HC Deb 30 January 1996 vol 270 cc759-60
1. Mr. Hinchliffe

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he takes to ensure the independent monitoring of the quality of drinking water. [10368]

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer)

Before privatisation, there were no proper standards for drinking water and no effective monitoring. Since privatisation, strict monitoring by the drinking water inspectorate has been introduced and standards have risen every year since 1991.

Mr. Hinchliffe

The Secretary of State will probably be aware of the recent red alert on drinking water in the Wakefield area as a result of the discovery of cryptosporidium in drinking water supplies. Given the complete lack of public confidence in the privatised utilities, especially Yorkshire Water, will the Secretary of State ensure that, when there are red alert procedures in future, they automatically trigger an immediate objective evaluation and monitoring of the safety of that drinking water? Why are the Government unable to offer a definition of safe or unsafe levels of cryptosporidium in drinking water?

Mr. Gummer

Before privatisation, there would have been no testing, there would have been no way of finding out about cryptosporidium and companies were not required to report it. Companies are now required to report it at once. The drinking water inspectorate runs independent tests and deals with the matter independently—another advantage of privatisation.

Sir Jim Spicer

Do we not have the finest drinking water in the world? Is it not acknowledged that 99.3 per cent. of all the tests are passed with flying colours, and is it not disgraceful that, time and again, we find that very high quality being rubbished by Opposition Members?

Mr. Gummer

I do not know of any other country in the world that has such good data and so universal a system of monitoring drinking water. In the whole of Europe, this is the only country to publish properly audited data and we believe—we cannot say for sure because other countries do not publish properly audited data—that we are among the best, if not the best, in Europe.

Mrs. Helen Jackson

In Yorkshire, people may consider the Secretary of State's answers to have been complacent. Is he aware that the public health authorities in Sheffield and in the other parts of Yorkshire feel that the cryptosporidium leaks that have been acknowledged in the Elvington and Barmby Moor sewage treatment plants are serious? Is he further aware that they affect 20 per cent. of all Yorkshire Water drinking supplies? Does he realise that there is a possibility that those increased levels of cryptosporidium may be linked to the reduced flow through the waste water system because of the cuts and the drought?

Mr. Gummer

I agree that this is a serious matter and, in that view, we are unlike any other country in Europe. No one except the United States treats the matter with the same seriousness as we do. We are the only country to have a system of monitoring and of dealing with the problems as they occur. It undermines public confidence to suggest other than that we have the safest drinking water in the world and the best services to ensure that it remains that way.