The Environment and Climate Change Committee is calling on the government to take urgent action to improve drought resilience.
In its ‘Surviving drought: reclaim the rain’ report, it notes that England is on course for a public water supply deficit of 5 billion litres a day by 2055. Without mitigation, drought will grow as a real and regular threat to our society.
This report, ‘Surviving drought: reclaim the rain’, was written in the context of drought recovery. As England’s aquifers and reservoirs slowly restocked after the 2025 drought, the House of Lords Committee on the Environment and Climate Change investigated whether England is ready to face the droughts of the future, or whether the taps really could run dry.
The frequency and severity of drought is predicted to increase as a result of global warming, which affects rainfall patterns and temperature. Drought and its impacts cannot be separated from the demand and supply balance of the water system. Without substantial mitigation and a renewed focus on a coordinated whole-of-society approach to drought, England may find itself running out of our most precious resource – water.
The report is calling on the Government to:
- Conduct a full economic and environmental assessment for each of their future drought scenarios to enable the cost of drought mitigation to be balanced against the threat that drought poses to our economy and ecosystems.
- Invest in drought data collection and sharing so that all relevant stakeholders are armed with the information they need at the earliest possible opportunity, including creating a drought monitoring portal which can be used by national, regional and local drought responders to trigger early mitigation action before drought impacts manifest.
- Publish a prioritisation plan for an emergency drought situation by no later than autumn 2026. The plan should be clearly communicated to all sectors and stakeholders, including the public, to ensure that they can prepare accordingly.
- Foster a whole of society approach to drought management by ensuring a year-round engagement plan on water use is in place by December 2026.
- Reduce potable water demand by strengthening Part G of the Building Regulations 2010 to require new homes to achieve a maximum water usage of 105 litres per person per day, accelerating the uptake of grey water reuse in new builds, and working with regulators to provide incentives for households and businesses to implement water efficiency and water reuse measures.
- Make water companies statutory consultees on all major planning decisions, including housing developments, data centres, and energy infrastructure projects, to support water resource planning and ensure future water needs are accounted for.
- Increase water storage by ensuring large reservoirs are delivered and clarifying what support will be given to enable local water supply options, such as smaller reservoirs on farms, golf courses and other appropriate spaces.
- Strengthen roles and responsibilities, including expanding the remit of Internal Drainage Boards to include wider water resource management, clarifying how new Water Abstractor Groups will be established and empowering local abstractors to deliver local resource options, and giving Regional Water Resource Groups statutory authority and clearer guidelines.
- Modernise and streamline drought permitting and abstraction processes, including specifying the date by which it plans to move abstraction licensing into the Environmental Permitting Regime (EPR).
- Prioritise nature-based solutions (NbS) in both the urban and rural environment as a first line of defence to manage the increasing risk of both flooding and drought
Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee Baroness Sheehan, said: “There is nothing more vital to life in England than water. It is the bedrock of every form of life.
“England is at risk of sleepwalking into serious water scarcity if the Government does not act now to safeguard the water system. Water scarcity is not only a problem for public water supply. If we get this wrong, our ecosystem could change beyond recognition, the flora and fauna that depend on water are threatened.
“This report represents a warning to the Government. The time to act is now. However, it also offers affordable and realistic recommendations which would, if taken up in their entirety, represent a major step towards safeguarding our water future. At its heart, our report calls for a whole-of-society approach to drought. Every part of civil society be it business, government and the general population have a part to play in safeguarding our water supplies.
“The drought challenge that we face today is a fight that we can win. However, securing our water safety will require long-term planning and sustained communication to bring England’s population on the journey to a more resilient future.”
