Do we need another ‘Minister for Drought’ ?

 On present evidence, we just might…..

Those of us old enough to remember the excesses of the 1970s will recall one of the most notable of its meteorological ones - the ‘great drought’ of ’76.

Contrary to popular belief, this was more extensive and prolonged than the current one, with both a dry autumn and winter in 1975 and a dry spring in 1976 contributing.  In June 1976 there was actually a period of two weeks where maximum temperatures in southern England never fell below 32oC, and we haven't seen anything that prolonged this year - yet. The prolonged nature of the 1976 heatwave, and the following dry, hot period which continued until early August, resulted in severe consequences for crops and domestic  water supplies, with taps in some areas actually running dry. This culminated in the Drought Act being rushed through parliament on 5^th August. This legislation  included more draconian water restrictions, installation of standpipes, water bowsers, etc.

….and the appointment of Dennis Howells as ‘Minister for Drought’ by the then PM, Jim Callaghan.

Dennis took his role very seriously from the start, and amongst other things, threatened water rationing lasting until December of that year (see any parallels with 2022, anyone ?).

This blatant interference with their remit obviously nettled the ‘Weather Gods’, because – lo and behold - the following week it poured… for 10 whole days.

Howells was promptly re-christened ‘Minister for Floods’ and sank (fortunately not literally !) into obscurity quite quickly thereafter amidst the cleaning up operations following the widespread flooding.

Our climate certainly does have ‘form’ for extreme behaviour, and we should remember this when designating the current series of heatwaves as 'unprecedented'. We have actually been here before, albeit not with such extreme temperatures as we saw in July '22.

Should our current PM therefore take a leaf out of Callaghan’s book and appoint a Minister for Drought - while he still can ?

It’s unlikely to do any harm, and might just awake the ‘Weather Gods’ once again from their current and seemingly protracted slumbers.

Who in their right minds, however, would willingly take on the task – and the responsibility, in the current political vacuum ?

Starmer could, of course, take on the role himself, now he has returned from his latest globetrotting trip. He might well be resistant to this, however, given his current predicament following the local election debacle and the recent 'pre-coup' by his increasingly bolshie back-benchers (might be a good idea to give the hundred or so that threatened to rebel last week of them the joint responsibility of ensuring it rains!).

Alternatively, to make things a bit more interesting, he could assign the job to each of his cabinet as a test of their effectiveness at 'making things happen'. The Party could then assess their respective performance and use it to determine who to vote for on the basis of who managed to make it rain first….

Joking apart, though, we do need to think outside the box here regarding our future water supplies.

A quick look at today’s weather charts shows yet again no sign of any substantial rain totals south of the Humber over the summer so far. Even if we do get a sprinkling this weekend as forecast, the anticyclonic spell is slated to return after the schools break up with prospects of drought continuing over the high summer period. Reservoir levels are already dangerously low in some areas and we are likely to be short of water in the whole of Southern England for some time to come, given the deficit that has built up over the last few months. Recent estimates by the water authorities are than 3 months virtually continuous rain would be needed just to fill up our reservoirs and the water tables to pre 2021 levels. 

Whatever one's interpretation of the causes of the current phase of rapid inter-glacial planetary warming, our UK climate is becoming warmer...and drier (see recent blog for more in depth analysis). This change applies to all seasons of the year, not just summer. We should therefore expect periodic droughts to recur with increasing frequency in the years to come, which will result in chronic water shortages if we leave things as they are.

One possibility that we now need to consider urgently is a national water grid, similar to our electricity and gas grids. This possibility has already been considered by government but so far no progress has been made, largely on cost grounds. Large scale infrastructure projects such as this have always fallen prey to the short-termism that is rife within politics in a modern democracy, and this one is no exception.

Despite the current parched nature of the Midlands and South, there is still plenty of water in our northern UK reservoirs which could be piped southwards at times of increased need if the appropriate infrastructure were in place. The rainfall pattern has become  heavily skewed towards northern regions in recent years - the  northwest of Scotland, for example, has had up to 250mm of rain during the current 'drought', while some areas of the South East have had virtually nothing. 

The bulk of our population on the other hand is largely concentrated in the south eastern corner of our island, so it would make eminent sense to pipe water from North to South. If the Russians were  able to pipe gas thousands of miles from the Siberian gas fields to Western Europe to satisfy Germany's needs, we Brits should be capable of  coming up with a similar solution for our own water supplies, given the much shorter distances involved. It’s a shame that the effort recently put into constructing the Nordstream pipelines, one of which has never actually been used in anger, and is now more defunct after the recent sabotage,  could not have been redirected towards building a UK water grid. 

How should we go about funding this project ? 

Many billions have already been earmarked for HS2, which has barely started construction, and is not expected to be fully 'on stream' until the mid 2030s (and that's without the inevitable delays and cost-overruns that will occur). This project has been described both as a 'white elephant' and a 'monument to political vanity', with its sole apparent benefit being to cut the journey time from London to Birmingham by half an hour or so. By the time it comes on stream, rail fares will have risen so far that the 'man in the street' would need a small mortgage to afford to travel on it, so it's likely that it will be under-subscribed from the start, and it may well turn out to be a chronic loss-maker. 

Could some of the funds for this (at best questionable) enterprise not be redirected to ensuring our water supplies for future generations ? Simply putting HS2 on hold for the next few years while the main arterial north-south pipeline is built could achieve something really useful, both for us and future generations, who may otherwise be faced with perpetual water shortages as a result of the vanity of successive governments of the past 2 decades. We could then re-assess the fate of HS2 and decide whether the concept had any real value for the 2030s, particularly in the light of the then fast approaching 'net zero by 2050' deadline (now itself in some doubt, thanks to Trump et.al.)

Much has been made in the press during the recent hot spell about the contribution of water leakage to our supply deficit. In my view this is a side-issue. There will always be a measure of leakage in any water supply system. This is virtually impossible to avoid and increasingly expensive to remedy given the inaccessibility of the offending, and often elderly, pipework. Obviously acute and costly leakage events such as burst water mains should of course be promptly remedied, but chasing every last small leak just isn't practicable - or an efficient way of boosting our supplies. A candid interview with any water supply company executive will confirm this.

The main issue for the UK is how well we capture such rain that does fall. An outside observer might be forgiven for describing current arrangements as 'primitive' or even  'lamentable'. Given the size and distribution of our population, we simply don't have enough reservoir capacity in the overpopulated South to tide us over during periodic dry periods now, let alone in a much drier future. We are indeed still favoured in these islands with copious supplies of rain, - comparatively speaking. Witness the periodic winter floods of recent years which have inundated peoples' homes repeatedly in flood-prone areas, where new houses should never have been built in the first place. Amongst other things, we need a more coherent policy on housebuilding to ensure that upstream water-holding greenery is not obliterated by the bulldozers in the name of Labour's ridiculous (and now virtually unattainable) '1.5M houses or bust' policy.

Logic therefore dictates that we should direct our efforts towards capturing much more of this surplus water, in this case for a '(non)-rainy day', and this will require much more available storage capacity - and a grid to distribute its contents to where it's most needed.

We will need to rethink our attitude to creating new reservoirs and pipelines if we are to keep the taps flowing in future...

Purified water is as essential to modern life as power or gas supplies - and far more important than enhanced personal travel. We would all do well to remember that when setting our spending priorities.

Update 24.5.25: I'm beginning to think I might be a 'weather god'. Whenever I publish a blog about drought...it rains! Last night's break in our drought 'duck' yielded all of 0.5 inch. While this isn't exactly a deluge, it should help rescue some of our wilting crops and parched lawns. More to come over the Bank Holiday week, we're told - here's hoping it's enough to start filling up some of our half-empty reservoirs....

Update 3.7.25: Just updated - Let's see if it rains again this time.......

First Published: 7.9.22

Revised 3.7.25