§ Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people are currently supplied with water which does not comply with the standards of the EC water quality directive in(a) each region of the United Kingdom and (b) each of the other European Community countries.
§ Mr. BaldryThe drinking water inspectorate's report for 1990, a copy of which has been placed in the Library, showed that 99 per cent. of the 3.3 million analytical determinations made in England and Wales confirmed compliance with the relevant standard in the Water Quality Regulations, which incorporate the requirements of the EC drinking water directive and are in some respects more stringent. The report also gives information about non-compliance in individual supply zones, but statistics of the actual populations served are not readily available.
Similarly in Scotland and Northern Ireland the whole of the population receive water which complies with the overwhelming majority of the EC directive's standards. In Scotland, 391 supply zones serving a population of about 2.7 million do not at present fully comply with the standards. In most cases, non-compliance is intermittent and in respect of only one or two parameters. In Northern Ireland there is the potential for non-compliance with the aluminium standard in 39 supply zones serving a population of approximately 383,000 and a general potential for non-compliance with the iron standard because of the number of iron mains still in service.
The information requested is not available on a Community-wide basis nor, so far as we are aware, for any other member state. We hope that the standardised reporting directive, agreed by the Environment Council on 1 October. will in due course considerably increase the information available about non-compliance in other member states.
In all parts of the United Kingdom a programme of work is in place to remedy existing breaches of the standards as quickly as possible taking practicalities into account. We believe that no other member state has such a rigorous, committed and fully funded programme for compliance.