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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) adequacy of the supply of water to households and businesses and (b) ability to drain surface water in the future.

a)

Water companies have a statutory duty to provide clean and reliable water to customers under the Water Industry Act 1991. Statutory water resources management plans show how water companies will meet this duty and manage water supply and demand for at least the next 25 years. These plans are revised every five years and will be consulted on in 2022.

The Government is working closely with water regulators and the water industry to improve the resilience of water supplies. The Government recognises that continued action is required and it is committed to reducing demand for water and increasing supply in parallel.

b)

Through the Environment Act, the Government will make statutory the requirement for sewerage undertakers to develop and publish a drainage and sewerage management plan to assess fully their network capacity, infrastructure needs and impact of their activities on the environment. This planning process will help sewerage companies to assess network capacity and work with local authorities and other bodies who are responsible for parts of the drainage system.

The Government is reviewing the implementation of Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 in England. Schedule 3 was designed to set ministerial standards for the construction of sustainable drainage systems on new developments.