Covid-19 halts Defra’s water efficiency work

Defra has explicitly stopped its work on water efficiency for the time being, while the department supports wider government efforts responding to Covid-19.

Its already delayed response to its 2019 consultation on personal water consumption was expected by the end of this year, but won’t now be published until 2021. The Defra team working on it has been redeployed to Covid and the department was understood to be concerned about securing the necessary time for procedures and measures implementation – which are expected to include on water labelling, building regulations and personal water use – in light of Covid (and Brexit) pressures.

The preparatory work was well developed and will be picked up after the period of pause unaffected. One exception is that work to develop a total water demand target to be enshrined in the Environment Bill will continue informally through the winter, before formally resuming in early 2021.

None of Defra’s other water policy work has as yet been affected by Covid related delays.