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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department has issued to local authorities on drinking water standards.

Local authorities in England and Wales are the enforcers of the Private Water Supplies Regulations 2016 (as amended) (in England) and The Private Water Supplies (Wales) Regulations 2017 (in Wales). These regulations contain the standards that private supplies of drinking water are required to meet. Local authorities are also required to keep themselves advised of the quality of public drinking water supplies in their area and water companies are required to meet standards in the Water Supplies (Water Quality ) Regulations 2016 (as amended).

On public supplies, the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), as enforcers of the regulations relating to public supplies publishes three quarterly reports and an annual report on the quality of public supplies which are available free of charge on its website http://www.dwi.gov.uk/about/annual-report/index.htm.

On private supplies, the DWI has a role in providing support to local authorities in discharging their regulatory duties and reports to Ministers annually on progress with improvements to private supplies. The DWI website (http://www.dwi.gov.uk/private-water-supply/index.htm) contains a section specific to private water supplies and the section for local authorities provides guidance on the regulations, risk assessment (including a tool for local authorities to use), sampling and monitoring, notices (including templates), reporting and case studies covering real life cases. The DWI provides an advice line which, in 2018 handled 309 enquiries from local authorities (http://www.dwi.gov.uk/about/annual-report/2018/PWS-2018-England.pdf). In addition the DWI provides inspectors to regional local authority meetings on request and visits individual local authorities to provide training where required.