Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Environment Agency's paper entitled, A summary of England’s revised draft regional and water resources management plans, published on 21 March 2024, whether he has issued a deadline to water companies for the (a) design, (b) planning and (c) building of new water supplies.

Water companies are required to publish a statutory water resource management plan (WRMP) every 5 years. If the need for new water supplies is identified as a result of the assessments carried out to develop the WRMP, the company will set out the timescales within which the proposed schemes will be delivered in order to meet the forecast need. The detailed design, planning and building of these schemes is managed by the individual water companies to deliver the schemes within the timescales set out in the WRMP. The water companies report on the progress with delivery of their statutory WRMPs to Defra every year via the WRMP Annual Review process.