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Water Supply

My Lords, those in—I nearly said the ODPM—the new department will be looking to me to knock that one on the head straight away. What the noble Countess has asserted is simply untrue. The influx and increase of population in the south-east is nothing to do with internal movement in this country. That is a very minor part of it. The growth rates of the population are nothing to do with people coming from the north-east and Scotland. One reason people from the north-east and Scotland cannot come to the south-east is that they cannot afford the housing. There is a lack of labour mobility because we are an unequal country. There are different factors causing the growth in the south-east population, but it is certainly not internal movement.