Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support increased on-farm water storage capacity to capture high winter flows for use during periods of lower water availability.

The Government encourages the use of reservoirs to store high winter flows. The Environment Agency (EA) have committed to review its approach to abstraction at high flows and its approach to long duration licences.

We are also taking the following measures to support the development of new on farm reservoirs to capture high-flow water after heavy rainfall:

• The EA supported Water Resources East to create a leaflet to help farmers developing on-farm storage.
• Our Local Resource Options studies are enabling small groups of farmers and growers to identify future water resilience projects in their areas including irrigation reservoirs.
• Defra officials are also working closely with MHCLG to clarify planning practice for permitted development rights to support the creation of on farm reservoirs.