Charles Walker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charles Walker on 2015-11-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to ensure that water companies build sufficient capacity and tolerance into their infrastructure to cope with low rainfall years or weather cycles.

Rory Stewart

We have a statutory planning framework through which water companies demonstrate how their water supply systems will cope with future demands, taking account of population and economic growth and climate change. Their long-term plans set out how they will ensure they can continue to supply sufficient water, taking account of these changing pressures, weather cycles and drought.

We are currently considering how to enhance our policy framework to ensure we have a strategic approach to delivering resilience over the very long term.