World water scarcity will hit poor hardest- Bruce

12.22.30pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 22nd Mar 2007

Malcolm Bruce on a visit to Ethiopia in February with the International Development Committee. The committtee was investigating the importance of sanitation and water in the region.

Malcolm Bruce the MP for Gordon and Chair of the International Development Select Committee pledged his support for World Water Day today (22nd March) which this year aims to highlight how the world is coping with water scarcity.

The International Development Committee is in the process of finalising its latest inquiry into Sanitation and Water. Speaking from Westminster, Mr Bruce said:

"More than 2 billion people have no access to sanitation and one billion are without access to clean water. It was against this backdrop that the International Development Committee decided to launch an inquiry into Water and Sanitation on which we are due to report shortly.

"The UN believes that over the next 2 decades the average supply of water per person worldwide will drop by a third. This increasing scarcity of water will clearly hit poor people the hardest and on World Water Day we must do all we can to raise awareness of this problem as well as to assess what progress has been made on achieving Millennium Development Goal 7, which aims to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation by 2015."

Mr Bruce will be marking the day by participating in an event to support World Water Day hosted by the crossbench peer, Professor Lord Patel of Bradford and the Prime Minster's wife, Cherie Booth QC.