action on regulation.

Three key changes are needed from the Government. First, we need to stop designing homes that treat rain as an inconvenience to be sent elsewhere. Rather, it should be sent into people’s homes and harnessed as the asset and essential natural resource that it is and require rainwater harvesting in all new homes. Secondly, the Government needs to bring schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act into law, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), so that we start to drain more of our rainwater into the ground where it falls and have a properly regulated system for doing so. Thirdly, the Government need to grant the retro-splitting of household drains so that people can save on their bills and at the same time save our rivers—like our precious Tone—which can be spared the sewage these drains create, add to and augment.

England is about to spend unprecedented sums on water sewerage and infrastructure. We cannot solely rely on carbon-heavy centralised systems. We should finally change our relationship with the rain that falls right on the top of us all. If we want cleaner rivers, secure water supplies, lower emissions and homes fit for a changing climate, the answer is learning to value rain and use it to save us all money where it lands.