Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to reduce water (a) usage and (b) bills in his Office; and if he will make a statement.

The Cabinet Office is committed to reducing the water consumption of its buildings. To date, my department has reduced its water consumption by 17.9% since 2009. Government is rationalising its estate, reducing the total number of properties, intensified occupation in remaining buildings and consequently reduced water usage and bills across the department.

Within the reduced estate, the Cabinet Office has introduced water reduction measures. These include motion-activated taps; removing unnecessary storage tanks and headers; and, installing additional metering and real time data to assist in monitoring of consumption to detect irregular usage patterns that could possibly be leakage.