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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has considered the potential merits of including more water efficiency measures in the Greening Government Commitments.

The Greening Government Commitments set out water efficiency measures that UK Government departments and their agencies will take to reduce impacts on the environment in the period 2021-25.

The current commitment is to reduce water consumption by at least 8% by 2025 from the 2017 to 2018 baseline. In 2021, the Government achieved reductions of 14% water usage (against a 2014 to 2015 baseline) saving an estimated £10.4 million in 2020 to 2021.

We will review this commitment and how it will deliver our water demand target under the Environment Act 2021 to reduce the use of public water supply by 20% per person by 2038.