To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many drought orders his Department has granted in each year since 1979; and how many of these involved varying the conditions of abstraction.

The Secretary of State for the Environment has made the following numbers of drought orders:

	Numbers
1980	2
1981	nil
1982	13
1983	5
1984	92
1985	nil
1986	nil
1987	nil
1988	1
1989	74
1990	65
11991	24
1 To date.

Most of these involve a temporary variation in the conditions governing the abstraction of water, but only a detailed review of all 276 statutory instruments could give a precise figure: this would involve disproportionate effort.