16:49 Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)

I will focus my remarks on water supply rather than pollution. To give some context, the Environment Agency predicts that England risks running short of water by 2045—not very far away—due to climate change and population growth. The Government are struggling to get our daily usage down to 122 litres per person by 2050—currently that figure is 145 litres. We have built no new reservoirs since 1991, and we know that the Environment Agency is going to reduce river abstractions.

So far, so good, but as we head forward, climate change is not going to improve much; it is going to make things worse. Looking forward to the water plan for 2024, there is an assumption that there will be a sixteenfold increase in heatwaves by 2030 and we will have 15 megalitres less water available per day by 2050. Yet the population of Devon will have increased by 350,000 by 2050, with many working from home, increasing demand, and we know that abstraction licences will continue to decrease, so we will need extra 30 million litres of water per day net for that plan period.

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16:55 Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat)

In clarifying Liberal Democrat policy and the actions they have taken, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain what his party’s leader, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), did to tackle this issue when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change between 2012 and 2015.

I would be very happy to. Of course, at that time the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change had different responsibilities.

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