JOHN PRESCOTT will be lambasted by a parliamentary committee this week for his plans to concrete over southeast England without addressing concerns about water shortages.

A Lords committee will condemn the deputy prime minister’s failure to “sufficiently” consult water companies who are already struggling to supply existing customers.

This summer the southeast is expected to suffer one of the worst water crises on record.

Consumers face a hosepipe ban and three water companies are drawing up plans for emergency drought restrictions. Some areas have been warned to expect standpipes.

The Lords sub-committee, headed by the Earl of Selborne, will warn in a report to be issued on Tuesday that Prescott’s plans to build 1m homes over the next 20 years risk worsening the situation.

It will also criticise the government for failing to co- ordinate attempts by several departments and agencies to solve the water crisis.

A member of the sub-committee on water management said yesterday: “We didn’t think there was sufficient consultation before they [Prescott’s former department] produced the plans, and some of the statistics about water use increase did not seem in the least convincing.

“It doesn’t look as if the government has sufficiently taken into account the extra demand for water that there’s going to be as a result of its housebuilding plans. Hundreds of thousands of new homes are to be built and yet they have not sufficiently consulted water companies and other interested parties.”

It is the latest of several setbacks for Prescott since he admitted in April to having had an affair with Tracey Temple, his diary secretary.

In last month’s cabinet reshuffle he was stripped of responsibility for running a department but remained as deputy prime minister.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was renamed the Department for Communities and Local Government and Ruth Kelly, the former education secretary, was made secretary of state. She must now sort out the issues raised by the parliamentary committee.

The department’s management and operation have been strongly criticised by several previous reports and it is widely regarded as dysfunctional.

Last week Prescott gave up Dorneywood, his grace-and- favour mansion, after being pictured there playing croquet during a working day. Ministers are jockeying to take over as deputy prime minister.

Prescott is attempting to justify his new role in government with a tour of North America. Yesterday evening he gave a speech on sustainable communities to a conference near Boston and he is due to travel to Canada to meet members of the government and give a speech on climate warming tomorrow.

The tour may have been hastily arranged to bolster Prescott’s position as he was not originally listed as a speaker at either conference. Prescott’s spokesman insisted yesterday: “We have been planning this for some time and he has a very busy schedule.”

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