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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department holds data on pilot schemes that have reduced water usage to 85 litres per person per day.

In Cambridge, we are allocating £9 million – including £5 million of new funding – to improve the barrier of water scarcity and accelerate the new Cambridge Delivery Group. The Government is working closely with Cambridge and North Sussex local authorities to learn from their experiences and has committed to developing water positive guidance, working with Ofwat on its environmental incentives and reviewing the building regulations to support developers to be water efficient.

The Building Regulations 2010 allow for tighter standards to be adopted through locally led voluntary agreements between the Lead Planning Authority and developers. Examples of these include individual developments, such as Eddington in Cambridge, which has been designed to a much tighter standard (80l/p/d). The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has not conducted any pilot schemes and does not hold any data. In the Environmental Improvement Plan roadmap on water efficiency in new developments and retrofits, Defra committed to reviewing the aspects of Building Regulations 2010 pertaining to water efficiency (regulation 36 and Part G2, H1, H2, H3 of Schedule 1).