18:00 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)

Groundwater is a critical national resource. It provides a clean and reliable source of drinking water, plays a vital role across many industry sectors and supports our ecosystems. The Government are committed to ensuring that the quality of our groundwater resources is protected. In the face of growing pressures from climate change and population growth, it is important to optimise the regulatory tools available for managing and protecting groundwater.

The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 are an effective tool for managing groundwater activities. However, several limitations with the way the regulations implement groundwater protections have been identified, and that has led to inconsistencies in approach in the wider environmental permitting regulations regime. Those limitations can be resolved by the nine amendments, which will support many industries by reducing regulatory burden and costs; facilitating green energy production from, for example, geothermal and ground source heat pumps; and promoting growth, and so they will accelerate permit delivery.

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