Official Report 624KB pdf
South Arran Marine Conservation (Amendment) Order 2014 (SSI 2014/297)
Agenda item 3 is subordinate legislation. The committee has a negative instrument to consider. Members should note that no motion to annul the order has been received. I refer members to the accompanying paper and invite comments.
I have a constituency interest in the area of sea concerned. There was a difficulty with creel fishermen who were not consulted at the start of the process, which was truncated and urgent. When drafting is done in future, the interests of all users of the marine environment should be borne in mind.
The creel fishermen went through a period of some considerable worry while they waited to discover whether they would still be able to access the waters. I understand that licences are now being given, but that point should be noted for the future.
That is very useful. Fortunately, we have the relevant minister with us—or perhaps not. However, I am sure that we will be able to pass the point on to Richard Lochhead to remind him about the matter.
Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the order?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2014 [Draft]
Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, has joined us for the first time. Welcome to your post, minister.
Thank you.
On behalf of the committee, I congratulate you on your new role. We welcome you here, and we very much look forward to working with you.
I take this opportunity to thank the previous Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Wheelhouse, for his valued contribution to the committee’s work. I wish him all the best in his new role.
Agenda item 4 is also subordinate legislation. The new minister will give evidence on the draft Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations. The regulations have been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve them before the provisions come into force. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider the motion to approve the regulations, under agenda item 5.
I welcome the minister and her official, Sue Petch, who is the deputy director of the drinking water quality division in the Scottish Government.
I feel obliged to declare a non-pecuniary interest, as a close family member in Stornoway has an action against Scottish Water in the Court of Session that relates to water quality. I will therefore recuse myself from items 4 and 5 and will take no part in those discussions.
Thank you.
Minister, do you wish to make a statement on the regulations?
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to make some opening remarks.
First, I would like to put on record how much I am looking forward to working with the committee in my new role. I am keen to be as helpful as I can be to the committee in its work, and I am sure that I will be a regular visitor.
I have with me this morning Sue Petch, the deputy director of our drinking water quality division, who may help to answer some of the committee’s questions.
In Scotland, 97 per cent of the population receives water from public water supplies that are provided by Scottish Water. The other 3 per cent of the population receives its water from private water supplies, which are regulated under private water supply regulations.
As the committee is aware, Scottish Water is a statutory body that delivers drinking water to 2.4 million households throughout the country. Water that is provided by Scottish Water for the purposes of human consumption must meet the same quality standards regardless of the size of the supply or the location in Scotland.
The main purpose of the regulations is to ensure that the quality of Scotland’s drinking water continues to be of a high standard and satisfies the requirements of the European drinking water directive. In particular, the regulations aim to protect human health from the adverse effects of any contamination of water that is supplied by Scottish Water. They do so by setting out the requirements to be met and by detailing how those may be enforced so that consumers receive a supply of safe and clean drinking water.
The requirements of the European drinking water directive in relation to public water supplies in Scotland are currently implemented by the Water Supply (Water Quality) (Scotland) Regulations 2001 and various amendments to those regulations. I believe that it is time to replace the existing regulations with a new set of consolidated regulations to aid transparency and enable some revisions and new provisions to be introduced.
The new provisions include, first, a requirement to risk assess each treatment works and its connected supply. Although provision for risk assessment was not included previously, Scottish Water has been risk assessing its treatment works since 2006 as a requirement of the directions that Scottish ministers give it. That approach is promoted by the World Health Organization and has been embraced by many regulators throughout the world.
Secondly, the regulations include a new provision that requires Scottish Water to identify drinking water abstraction points and monitor the quality of water at those points. That aligns with the requirements of the European water framework directive.
The regulations also introduce new offences. It will be an offence for Scottish Water to supply drinking water that has not been disinfected and subjected to adequate treatment and to supply drinking water from a treatment works in contravention of the requirement of a notice.
The duty to treat water and to disinfect is included in the regulations with the specific aim of protecting public health. We believe that, given the gravity of that duty, it is appropriate that it should be an offence for Scottish Water to supply any water if it has failed to fulfil that duty.
In addition to those new requirements, we have included a number of minor changes. For example, the standard for taste and odour was a specific quantitative value in the previous regulations. It now mirrors the standard in the directive, which states that the taste or odour of the water must be “Acceptable to consumers” and that there must be “no abnormal change”.
A very high standard of drinking water quality is important for Scotland, in relation to the health of not only the people who live here but the large number of visitors who come here each year. It is therefore important that we continue to ensure that the standard of water in Scotland is the best that it can be.
I ask the committee to support the regulations, and I am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, minister, and welcome.
We are told that a considerable financial impact is not anticipated, because the number of such failures in any year is expected to be low. What is the basis for that assertion? Do you happen to have the stats on the number of breaches that have occurred previously? For clarity, what is the reason for the change to the new requirement in part 6 of the regulations that Scottish Water, rather than local authorities, will carry out the duty?
You asked about part 6. The Water Quality (Scotland) Regulations 2010 introduced a requirement to investigate failures in public buildings. The regulations were put in place specifically to address any infraction risks that there might be if Scotland had not transposed that specific requirement of the drinking water directive when the original transposing regulations were made back in 2001. When the 2010 regulations were made, as the local authority was given the power to take enforcement action against building owners, it was believed that the local authority should carry out the investigation. However, the practical implementation of that requirement has not been straightforward.
For any sample failure, Scottish Water must determine whether that failure is due to its supply at the point of entry to a building, regardless of whether it is a domestic or commercial property. It must investigate that and, if necessary, carry out inspections to ensure that any backflow of contaminants into the public supply could not occur.
When failures in public buildings have occurred in the past three years, local authorities have often been reliant on Scottish Water to carry out the investigation. A specific example of that was a serious contamination incident back in 2012, which involved antifreeze from an air-conditioning system entering the domestic distribution system at a laboratory. In that example, the local authority did not have the necessary expertise to investigate the failure.
Our policy is very much for Scottish Water to be required to investigate any such failure and to be able to recover its costs. You asked how many failures there have been. In 2013, there were failures in four public buildings.
Thanks. That is useful.
I welcome the minister to her new post and look forward to working with her—constructively of course—in the future.
Why was the consultation period only six weeks, which does not seem very long? The policy note states that it is not thought that the regulation will have any “significant financial effect”. How robust is that statement?
The consultation generated 11 responses, including from Scottish Water and eight local authorities. No particular concerns were raised during the consultation. Some of the points that Scottish Water raised may be addressed in guidance; certainly, the Scottish Government said that it will consult Scottish Water in preparing any such guidance. Scottish Water agreed in its response that a business regulatory impact assessment was not needed, because there would be no additional costs on businesses.
That is fine. Thanks.
There are no further questions from members, so I thank the minister.
Do you wish to sum up, minister?
I am quite happy not to.
We will move to agenda item 5.
We can now debate the regulations for up to 90 minutes, if members feel so inclined—I hope that they will not. If you want to shorten the winter, that is the way to do it.
I invite the minister to move motion S4M-11703.
Motion moved,
That the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee recommends that the Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2014 be approved.—[Aileen McLeod.]
Motion agreed to.
I thank the minister and her official for that brief appearance. I am sure that we will be seeing more of you in due course, minister. I look forward to that.
Thank you very much, convener.
We will have a brief suspension to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
09:45 Meeting suspended.