Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Wales Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Pippa Heylings Excerpts
Wednesday 16th July 2025

(2 days, 8 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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For the final question, I call Pippa Heylings.

Pippa Heylings Portrait Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
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Yet again, we are suffering record-breaking heatwaves and drought. That is worrying people in my constituency, which is both the fastest-growing and the most water-stressed area in the country. The proposed fens reservoir is important, but will provide water only for the already ambitious house building plans, not the thousands of new homes that the Government propose. Does the Prime Minister agree that the water crisis in Greater Cambridge is a deal-breaker for the Government’s growth plans, and will he, as a matter of urgency, help me to convene a ministerial roundtable with the Cambridge water scarcity group?

Keir Starmer Portrait The Prime Minister
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The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the drought and, more generally, the question of reservoirs. It is shocking that a new reservoir has not been built for a very, very long time—none at all in the previous 14 years. We are building now, and we are doing that alongside the infrastructure and housing that we also need to build. We will work across the House on that.