Following an inquiry into EU freshwater policy, peers concluded urgent action was needed to safeguard water quality and availability in the UK and across Europe.
Reform of the UK abstraction regime cannot wait until the mid-2020s as government plans, they said.
“The issue of water scarcity is becoming increasingly urgent,” said committee chair Lord Carter of Coles. “Governments across the EU need to act decisively, and grasp the nettle of allowing the cost of water to rise where other measures fail to overcome water scarcity.
“Here in the UK, the government cannot wait 15 years to reform the water abstraction regime when it is clear that over-abstraction is already doing ecological damage to more than one in 10 of our rivers.”
The report went on to recommend that local stakeholders be given more of a say on issues affecting river catchments, in order to reconnect them with the value of water.
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