Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Official Report 767KB pdf

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Petition

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Drinking Water Supplies (PE1646)

Agenda item 5 is PE1646 by Caroline Hayes, on drinking water supplies in Scotland. Members will recall that the petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the role of the drinking water quality regulator in Scotland and to commission independent research into the safety of the chloramination of drinking water.

The petition was referred previously to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee following scrutiny by the Public Petitions Committee, which has taken evidence on the matter from stakeholders. Paper 5 outlines the previous scrutiny of the Public Petitions Committee and suggests some possible options for this committee. Members may, of course, wish to suggest alternative actions in relation to the petition. I invite comments.

The committee requires some additional information—in particular, from Scottish Water—before it can come to a conclusion on the petition. Scottish Water does two things to provide potable water to customers: it removes physical debris from the raw water input and it removes bacterial load that might be harmful to human health. Equally, we should be interested in what the drinking water quality regulator does to enforce good decision making on Scottish Water. I have not been able to identify any particular merit in looking at the role of the drinking water quality regulator, which I have found to discharge its responsibilities well.

I was interested to read from the petitioner that there is a different approach to the use of chloramination and other solutions in other countries around the world. It would be worth the committee examining that in more detail, alongside the decision-making process in Scottish Water on the use of chloramination as a particular tool.

Like Stewart Stevenson, I do not think that there is a strong case for reviewing the role of the drinking water quality regulator, which I think has been established in the correct way. However, there is still an issue with the technique of chloramination and how we benchmark ourselves against other countries in the use—or overuse—of it.

I completely agree.

My colleague Alex Rowley is unable to attend the meeting for personal reasons, but he asked me to highlight the fact that some of his constituents have approached him on the issue. They say that research has identified that ammonia is a neurotoxin and a possible factor in Alzheimer’s and that chlorine has been identified as a bad halogen that is known to displace iodine in the body and leads to thyroid disease. Mr Rowley’s constituents say that the mixing of the two not only kills fish but presents itself as a toxic byproduct. That is a serious concern.

Chloramination is not used in France or Germany, and I understand that that is for health risk reasons. Therefore, Alex Rowley suggests that it would be useful to look at the health aspects of the issue, even if we do so in only a limited way.

I agree with Alex Rowley’s suggestion—it would be useful to look into that. However, the petition calls on us to urge the Scottish Government to look into it. To be honest, it would be more appropriate for the Government rather than us to look into it, because, as a parliamentary committee, we do not have the resources at hand to commission the necessary scientific advice and all the rest of it. If we were to take evidence on the issue just from Scottish Water—which, after all, is the supplier—I do not think that that would give us a sufficient range of positions. Therefore, I am inclined to believe that we should accept that part of the petition and urge the Scottish Government to commission the necessary research, as it is much better qualified than we are to do that.

I also agree with what Stewart Stevenson, Mark Ruskell and others have said—I do not think that there is a case for looking into the role of the drinking water quality regulator. However, there is an issue to do with the regulation of the water industry, including drinking water, which is an area in which there are a number of regulators. In certain circumstances, it is not just the water industry but local authorities that have a role in providing drinking water. The Water Industry Commission for Scotland is also a regulator, whose role touches on all aspects of Scottish Water, and, in addition to Scottish Water itself, there is the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which has a role to play in certain circumstances. We would not be doing the job properly if we were to single out for scrutiny the role of the drinking water quality regulator.

If we were to review such matters, we would need to take a much more comprehensive, across-the-board look at how we could improve—if there was a need to improve—the regulation of the water industry in Scotland. I am therefore not inclined to support that part of the petition, because I do not see an urgent need for that. Nevertheless, I support the part of the petition that asks us to call on the Scottish Government to have the necessary research into the issue carried out.

We might come to that conclusion once we have taken further evidence and gathered further information.

I agree with what my colleague Alex Neil says about the second part of the petition, about who would commission independent research into chloramination. He suggests that we should refer it to the Scottish Government. Any such investigation would take at least three months, and it could take up to a year. We cannot leave the petition open for that length of time, so I agree that we should ask the Scottish Government to deal with the second part of the petition.

If the petition is to be referred to the Scottish Government, we need to consider how we can compare the different methods of disinfection that are available, to ensure that decisions are not made purely on the basis of financial concerns and that more weight is given to health concerns.

There is consensus on the need to get further information and to come, at least in part, to the conclusion that Mr Neil has suggested. If I am reading it correctly, we want to develop a better understanding of the options, perhaps from the regulator, and understand the regulator’s view on why that particular course of action is being pursued when it appears that other countries choose to take other courses of action. Do we wish to seek from Scottish Water further information on the rationale behind that course of action, whether it was driven by financial considerations and why other options were discounted? Does that seem to be a reasonable approach?

I completely take Alex Neil’s point about the Scottish Government, rather than us, having the capacity, but I would like us to highlight the health concerns, if only from the perspective of constituents.

I suspect that there is a large body of evidence on the technology available at national and international levels and that, if we wrote to the Scottish Government, we could readily access and get a summary of that evidence.

As a way forward, we can keep the petition open and extend an invitation to the relevant regulator to come before the committee after the summer recess to address our concerns. We can seek further information from Scottish Water, as I outlined, and we can write to the Scottish Government, seeking information, as has been suggested.

As part of that, we could do our own research into the international examples. I imagine that the policy of the water regulator of France—or wherever—is fairly readily available, so we can understand the basis of its policy decision. If the decision was made on a health basis, we will be able to understand it in detail without having to do the primary research.

I do not disagree with Alex Neil that, ultimately, we should pass the matter to the Scottish Government. On the issue of conducting our own research as a committee of the Parliament, rather than asking the Government to provide information, we should also ask the Scottish Parliament information centre to provide some information, which we can then present to the Government subsequently, differentiating the roles of Government and Parliament. That might be reasonable in the circumstances and less conflicted.

We are agreed to keep the petition open; we will seek further information from SPICe on the alternative methods that are available; we will seek any further information that we feel is appropriate from Scottish Water; and we will invite the drinking water quality regulator to appear before the committee after the summer recess, as relevant. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

As long as we get the international viewpoint.

Absolutely. It will be good to get that clear.

At the committee’s next meeting, on 19 June, it expects to take oral evidence from the Scottish Government bill team on stage 1 of the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill. We will also hear oral evidence from Scottish Government officials and Scottish Natural Heritage on biodiversity targets. Further, the committee will consider the Environmental Protection (Microbeads) (Scotland) Regulations 2018.

11:43 Meeting continued in private until 12:26.