Brits warned drinking water could run out in some areas in just TEN years thanks to mass immigration
New laws will also fast-track all future reservoirs as Britain races to keep the taps on
DROUGHT OF ORDER Brits warned drinking water could run out in some areas in just TEN years thanks to mass immigration
MASS immigration means areas of Britain face running out of drinking water in just ten years, ministers have warned.
Fears over shortages have forced Environment Secretary Steve Reed to seize control of the planning system and force through two new giant reservoirs.
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Areas of Britain face running out of drinking water in just ten years
Credit: Getty
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Water Minister Emma Hardy says 'unprecedented steps' are now being taken
Credit: Gov.UK
The emergency projects in East Anglia and Lincolnshire have been declared 'nationally significant', stripping local authorities of the power to stop them.
New laws will also fast-track all future reservoirs, cutting red tape, as Britain races to keep the taps on.
The Government admitted rapid population growth, crumbling infrastructure and climate pressure are all pushing the country towards a water supply crisis.
Water Minister Emma Hardy said: 'Britain is running out of drinking water.
"In fact, because of years of underinvestment under the Conservatives, areas of the country will run out of drinking water by the middle of the next decade.
'We are taking these unprecedented steps to get reservoirs built and secure our drinking water supplies for the decades to come.'
Net migration has halved over the past year to 431,000 — but only after hitting a record 906,000 in 2023.
The Lincolnshire reservoir, south of Sleaford, will pump out 166million litres a day, enough for 500,000 homes or 664million cups of tea.
And the Fens reservoir, near Chatteris and March, Cambs, will supply 87million litres to 250,000 homes in Britain's driest region.
Both projects are entering consultation. Lincolnshire's is expected to be completed by 2040 and Cambridgeshire's by 2036.
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Thousands of homes in areas such as Cambridge and north Sussex are blocked from being built owing to water shortages.
And a dry spring has already depleted reservoirs. Haweswater in Cumbria is so low the outline of a village flooded to create it in 1939 has been revealed.
The two new reservoirs are part of a wider plan to create nine new sites, supplying an extra 670million litres of water a day across England.
Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins accused Labour of trying to cover up its immigration failures with panic measures.
'Panicked announcement'
She said: 'With Labour's shambolic farming policy and failure to grip immigration, it's no wonder they're making a panicked announcement about water supplies running low.'
She also criticised ministers for using rising population as an excuse to 'concrete over the green belt'.
PM Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to bring down net migration but has refused to set a target number.
His comments came as Labour unveiled rules that will double the time migrants must wait to settle in Britain, scrap care worker visas for overseas recruits and raise the bar for skilled jobs to degree level.
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Glasgow Times
28 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
We ask the Apprentice Boys of Derry what they stand for
For some, it is a celebration of culture history and identity for others, it is a display of bigotry and sectarianism better left in the past. The Apprentice Boys of Derry held their biggest Scottish parade of the year in Larkhall with more than 50 associated clubs, each with a band, taking to the streets, with many more following or watching from the side. READ NEXT:Rachel Reeves says Labour will end use of hotels for asylum seekers The Glasgow Times was invited by the organisation to come along and speak to its leaders to find out what it is all about. Larkhall's streets were decked out in red, white and blue for the day with Union flags hanging from lampposts, windows and in gardens along the route. Late morning in Birkenshaw Park, the parade was assembling, with groups from Glasgow, Lanarkshire and beyond. Men are meeting and greeting, shaking hands, dressed in suits and crimson collarettes, carrying white gloves and bowler hats. (Image: Colin Mearns) The flutes and drums were starting to be heard from the bands, the same bands that accompany Orange Order parades. (Image: Colin Mearns) READ NEXT:Rise in suspected drug deaths in Glasgow so far this year David Hoey, general secretary of the Associated Clubs of the Apprentice Boys of Derry, was in demand, being introduced to members from around Scotland. (Image: Colin Mearns) We asked him what the purpose of the organisation is, which has 52 branch clubs in Scotland and many in Glasgow, and what the parade is all about. He answered that it is 'principally, a historical, commemorative organisation.' He said: 'The organisation has as its main purpose to celebrate the siege of Derry and the brave 13, but particularly the two big events are: the shutting of the gates, which is usually December when the Gates of Londonderry were closed against the forces of King James and then the relief of Derry when the city was finally relieved after 105 day siege in August.' 'That,' he said, 'is the primary purpose'. Not everyone, however, can join and commemorate this historic event. Mr Hoey explains: 'The criteria for membership is male and Protestant.' 'In terms of local areas, people would have to know each other and be invited, or apply and they would have to be known. 'But other than that, there's no particular criteria.' The male-only element, he said, is a support network, a place for men to come together and help one another. Mr Hoey said: 'It's a good place to meet. I keep telling people when they ask about it being male, it's the biggest men's shed organisation available because men get together, they meet. 'We're getting a remarkable number of young members into the organisation now and I think they're in where they can get people they can learn from. He added: 'They can learn skills. You have to run an organisation, you get positions on committee. You organise some of the events, and you get some of the young people involved. 'So, it's very much people coming together to try and organise and to help each other.' (Image: Colin Mearns) As well as organising parades, he said branch clubs rea active in the community and fundraise for their benevolent fund. Asked what they do when not on parade, Mr Hoey joked they are "organising the next one". He added: "There's a lot of activity, but everything is really geared to the big days. "There's occasionally a church service, but it's predominantly for those two big days." The events from 1689 being celebrated, he said, are still relevant today. (Image: Colin Mearns) (Image: Colin Mearns) Mr Hoey said: 'I think it's largely identity and place, so it gives people a sense of belonging. 'There are a lot of the characteristics of those who were besieged, I think form the identity of the Protestant loyalist culture, if you like. 'And that's what people identify, the determination, the resilience, the preparedness to basically stick it out, but also to create dialogue, to try and change things as well. 'And we're very, very keen that we work outside.' The other exclusive criteria, the Protestant only rule, has led to claims of sectarianism and accusations of being anti-catholic. Mr Hoey said such claims are rooted in ignorance and said he and his organisation is willing to have dialogue to prevent any flashpoints at parades. (Image: Colin Mearns) The Larkhall parade passed with no incident but in Glasgow, there have been protests, particularly around passing a specific Roman Catholic church, and previously in Northern Ireland, there was well well-documented, high-profile, sustained and violent confrontation. Mr Hoey said: 'I think the biggest opposition comes from the people who are most ignorant of what it's all about and imagine some offence or imagine that it's against them. 'It's really not. It's for us.' On the anti-catholic accusation, he added: 'People who want to say that don't want the parades to happen and they're basically throwing or projecting sectarianism onto the parades, but they have no basis for saying that. 'This is a culture. It is on parade. It's not trying to offend anybody. It's simply walking down a very long street and being out and saying we are the association. 'We are remembering a very important part of British history and that is what the day is about. 'It's not about others or offending or anything else. It's about the identity of those people and saying this is us, we're out here having a good day with our brothers, with our friends, with our families watching.' He used the example of Northern Ireland to illustrate how communities can work together. Mr Hoey said: 'The association, 25 years ago, was the first to engage outside of itself, you know, to go to go into the Parades Commission, to work with the local community, to work with the business community because we had a really bad time with violent opposition in Londonderry and there was no violence back. 'Our approach was to engage, and I know here in Scotland the SAC (Scottish Amalgamated Committee) has been working closely with the Centre for Good Relations, again to try and open up avenues of dialogue. 'People say 'the other' but there are lots of communities in Scotland now.' They are, he said, willing to 'work in formal channels' and 'open up' as far as possible. He added, however, there are always people who just don't want you there, and it's very hard to talk to people who simply are impractically opposed and don't want to talk.' The approach in Northern Ireland, he said, took a long time but has worked but he said it is an ongoing process. He added: "We have kept working ever since because you can never stop on that process. Stopping is the worst thing you could do.' He said the willingness to engage must be a two-way process, adding: "You can do your best to reach out. But you know you hold out your hand, but if. Someone doesn't. Want to shake it's not our job to make them.'
Spectator
34 minutes ago
- Spectator
Could Donald Trump scrap Aukus?
America's policy undersecretary of defence, Elbridge Colby, is one of the brightest brains in Donald Trump's administration. Having served in the first Trump presidency, Colby has an outstanding reputation as a defence and strategic thinker. He is also, however, very much aligned with Trump's America First thinking in respect of foreign policy, and the United States' relationship with her allies. That would be a strategic disaster for Australia and Britain In tasking Colby on Wednesday with reviewing the Aukus nuclear submarine-centred strategic partnership between the US, the UK and Australia, the president sends a clear message to Britain and Australia: Aukus is part of his inheritance from Joe Biden, and its future therefore is far from assured. In a media statement, the Pentagon said: 'The department is reviewing Aukus as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president's America First agenda. As (Defense) Secretary (Pete) Hegseth has made clear, this means ensuring the highest readiness of our service members, that allies step up fully to do their part for collective defence, and that the defence industrial base is meeting our needs. This review will ensure the initiative meets these common sense, America First criteria.' Colby himself has been ambivalent about Aukus ever since it was established by Biden, and then Australian and British prime ministers, Scott Morrison and Rishi Sunak, in 2021. Addressing a Policy Exchange forum last year, Colby said he was 'quite sceptical' about the Aukus pact, and questioned its viability and ultimate benefits. In a more recent interview with the Australian newspaper, Colby said Aukus's Pillar 1 – the nuclear submarine programme under which Australia would purchase several Virginia-class boats, pending the acquisition of new generation UK-Australian Acute-class submarines – is 'very problematic'. He did say, however, that Pillar 2 – the sharing of military intelligence and technical know-how between the partners – 'is great, no problem'. Colby's long-standing concern is the US's ability to take on China if it ever comes to conflict in the Asia-Pacific, especially over Taiwan. 'How are we supposed to give away nuclear attack submarines in the years of the window of potential conflict with China?' he told the Australian. 'A nuclear attack submarine is the most important asset for a western Pacific fight, for Taiwan, conventionally. But we don't have enough, and we're not going to have enough.' If this is the starting position for Colby's review, its scepticism contradicts the steadfast commitment to Aukus from the current Australian and British Labour governments. Indeed, Britain's latest Strategic Defence Review places high priority on the Aukus partnership as an integral element of British strategic and force planning. Given Colby's previous form on Aukus, the review may well recommend scaling back or discontinuing the nuclear submarine Aukus pillar. But that would be a strategic disaster for Australia and Britain, let alone for Colby's own strategic vision, outlined in his 2021 book, of an 'anti-hegemonic coalition to contain the military ambitions of China', in which he specifically envisioned Australia. Arguably, it doesn't matter which country mans the attack nuclear submarines assigned to the Asia-Pacific theatre, as long as the boats are there. But will Colby see it that way? In Australia, however, the administration's announcement immediately set a cat amongst the pigeons. Currently, Australia spends just over two per cent of GDP on defence, and the Trump administration, including Colby, is pressuring on Australia to do far more. This month, Hegseth, told his Australian counterpart that Australia should be committing at least 3.5 per cent of GDP to ensure not just Aukus, but that her fighting personnel and ageing military hardware are fit for purpose and contributing commensurately to the Western alliance. After his face-to-face meeting with Hegseth, Australian defence minister Richard Marles seemed open to the suggestion. His prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is not. In his first major media appearance since his thumping election win a month ago, Albanese was asked whether the US could renege on supplying nuclear submarines to Australia if spending is deemed inadequate. 'Well, I think Australia should decide on what we spend on Australia's defence. Simple as that', Albanese replied. It hasn't escaped notice here that the Pentagon announced its Aukus review less than 48 hours after Albanese made his declaration, and just days before the Australian prime minister is expected to have his first personal meeting with Trump at the G7 Leaders' Summit in Canada. That meeting, carrying the risk of a public Trump rebuke, surely will be dreaded by Albanese. Dealing with the Americans' insistence on a near-doubling of Australia's defence investment is politically diabolical for Albanese. He has just won re-election on a manifesto promising huge additional social investments, especially in Australia's version of the NHS and a fiscally ravenous National Disability Insurance Scheme. Albanese must keep his left-wing support base onside by expanding already huge public investments and subsidies in pursuing his government's ideological Net Zero and 100 per cent renewable energy goals. All that on top of a burgeoning national debt. To achieve Nato's GDP defence spending target of 3 per cent, let alone Hegseth's 3.5, something has to give. Albanese cannot deliver both massive social spending and vast defence outlays: to keep the Americans happy, and justify the continuation of both Aukus pillars, he will need to either prove himself a Bismarck-calibre statesman, or risk electoral wrath if he retreats on his domestic spending promises, and cuts existing programmes across his government, to afford adequate defence spending headroom. Australia needs America to be a strong ally in our troubled region, but the United States needs steadfast allies like Australia and Britain. Now the administration's scepticism about Aukus's value to the US is officially on the table, with a review entrusted to its biggest Aukus sceptic in Elbridge Colby, Australia and Britain must justify why all aspects of the partnership are a worthwhile investment with them, as America's partners, committed to playing their part in full. How well they do it will be a measure of their political and diplomatic competence.
The Herald Scotland
38 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Should Scotland blindly follow England down the nuclear power path?
She didn't add 'top that, Swinney,' but a gauntlet was unmistakeably proffered. Jobs, apprenticeships, investment – oh, and it's low carbon too: Labour's sales pitch on nuclear power is a challenge to the SNP's 'no new nuclear' policy (conveniently overlooking that the decision to prevent new nuclear was originally taken by the Labour-Lib Dem coalition). Backing new nuclear power hits two spots for Labour – one, it helps with energy security, providing a low carbon baseload power source for when the wind isn't blowing, and two, it will create jobs and rather a lot of them (10,000 at Sizewell C in Suffolk, Reeves claims, including 1,500 apprenticeships). Read more Rebecca McQuillan This is all music to the ears of traditional Labour supporters who are disorientated by the ongoing retreat from traditional industry, alarmed about the wind-down of oil and gas, and sceptical about the capacity of the renewables sector to replace lost jobs. We hear you, the Chancellor is saying. Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary, has been out reminding people that the SNP is refusing to allow Scotland to benefit from any of this munificence. On the face of it, the SNP's anti-nuclear power stance has become radioactive. But that's only on a narrow reading of the issue. There's more to it than that. The Scottish Government has a long-standing objection to nuclear power mainly on environmental grounds. Those objections are not daft – to this day, governments around the world are vexed by the question of how to dispose safely of highly dangerous radioactive waste. Accidents at nuclear power plants can be catastrophic. More immediately, building new nuclear capacity is also infamously expensive and costs are prone to rise, often astronomically, during the build phase. Hinckley Point C in Somerset, which is currently being built by EDF Energy, was initially projected to cost £18bn but last year EDF estimated it could end up costing up to £46bn. It's also several years late. The Government's £14.2bn projected spend on Sizewell C is only for the next four years, with overall costs officially expected to top out at £20bn, but industry experts suggest £40bn would be more realistic. The UK Government's own figures suggest power from nuclear costs two to three times more than wind power per megawatt hour. Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Image: free) So the Scottish Government aren't wrong to be holding back on nuclear, economically as well as environmentally. Focusing on renewables output is cheaper, cleaner and quicker to bring on stream, as well as producing lasting employment. But wind power and solar won't be enough, on their own, to meet all of Scotland's energy needs. To do that, Scotland needs reliable baseload power generation. The wind blows hard in the North Sea off Scotland but even sailing boats on the Moray Firth are becalmed sometimes. So how can Scotland cover its baseload power needs? That's the question that has yet to be answered clearly. Scottish ministers need a convincing plan or risk losing the argument by default. Yesterday Gillian Martin, the energy secretary, reiterated the no new nuclear stance and cited hydro power stations as 'a way of filling in any gaps in the generation of power". And why not? Scotland already has 88 per cent of the UK's hydro capacity. This country has different geography and a much smaller population than England. England might need to replace its ageing nuclear reactors, but does Scotland? It only has one still operating. It makes sense to check first that we can't meet our baseload power needs from renewables before jumping on the nuclear bandwagon. Pumped hydro storage is one option and is proven tech. Water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one during times when renewable electricity is plentiful so that it can be let down through the turbines again to generate electricity when there's a power shortfall. A large scale pumped hydro scheme already being developed at Coire Glas by SSE Renewables would have 30GWh of storage, doubling Britain's electricity storage capacity. But how many pumped hydro plants would we need? Where would they be? Would they get through planning? How long would they take? The Scottish Government hasn't said. It has urged the UK government to provide better conditions for investment but details are scant. Read more Scottish ministers have also talked about the importance of 'grid-scale batteries' and vehicle-to-grid technology, allowing car batteries to store power and supply it back to the grid. They talk about the role of green hydrogen in 'long term and large scale' energy storage, but we need more details. Reeves has given the green light at last to the Acorn Project carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in Peterhead, providing 'development funding'. The facility would collect carbon dioxide generated from gas-fired power generation and industrial sources, and store it underground. Environmental campaigners say its assumed benefits are hugely exaggerated, but it's backed by the independent Climate Change Committee and the Scottish Government. Either way, it will take years to get up and running. An aspiration for more hydropower investment, aspirational talk of batteries and hydrogen, and support for CCS is not a concrete plan. There's a strong argument to avoid saddling Scottish people with expensive nuclear power generation when energy security could be provided through cheaper, faster, cleaner methods, but the Scottish Government needs to show the way with a robust clear plan, and fast. Otherwise it's advantage Labour. Rebecca McQuillan is a journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on Bluesky at @ and on X at @BecMcQ
