Sir Julian Lewis: I would like to record my appreciation of the consistent campaign waged by the hon. and gallant Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), which included bringing the real-life activists on whom the “Dirty Business” docudrama series was based to the House of Commons where we could meet them. I noted what the Minister said in her reply to him about no new reservoirs being built. Does she think any new reservoirs could ever be built without direct Government intervention?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy): The right hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. One of the things we have been doing through the water delivery taskforce is looking at all the potential barriers in the way of just getting stuff done. That is why it is so important that we have MHCLG on the taskforce alongside DEFRA, because it is about the question not just of financing but of planning. Everybody seems to want reservoirs, but lots of people do not seem to want them to be built – that part of it seems to be the difficulty.

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. We have had to intervene more to look at where the blockages are, at the problems we come up against when we try to get something built, and at how we as the Government can remove some of them so that we can get on with it. We know the climate is changing – we know we are going to have wetter winters and drier summers – so this is becoming even more urgent.]