British homes are using too much water says Blair

British homes are using too much water, according to Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

As climate change hits the UK, people will either have to adjust their habits or face severe and expensive restrictions on how much water they consume, the pair warned in a Treasury document in which they set out the long-term political challenges.

The average British home uses 150 litres of water per person per day, while the Germans, Belgians and Dutch, with similar living standards and climate, manage on 130 litres each or less. Blair and Brown want Britons to bring their consumption down to European levels, and warn that the Government may resort to 'metering, price structures and demand management programmes' to ensure it happens.

They want householders to think twice before they turn on the tap or flush the lavatory, as the combination of rising demand and decreasing rainfall will mean a summer drought every few years, particularly in the south, with its rapidly rising population.

Mr Blair and Mr Brown singled out water use and supply as one of the most important pressures on the country's natural resources. Droughts that now occur once every 10 years are likely to happen every four or five years by the 2050s, and every two or three years by the 2080s.

The crisis will be worst in the South-east, where water companies are already barely able to meet demand. The number of households in England is expected to increase from 20.9m in 2003 to 24.8m by 2021, with most of the increase concentrated in the South-east.

Yet figures released by the Defra show that Londoners contribute less to global warming, per head of population, than anyone else. The North-east emits 13.1 tons of carbon per head of population every year, compared with 7.1 tons in London.