Karl Williams: With a growing population and the demand for water we must start thinking hard about tomorrow

Karl Williams is Research Director at the Centre for Policy Studies.

As Britain bakes in the summer sun and farmers are told not to water their crops for fear of drought, talk has naturally enough turned towards the pernicious consequences of climate change.

But the publication of a new essay collection, ‘Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow’, is a timely reminder that we desperately need to factor demographic change into our long-term strategising too.

Given the amount of rainfall we get every year, we simply should not be having water shortages that affect businesses and households. We just need to store the rainwater that falls in each winter and spring until it is needed in the summer. But we have not built a new water reservoir in Britain since 1992.

The reasons are clear and well-known: our broken planning system, which has seen furious Nimby activists (many of them Lib Dem councillors) do their utmost to prevent new infrastructure, and pressures from the regulator, Ofwat, to keep bills down, and hence investment down too.

But the story of reservoirs, droughts and water shortages isn’t just about climate change. It’s about population.

Since 1992, when our last new reservoir opened, the population of the UK has increased by 20 per cent. That’s an extra 11.6 million people; a third of this increase came from endogenous population growth, and two-thirds from net migration. Roughly speaking, these 11.6 million people will get through a combined 1.6 billion litres of water a day, or almost 600 billion litres per annum.

Population change means that even if climate change were not a factor, the pressure on our water system would only mount. As things stand, no new reservoirs are expected to be built before the late 2030s.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the population is on track to grow by another 4.7 million people over that time – with net migration accounting for all of this increase and then some, as the existing population declines. That’s another 660 million litres of water a day, or 240 billion a year.

In modern Britain, water shortages are preventable evils. But no action is taken.

Much the same could be said of our appalling failure to build enough houses, repeatedly highlighted by my colleagues at the Centre for Policy Studies. Or the long-term fiscal consequences of falling fertility rates and an ageing population absent robust economic growth, as recently highlighted by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR).

A mountain of debt looms on the horizon. But will the triple lock be abolished and working age welfare claims prevented from rising vertiginously? Answers on a postcard.

In short, for a whole host of reasons, British politicians tend not to be very good thinking about or acting on the long-term interests of the country. Which is why ‘Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow’ is so refreshing.

Overseen by Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, this collection brings together nine leading academics such as the OBR’s Professor David Miles and Dr Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to highlight the likely challenges – and opportunities – of population change in Britain over the rest of the 21st Century. These chapters are bolstered by helpful case studies looking at how other countries are handling their own demographic challenges, many of which are similar to those to which we should be paying more attention here in Britain.

The collection has been endorsed by both our team at the Centre for Policy Studies and Lord Glasman’s Common Good Foundation – in other words, by think tanks of both the centre-right and centre-left. Because as the collection makes clear, the issues of an ageing population, falling fertility rates, and mass migration touch on everything from public spending and infrastructure pressures through to social cohesion and environmental impact.

That is why one of the report’s central recommendations – the establishment of an Office for Demographic Change (ODC) or Office for Population Sustainability (OPS) – merits serious consideration. For all the (often justified) criticism levelled at it, the existence of the OBR has helped bring more attention to the long-term tax and spend dilemmas facing the country. Perhaps an ODC or OPS could have a similar effect for demographic challenges.

Even if politicians and policymakers of different stripes disagree on the precise solutions, no one wants to see crops withering in the fields. Yet as a result of our consistent failure to think ahead, and plan for the population of tomorrow rather than today, that’s exactly where Britain is heading.

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