Conduct Of Severn Trent Water

EDM number 1148 in 1993-94, proposed by Nigel Griffiths on 28/04/1994.

That this House notes with concern that Severn Trent Water supplied chemically contaminated drinking water to 35,000 Worcester households; that the emergency incident team set up to deal with this was chaired by Dr Claire Constantine and which included Dr Sarah Stewart-Brown from the Worcester and District Health Authority, acting on advice from Dr Alan Jones from the Regional Advisory Committee for Chemical Incidents, declared the contaminated water to be safe for consumption without ensuring that the chemicals were fully and properly identified, thus not being able to establish the actual safety profile of the chemicals involved; calls for an independent investigation into the composition of the EIT, and the procedures used for determining the safety status of chemicals found in the public water supply; notes that no published literature exists on one of the chemicals, other than one untranslated paper in Russian and that Severn Trent's laboratories are still trying to fully identify the other chemical; notes with concern that the first detailed report of this incident has been produced by a consumer of the contaminated water whilst the Drinking Water Inspectorate and Severn Trent have yet to report; and calls upon the Government to withdraw the Charter Mark it awarded to Severn Trent Water, on the grounds that it has concealed from its consumers that they have no safety information on the chemicals found in the drinking water.

This motion has been signed by a total of 54 MPs.