We are going to move on to drought responses and water resilience. Sarah, you are going to lead here.

You are right, it has been an incredible time: the driest spring in England since 1893 and the hottest June on record. As well as talking about this year, with the way the climate is changing I am making the presumption that this is going to be a more regular thing that happens each summer. In terms of the immediate action, I attend the National Drought Group that meets every month, which is everyone you can think of coming together to talk about what the plans are for dealing with drought. That is more in the immediate short term: the solutions for here and now. To answer your question about basically how we create a more resilient water system—my vision for the industry is that it works and works effectively—one way is looking at where we store water; so how we support farmers in terms of being able to store water on their own land for drought. We have a situation where we spend winter trying to remove the water because we have had too much flooding, and then we spend summer wishing we had more water. On a very basic level there needs to be a way of storing more of the water we want—that is why reservoirs are so important—but we also need sustainable urban drainage. There is a whole range of things that we need. The way I am addressing it is not just about how you deal with drought, it is how you make our water system more resilient to our changing climate; that is what we need to be thinking about and focusing on. A big project is reservoirs but there are also other things that we could do on a more local level, as I say, including how we support farmers in holding more water on their farms.

Obviously I was not here in 2022, so I might ask David—who was the official in 2022—to answer that one for me.

Every drought is different, but my sense is that this one has been better prepared for. That is partly due to all parties learning some lessons from 2022 and making sure that, for example, companies were ready with their drought permit applications so that they could apply them when they needed them and were not behind the curve. They also did all they could to plan and communicate with their customers ahead of needing to put in temporary use bans and so on. My sense is that it has gone a little better, but the situation is still very difficult, especially a bit further north and west of you where the water resources are in a difficult situation.

The National Drought Group—which the Minister sits on—is the centrepiece for all that and has really great analysis going into it to support all those different groups in taking the right decisions.

When temporary use bans—hosepipe bans—come in, I am really keen to communicate and explain why to the people who are having to abide by them. I am not sure that is always communicated well enough in terms of the huge impact the drought has had on farmers, livestock, nature, chalk streams, fish and so on. When we ask people to make a sacrifice by not using their hosepipes or changing their behaviour in terms of water use, I would like to communicate more effectively to the general public that this is not about doing the water company a favour; this is actually about helping to protect our environment and support farmers, and making sure that we have all the water that we need for our critical infrastructure. I am probably sharing too much but that was one of my thoughts on it: tackling drought has to be a team effort with everyone understanding that if we are going to see this more frequently, we need to start thinking more than we ever have before about how we all use water.

Yes, absolutely. There are some things that we are looking at changing. One is around water efficiency of your white goods and things like that, and how we are using water more efficiently than we have in the past. We need water-efficiency labelling as well so that if customers are going to buy a new washing machine, they might be looking at, “Oh, this one’s more water efficient; I’d like to look at choosing that,” so we can have that more informed debate and can all think about our water usage and how we are going to use it. As I say, this is not just about us as people but the wider impact of not having enough water. But we need those long-term things as well: we need to get those reservoirs built. Another big priority is tackling leaks; we lose an awful lot of water to leaks. If it is not too early to start talking about it, we also need to deal with leaky loos; I was amazed by how much water is lost with the number of leaky loos. I have now become one of those people who go into a public toilet and the loo is leaking and say, “That is terrible.” Before this brief I used to love dry summers and now I hate them, but I also hate leaky loos. Again, it is having that wider conversation, that this is something we need to be involved with as a team, and we need to all be thinking about our use of water because our climate is changing.

I was at the East Suffolk Water Abstractors Group—ESWAG— last week, so it is very timely to have this conversation. I know ESWAG will be delighted with the recognition that you just made about valuing food security and not just talking about water as the public good point but having a broader view on it. To that point, I just want to dig a little deeper on the assessment of the value of water: how it is valued and if the Department has looked at that. ESWAG came out with a report this week looking at the value of water in Suffolk and Norfolk. As you know, we are a dry region and with all the cuts to licences and abstractions, the impact that could have over a 20-year period on our regional economy—the supply chain, agriculture and the wider rural economy—could be anything from £1.2 billion up to £2.3 billion. I am just wondering if, as a Department, you have looked at the value of water and how that interplays across a whole range of different sectors?

You are absolutely right and as I say, it underpins everything. I am genuinely pleased to still be here because water is so fundamentally important to absolutely everything, and we only realise its fundamental importance when we have had the driest spring since 1893. Water resilience is one of my top priorities and we are looking at all these reforms, the White Paper and the water industry, but fundamentally how we as a country make ourselves more resilient to our changing climate. What is happening with water has to be really key and that is looking at addressing assets, asset health, how we move water around, leakage and customer behaviour. They all need to be taken into account because—like with many things we might say, Chair—we only truly value things when we do not have them.

Earlier you made the point that in your new role you now worry about dry summers; I also worry about dry summers as mine is a rural constituency with lots of farmers, and the moment it rains I am terrified of flooding. It is this continual battle of being out of kilter with it. I want to talk more about abstractions. I have met with many farmers in East Suffolk—around 100 at the weekend—who have raised continual issues with licencing. We have abstraction licences that are being revoked or taken away but there is no certainty with timings for that. We now know that eventually lots of farmers in my area will not be able to extract water. They are getting their heads around that and are being incredibly agile in the solutions they are bringing forward. I just want to raise a few examples with you but I also want to talk about some challenges we have seen in the system. One man’s flood is another man’s opportunity, and when we have wet winters in my constituency—I know this is true across the country—what more could we be doing to collect that rainwater? I know that my constituent farmers have had many conversations with the EA about that over the years, and it has just gone into a spiralling, slow conversation that never allows them to take advantage of that rainwater. What more can we do to look at those EA licences to abstract that rainwater and hold it in reservoirs or potentially in other ways in order that we can avoid the impact of flooding, which would be a win-win for farming as well?

You are completely and utterly right, and that is part of being more resilient; if you can hold the rainwater when it falls, that makes you more resilient for the drier summers. I know the EA has been piloting some examples around the country, looking at what more it can do to support farmers in helping with that resilience. There is some work ongoing, and I am happy to send details in or chat to you more about it later. You are right on the abstraction, and that is simply that the Environment Agency always needs to weigh up what is happening with the environment as well as the needs of farmers, and it is always really difficult. I know farmers are finding it very hard to take out root vegetable crops without bruising them, particularly at the moment, because the ground is so hard. I am very live to that current concern that farmers have, and I want to recognise, Chair, that they have had a horrific year with the floods, followed by the drought. In the Department I talk about what I call the management of water, and David has had me bend his ear many times about how we effectively manage water in an area when we have too much and when we have too little. That is what we need to be thinking about.

Just quickly a bit more on abstractions: we obviously have heard many concerns about the abstraction licences, that they are being poorly monitored and poorly enforced. What are the timescales, if any, for reform of that system?

I am happy to go away and look at the examples of where they have been badly monitored and badly enforced and get back to you on those specifics, if that is okay?

Thank you. Before I hand over, Chair, can I just mention two incredible schemes in my constituency, which I would be really keen to talk to you about further. One is the Hydrocycle in Felixstowe, which you may be aware of. It is a programme that has inspired many others and is a genuine opportunity. It was brought about by six farmers coming together, working really well with the EA and other stakeholder organisations. It basically recycles groundwater, or rainwater to a certain extent, during the winter and stores it on the farms. We are obviously a flood risk area but also a coastal area and the vast majority of that water—if not all—was being pumped into the North Sea. So it is a win-win as the pumping of it into the North Sea also facilitated or accelerated erosion, but we are also able to support farmers across a whole footprint. I would love to share that more with you and get your opinions on it. I would also like to mention managed aquifer recharge, which is being talked about more in my constituency and people are starting to trial it. It is a subterranean reservoir: taking water and storing it underground—essentially within the water table—rather than above ground and then pumping it back up. The physical footprint of it is much smaller, and from a planning perspective it is much easier. I would be really delighted to share those two with you and perhaps even see if we can get you down to do a visit. Those are two initiatives that the farmers are working incredibly closely with the EA and other stakeholders on and are the best examples of innovation.

I love it; that sounds super exciting and a perfect example of where we want to be. It is completely about building resilience and everyone becoming more resilient, is it not? I will have to don my wellies and come and visit you.

Just before I bring in Helena, you have moved a place where farmers in particular are going to be the people investing in on-site reservoirs and that sort of stuff. This could be chunky money for some of them. Is there going to be any help from the Government on that?

I do not want to give you a picture that I am imagining a huge reservoir on farms, more like the examples Jenny has given where they are able to store water more effectively on their farms. I do not want to give the wrong impression.

No, we are not looking at lakes.

Are you talking about whether there is funding available generally to make the farms more resilient?

Yes.

I would have to talk to my farming colleagues about funding opportunities if that is all right?

Okay, we will come back to that then. Helena, you had a question before we move on to climate.

Minister, I just wanted to ask briefly about the issue of landslips, which is an issue that is increasingly affecting more and more of our constituents. We know that it is something that will increase with climate change as well. When landslips are happening, it is having a really devastating impact for the residents affected, their homes and properties, and they often feel like they are completely on their own. It feels like the issue of landslips is one that falls between gaps in policy legislation and guidelines, and it is really tough for those residents. I have had concerns from a number of residents in St Leonards—my constituency—Rye and Fairlight, and I know other coastal colleagues have experienced the same. We are going to be looking at it as a Committee and taking evidence on it to look at the issue in depth. One area that has been suggested to help alleviate the impact for residents is looking at the insurance scheme that people are able to access. Minister, you will know that Flood Re insurance exists for residents who cannot get home insurance because they live in an area that is at such high risk of floods. There has been a suggestion that the Government could also look at providing a similar format of insurance for residents who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being impacted by a landslip. So I would just put that suggestion to you, and it would be good to get your commitment to work on the issue of landslips going forward.

There are no current plans to open the eligibility around Flood Re. But you are right: it is one of those issues that ends up falling between lots of different people’s responsibilities, so I therefore wonder if a better answer would be for myself and the Ministers from the relevant Departments to sit and have a conversation with you about it. Obviously different people are responsible for different things and insurance comes under Treasury, but you are right to highlight it as one of those things that falls between. Rather than me giving you a passing answer now, we should have a look at it with the relevant people in the room.

We have the inquiry coming up so consider that a marker duly planted. We are going to move on to the question of climate adaptation. Sarah, you are going to lead on that.

Good morning, Minister. I just wanted to ask you a little more about how DEFRA intends to improve cross-government working on climate adaptation. To start, in a letter to this Committee on 3 March, the Secretary of State said that the Government were, “Committed to strengthening the nation’s resilience” and were considering ways of embedding climate adaption across Government. Can you tell me a little more about where you are on those plans now please?

Yes, of course. As I say, a huge focus is on resilience to the changing climate in terms of water, but one of the most meaningful things is the changes around the Green Book. I know the ears of some people who work for local government prick up whenever you mention the Green Book—other people might not be quite as excited by it—but these are the rules and regulations in terms of what is going to be built where. Since April 2025 we have had to look at anything that is now built in this country to see that it is resilient to the present and future effects of climate change. If you are building a new hospital somewhere, you now have to consider and take into account overheating as well as obviously flooding. This means that with all the wonderful things we have been announcing in our 10-year infrastructure strategy, climate resilience is now in there as a core thread running through it all. We have a hugely ambitious plan for what we want to do over the next 10 years. If you are building new infrastructure, you have to have climate resilience in there because—as we all agree—there is no point in building something that is not going to be effective for the climate we will be facing in the future. My particular focus is obviously on water resilience and flooding, but as I say, highlighting overheating is another one of the things that we are thinking about, and that is a fundamental change that did not exist previously. Another cross-government thing that is really exciting is that within each Department we have chief advisers on research, and we have brought all those people together to think about climate adaptation research and innovation frameworks. That means we have all the different Departments’ research working together on what we are going to do, and they are informing and advising decisions that are being made in Government. As this Government, we want to have a strong legacy going into the future in the things that we are creating and wanting to do, and fundamentally we have to make that climate resilient.

Practicality-wise, how are you going to make that plan work robustly cross-departmentally? Obviously the ambition is there, but how is that going to work on the ground?

In terms of the Green Book changes, they have happened so people have to go via the Green Book whenever they are doing anything, and they have to make it climate resilient. So that is done. In terms of the research, that was set up in April this year so it is active and working right now. We are also looking at what other climate assumptions there are; so when we say, “Making it climate resilient,” what assumptions we are making in terms of climate resilience to try to be more precise. For example, are we making an assumption in climate resilience to a 1.5-degree temperature rise? Are we making an assumption of it being more resilient to a certain level of flooding? What are the assumptions we are making? What is the definition of climate resilience? We have written to the Climate Change Committee to help shape what those assumptions should be so that when we are doing things across government and talking about climate resilience, everybody knows this is the metric or the measure we are looking at to determine whether something is or is not climate resilient.

I just wanted to move on to the resilience of land, nature and food against climate change. In its recent progress report to Parliament on climate adaptation, the Climate Change Committee was critical of some of the actions taken to support land, nature and food. Can you just tell me a little more about how the farming roadmap, the Farming Profitability Review and the national Land Use Framework for England will tackle these issues identified by the CCC?

Of course the roadmap is being led by the farming Minister but we are going to respond formally to the Climate Change Committee’s report. We will give a formal response to all the points that it has made and the work that it is doing. As we have seen and felt this year and have just been talking about with Sarah, a lack of resilience to climate change means that it is impacting our food: we have looked at the harvest yields this year and what has happened. My focus has to be on the broad objective of how we make it more resilient. There are varied specifics in how that relates to the different farming schemes that we have available and obviously that is the responsibility of the farming Minister.

The CCC goes on to say that, “Adaptation progress is either too slow, has stalled, or is heading in the wrong direction.” How would you explain that in terms of how your Department is working to overcome that?

We will respond formally but you take it on the chin and realise you have to work harder and do more, and that is exactly what we are trying to do. We take the report seriously and will respond formally. As I say, since then we have come out with a research plan and are making sure we have it in the 10-year infrastructure. I am hoping that the Climate Change Committee will see that we have taken what it has said seriously, and we are already taking action against it. Am I satisfied with everything we have been doing? Not yet. Do I think we need to do more? Yes.

We have already spoken a few times about farmers being able to develop their own infrastructure on-farm in terms of their resilience to drought. Legislative reforms could require farmers to adopt basic adaptation measures or give them more freedom to be able to do that, create these reservoirs and indeed other sources of water on-farm that are going to be absolutely key. Are the Government looking at how better regulation can improve food security?

My role would be looking at how we have a more resilient water system as a whole. As I say, that involves making sure that farmers have the water they need at the time they need it, so that is where I am seeing my role with this. You are right to point out that at the moment it has not been working. I know there are trials that are happening right now, but of course there are other things that we want to try to do, and I have been talking to farmers about it to see what kind of things they want. Quite a lot have talked about making sure they are able to store their own water where they need it and it is great to hear the example that is happening there.

Farmers are facing a lot of issues at the moment on a day-to-day basis, particularly with the halting of the SFI, which is really concerning for the industry. That is having an impact on how they farm, and they are now looking at the challenges coming forward. Many are saying that they want to be able to balance their work around nature, but that they also have no choice but to intensify their farming practices because of the pressures in farming. But there are lots of actions that farmers can take around nature-based flooding initiatives, for example, and that soft infrastructure base to help issues on flooding, but there is just not the incentive to be able to do that now. As we are looking at that around their farming mechanisms and the way they farm, that obviously has an impact on food but also on livestock and their profitability going forward. You have already mentioned the issues that farmers are having. I know that certainly farmers right across my patch—indeed my brother—are already feeding winter hay, and this is going to impact farmers going forward into future years, ultimately impacting their bottom line. As we are developing our thoughts on this, how are we going to make sure that the Government are improving resilience of food supply not only for livestock but then going through that whole food supply chain?

I can obviously speak to everything relating to water on your questions. Looking at the horrendous time farmers have with floods, we have the NFU on the Floods Resilience Taskforce looking at water pollution, and I really want farmers to feel like we are doing this with them. I know that there is willingness across the industry to try to look at how we deal with agricultural pollution and resilience. In terms of the exact details on how the farming roadmap will work, I am more than happy to talk to my colleague, the farming Minister, and get her to answer those specifics of the questions in terms of the different schemes that you have mentioned. My role is to work with farmers around agricultural pollution and water resilience, but I am very happy to pick up any specifics with the farming Minister.

Flood resilience in Somerset is obviously a really important factor. Certainly for the last few years, I have had farms that have spent six months underwater during the winter months, and then they are left in a terrible situation having to pick up from that. But by allowing their farmland to flood—by sacrificing their land—they understand they are then supporting thousands of homes downstream from flooding. Obviously there is an issue around compensation for them to do that. Recently and very worryingly—I have written to your office about this—the Environment Agency has written to riparian ratepayers telling them that in six months it is going to stop the funding in terms of maintenance of the rivers due to a lack of funding. Obviously this has caused a considerable amount of alarm from land and property owners surrounding those impacted watercourses in Somerset. I have been in touch with the Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium, which has also written to the Environment Agency on this issue to formally challenge the action. I would like to outline my concerns at this decision to stop the funding because it will only heighten the risk for flooding across Somerset. In my constituency of Glastonbury and Somerton it is absolutely crucial to continue the maintenance of the main rivers in Somerset to protect our homes and businesses from continued flooding. We do not have to go back too far—to 2013 and 2014—to really see when the impact was absolutely horrendous. The internal drainage boards, along with myself, have written to ask that the Environment Agency looks at halting this action right now and fulfilling its statutory obligations and the consultation properly because we do not believe that that has been done. That would also allow time for a joint working group to be developed to bring forward a sustainable path. I would ask you, Minister, what approach would you support to help us mitigate flooding in Somerset going forward?

Thank you for writing to me about this issue. I just want to recognise that I completely understand the fear people have: once you have been flooded I do not think you ever get over it, so I understand why it is a worry in your constituency. Speaking more generally—rather than about your specific case—I know that the EA is moving lots of maintenance into the high-consequence assets—the assets that would be horrifically devastating to huge numbers of people—because they were left in such a poor state previously. So it is having to look at some of those high-consequence assets for maintenance. For your specific example, I wonder whether it might be more helpful to get the IDB together with the EA, yourself and maybe myself in a room to look at what is happening here and if anything can be done. On a wider point, as I say, I know that the EA just has to prioritise those high-consequence assets across the country, but let us pick that up to see what can be done in your area.

I very much appreciate that, and the offer of a meeting is very welcome. On the other side, if you like, of drought and heat, wildfires have been a massive issue this summer as we have seen right across the country. Somerset has a considerable amount of peatland in it. Although we did not suffer with any wildfires this year, it is an issue that we need to take very seriously and design measures around how to mitigate those extremes of temperature, but also in terms of drought and flooding. I know that we have covered it to a degree here today, but could you just tell me a little more about what measures you as a Department are putting in place to develop actions on that?

I know my colleague, Minister Creagh, has been doing some work on the particulars around peatland and peatland management. I suppose the issue of wildfires probably comes more into farming, if I am being really honest with you. I talked before to Jenny about the management of water in that area and my vision for how we get to a system where we can effectively manage water in that area. Obviously, part of managing water in that area is soil and the ability to hold and retain water in different areas, which is where I am coming from.

But it is also maintenance of the rivers, is it not?

Of course.

And that is where I was coming from. Obviously if we are reducing our funding to be able to support the maintenance of those rivers, then that has a knock-on impact down the line.

Sorry, I misunderstood. You are quite right; we need to be able to manage all our water courses effectively. As I say, I am happy to pick up on the specifics in your area that you have mentioned, as I know how awful it was for the people who suffered with the floods last time.