Drinking Water: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of public drinking water supplies met national quality standards in the most recent reporting year.
Answered by Emma Hardy
The Government is committed to ensuring a high level of protection for human health and the environment. Public drinking water compliance with the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016 has been consistently high for a number of years, with a rate of 99.97% in 2024. This compares to compliance rates of between 98-98.5% in the early 1990s.
The DWI’s annual report on the quality of publicly supplied drinking water provides water companies, and also the public, with a picture of overall drinking water quality in England.
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