Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on the Environment Agency’s Restoring Sustainable Abstraction Programme; how many potentially unsustainable licenses it is investigating; and if will make a statement.
The Restoring Sustainable Abstraction (RSA) programme is a key part of the Abstraction Plan (2017) and has changed 320 damaging abstraction licences, returning 47 billion litres of water a year to the environment.
85% of the RSA Programme was completed by 31 March 2020. The Environment Agency is currently investigating 55 remaining, complex licence changes.