But we in Blackburn, despite, I should have thought, a quite adequate supply of rainwater, are always on the edge of a Water Crisis.

This might mean a Water Crisis in Blackburn as there is in Blackpool and that area.

So one reads in the local newspaper, the Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News of 1st July, the heading "Water Crisis.

It may be that this will intensify a Water Crisis.

In deciding how far to back this experiment, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, if successful, it could help to call a halt to the progressive inundation of our countryside by reservoirs, could help to avert the Water Crisis threatened for the South-East in the 1980s, and could make a contribution to the dry coastal areas of the developing countries?

Clause1, which gives water conservation powers, will be invoked in the precautionary stage - in the run-up to a Water Crisis.

secondly, one of the causes of global warming—the internal combustion engine; and, thirdly, the effect of global warming on the Water Crisis.

I want to discuss three subjects: first, chlorofluorocarbons; secondly, one of the causes of global warming - the internal combustion engine; and, thirdly, the effect of global warming on the Water Crisis.

My last point is about the Water Crisis.

Is the Minister aware of something of which I learned just before coming into the Chamber - the declaration of a Water Crisis in Somaliland, made by the presidency in a press release only yesterday?

I will say a few words about the declaration of a Water Crisis.

Our policy on improving water (and sanitation) services is set out in the recently published strategy paper "Addressing the Water Crisis".

Hilary Benn: The DFID strategy paper "Addressing the Water Crisis" identifies the increasing potential for conflict as water demand rises.

Clare Short: My Department promoted the target of reducing by half the proportion of people without access to hygienic sanitation facilities by 2015 in the run up to the Johannesburg Summit and adopted it in our Target Strategy Paper 'Addressing the Water Crisis', produced in March 2001.

DFID adopted the target of reducing by half the proportion of people without access to hygienic sanitation facilities by 2015 in the Target Strategy Paper 'Addressing the Water Crisis', produced in March 2001.

Among the conclusions offered - and this in some ways ties in with what the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, spoke about - was that climate warming will alter the snow levels in the American mountains and precipitate a Water Crisis in the western United States within 20 years.

The worry is that the Government are in danger of making the Water Crisis, if it becomes that over the summer, even worse.

One can envisage circumstances in which a Secretary of State for the Environment, faced with a Water Crisis in the eastern part of the country, because water comes via the Severn system into the Trent and is transferred even into East Anglia, might feel that the situation was so urgent that he was tempted to be insensitive to feelings in Wales.

In the light of yesterday's report from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, does the Prime Minister now accept that my constituents are right in believing that the huge number of extra homes being foisted on the south-east by the Deputy Prime Minister will make the Current Water Crisis even worse?

Is it not time that the House fully debated the Water Crisis facing the south-east - not least because it could result in a very large hole being dug in my constituency?

The Minister will recall that, during the statement in the House a couple of weeks ago, he bizarrely told me that my constituents and I were wrong and that the large number of houses being built in the south-east would have almost no impact on the Current Water Crisis.

In part, to solve This Water Crisis, companies, particularly in the south-east, are projected to build five new reservoirs and extend three of the existing ones in the next 25 years.

Of all the countries in the world, Britain should not be precipitating itself into a Water Crisis.

As is now widely recognised, continuing climate change will exacerbate the Water Crisis in arid regions of the Middle East.