Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help reduce the risk of children contracting Shigella infections while paddling at beaches in the North West.

Designated bathing waters display signs indicating the quality of water for bathing, ranging from poor to excellent. These classifications are updated annually based on regular water quality sampling taken over the preceding bathing season (15 May -30 September).

The Environment Agency (EA) do not test for Shigella in their samples, but test for E.Coli and intestinal enterococci at Bathing Water sites as these organisms are the most reliable indicators of faecal contamination. Additional information on water quality and bathing advice is provided daily on the EA’s website Swimfo during the bathing season to help determine if it’s safe to swim.

Where bathing water quality is not consistently excellent the EA makes pollution risk forecasts each day using an analysis of previous samples and notifies the public through the Swimfo website and on signage at the site.