Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, March 29, 2018

Official Report 507KB pdf

---

New Petitions

---

Private Water Supplies (PE1680)

Welcome to the fifth meeting in 2018 of the Public Petitions Committee. I remind members and others in the room to switch phones and other devices to silent.

The first item on the agenda is consideration of two new petitions. We will not hear evidence on them at this stage.

PE1680, on private water supplies in Scotland, was lodged by Angela Flanagan. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to

“review the Private Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2006”,

“produce guidance for all relevant bodies to comply with the Private Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2006”,

“transfer the Regulatory powers over the Drinking Water quality of private water supplies from Local Authorities to the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland”

and

“ensure an Equal Right of Appeal in the Planning process where objections on public health grounds are intimated by interested parties.”

Members have a copy of the petition and a briefing by the Scottish Parliament information centre.

The petitioner raises a range of issues in relation to private water supplies, including inconsistent compliance with a European Union directive. The petitioner is of the view that her suggestion of ensuring an equal right of appeal in the planning process would avert unduly preferential treatment of commercial developers over individual households. She is also of the view that developers would not be able to pass on provision and maintenance costs for essential services to individuals or their communities.

Members will note from our briefing paper that the Scottish Government has no current plans to review the regulation of private water supplies, following the recent introduction of the Water Intended for Human Consumption (Private Supplies) (Scotland) Regulations 2017. Furthermore, the Scottish Government introduced the Planning (Scotland) Bill to the Parliament on 4 December 2017, and ministers have specifically ruled out the introduction of a third-party right of appeal as part of that bill.

Do members have any comments?

It strikes me that the petition is connected to one that we passed to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee a couple of weeks ago. It certainly has the same sort of intonations. I know that that committee met and discussed that petition earlier this week and that it decided to move it on. Members can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that it will be meeting Scottish Water in a couple of weeks’ time and will raise the matter with it. Angus, do you sit on that committee?

Yes. We will be meeting Scottish Water on 17 April.

I wonder whether PE1680 is sufficiently linked to that petition such that they could be considered together.

Are you suggesting referring it immediately?

Given that the petition that we considered and passed to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee was particularly about the quality of drinking water and the way that Scottish Water is conducting itself, and given that Scottish Water is going to be questioned on that soon, I wonder whether there is a way that we can link PE1680 to that one.

Okay. Are there other views?

A slight problem with the petition is that it is about two things. On one level it is about water quality, which is what that previous petition was about, but it is also about the responsibilities and some of the planning regulations that sit around that. “Private water supplies” covers myriad things. There are whole estates that have private water supplies, and then there are individual houses that have private water supplies, and the needs of each might be different.

On the one hand, I agree with Brian Whittle that there is a direct connection, but my concern is that the petition is partly about who is responsible for a water supply and where the planning responsibility lies. Where is the handover of responsibility, particularly where a rural or isolated set of houses has been built? I think that there are those two elements. Perhaps Angus MacDonald can say whether that second element lies within the remit of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee in the same way.

I take on board what Brian Whittle said, but the earlier petition that he mentioned highlights an issue with regard to chloramination. PE1680 highlights issues with the quality of private supplies, but it also involves planning regulations. The Planning (Scotland) Bill is going through committee at present—I think that it is going into stage 2.

The petitioner details four main asks. However, until we can get further information from the Scottish Government, I do not think that we can take the petition further. As I said, the Planning (Scotland) Bill is going through Parliament, and Scottish ministers have specifically ruled out the introduction of a third-party right of appeal. I am sure that quite a number of people are disappointed by that.

It would be helpful to get an official response from the Scottish Government first, before we consider any further action on the specific points that the petitioner raises. I do not think that it would be helpful to refer it straight to the ECCLR Committee.

Would it be worth while to flag up to that committee that the petition has been lodged, and perhaps to provide the paperwork on it from the petitioner? That would at least inform the members in their conversations with Scottish Water. We could do that, and we could ask the Scottish Government for more information specifically on a third-party right of appeal—or an equal right of appeal, as it is now called. That will be debated in the Parliament. The Scottish Government has a view and individual parties will be coming to a view, as will the committee. That aspect is going to be interrogated pretty strongly in the parliamentary process.

Do we agree that we will write to the Scottish Government asking for its view on the issues that are highlighted in the petition and that we will flag up to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, if that is the right one—

It is the ECCLR Committee.

What is that?

It is the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee.

Okay—ECCLR Committee is easier. Do we agree to flag up to it the contents of the petition and the petitioner’s argument in order to inform further discussion?

Members indicated agreement.

---

Log Burner Stoves (Smoke Control Areas) (PE1685)

PE1685, which was lodged by Jim Nisbet, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce legislation to prohibit the use of log burner stoves in smoke control areas. The petitioner considers that the Clean Air Act 1993 is not fit for purpose. He refers specifically to section 21 of the act, which he considers is open to interpretation.

In the background information on his petition, Mr Nisbet sets out his concerns that the Scottish Government is not treating log burner pollution as seriously as diesel vehicle pollution, and he refers to a number of research studies and media articles to support his position.

The briefing paper refers to the Scottish Government’s cleaner air for Scotland strategy and provides a summary of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee’s findings on the issue from its recent inquiry into air quality in Scotland. The report notes that the inquiry identified

“a gap in regulations around the installation of wood burning stoves, with conflicting guidance coming from environmental health department officials, planning regulations and building standards.”

The recommendations that are set out in the report ask the Scottish Government to review the current regulations and to undertake research to understand the extent of pollutants emanating from wood burning stoves.

Do members have any comments or suggestions for action on the petition?

As we have just discussed, I am also a member of the ECCLR Committee, which recently concluded its inquiry into air quality in Scotland, and it published its report exactly a month ago. We took conflicting evidence on the impact of wood burning stoves on air pollution. The jury is still out on the issue, mainly due to the lack of available data. However, it was interesting to hear the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Roseanna Cunningham, acknowledge when she gave evidence to the committee that the Clean Air Act 1993 might need to be updated.

The ECCLR Committee has asked the Scottish Government to undertake research and to review the current regulations and guidance, and the committee is still waiting on the Government’s response. We await it with interest, because there is clearly an issue. In other evidence that we took, it was highlighted that there are issues with multi-fuel and log burning stoves.

Do we have a timescale for the response from the Scottish Government? It must have to respond within a certain time.

I am not sure.

My understanding is that it has to respond within two months of the report being published.

It is a month since the report was published, so the response should be any time now.

It will be interesting to see what the Scottish Government has to say.

We should wait and see what the Scottish Government’s response is, because that will be the starting point for where we go with the petition. If it comes back and rules against it, job done. If it comes back and says that it does not think that there is an issue, we can look at the matter from there. There seems little point in doing anything before then.

Do we agree to defer consideration of the petition until the Scottish Government responds, but with an expectation that it will respond within the given timescale, so that this is not deferred to a vague time in the future? There are explicit timescales for the Scottish Government’s response.

Members indicated agreement.