Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-07
Topic: Environment
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I have added my name to several of those tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. I shall speak to my Amendment 189, which is about reducing household water usage, and I am grateful for the support for it from the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley It is predicted that by 2050 there will be an increase of 7 million people in the UK and our water level supplies will be down by 15%. Indeed, a recent report from the climate change adaptation sub-committee said that tackling water metering is one of the issues that we need to address urgently, that it would deliver some of the best cost-benefit ratios and that the sooner we started tackling it, the better. We need to do it so that there is enough water for people and for our rivers; I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, are no longer in their place, because clearly our chalk streams also need all the water they can get. It is right for tackling our climate change emissions because heating water in homes accounts for 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Equally, farmers, whom we heard from so eloquently in last debate, need the water to maintain successful farming and other business. We need the Government to act I was therefore pleased to see the announcement in the Secretary of State’s Written Statement in the House of Commons last week that the Government intend to introduce mandatory labelling on the water efficiency of household appliances. That is a positive step and I congratulate the Government on making it but, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, so eloquently said, we will not make the cuts we need in amounts of household water—down from around 142 litres to 110 litres per person per day, which the Government say they want—unless we have labelling and minimum standards, combined with changes to building regulations. It was notable in the comments of the Secretary of State last week that he did not definitively commit to minimum standards or changing building regulations. There was a vague date and "We might look at it in the future". We cannot get the figures we need without those Frankly, I am coming to the conclusion that the Government will not go anywhere near changing houses, because of the influence of various property developers. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who is not in his place, made a point in the debates last week about the influence of Taylor Wimpey on this Government and on housing developments. It is a scandal that we are not building houses that are carbon efficient and water efficient now. We are leaving the tab to be picked up by the environment, in the future, and the Government should be ashamed of that I partially congratulate the Government on taking up part of my amendment on labelling appliances but they have made no commitments on compulsory water metering. I raised this back in 2014 with an amendment to the then Water Bill. That is the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, spoke so passionately about. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, that when you are a junior partner in a coalition, you do not always get what you want, whether about water abstraction or metering Since then, people who are more significant than me have added their voices to the cause for compulsory water metering. In addition to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, the Climate Change Committee is now saying we must introduce compulsory metering. The majority of respondents to the 2019 Defra consultation on reducing household waste supported compulsory water metering, and even the National Infrastructure Commission, which is not well known for supporting measures in this area, is in favour. I will not repeat the figures that were so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, but will say that, at the moment, only half of UK houses are on compulsory water metering. We need to reduce usage hugely, and the only way to do it is through compulsory metering I ask the Minister if he can give the Committee any idea how the Government intend to meet their target of 110 litres per person per day, if they do not accept all the recommendations of my Amendment 189.