Seòmar agus comataidhean

That will be part of the discussion and consultation that I told Mark Ruskell about and am having with Scottish Water. My view at the moment is that that is affordable within current budgets.

I might have to get back to you about exactly when the costs will be incurred. I said that those costs will come from storage and can update you about exactly when they will be incurred. Given some of the conversations that she has had with Scottish Water about the work that it will have to do to implement the standard, I will hand over to Rosemary Greenhill.

Scottish Water suggested to us that 1 January would be the best date on which to begin and we have consulted throughout the process. Scottish Water has not flagged up any implementation issues. We have collaborated to reach this point.

I am very pleased to be here to speak to the draft Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2022. Scotland’s drinking water is renowned all over the world for its excellent quality. We tend to take that for granted, and very few of us appreciate how much effort is needed to treat water in the first instance and then to monitor its quality to ensure that it is safe to drink from the tap. In this instance, safe means that it is free from substances that constitute a potential danger to human health.

In the interest of public health, we are and will continue to be relentless in ensuring that drinking water continues to meet high standards, and the draft regulations that are before the committee seek to do that. The main purpose of the regulations is to amend the Public Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 2014 to implement the health-based standards of the European Union’s recast drinking water directive for Scottish Water-supplied drinking water. The standards are recommended by the World Health Organization.

The EU’s recast drinking water directive, which came into force on 12 January 2021, is a long and complicated directive that is designed to protect drinking water from source to tap, to put in monitoring arrangements for emerging pollutants, to drive up efficiencies and to address access to water issues. We are taking a phased and proportionate approach to alignment with the directive, because some of its requirements will rely on actions that are still to be taken by the European Commission or will not apply until a later date. It is a vast directive and there are different timescales and actions that are required of the EC before all the provisions can be brought in. Bearing that in mind, and after considerable work, particularly by the officials who are with me, we are moving forward with the health-based standards.

The regulations update the standards that will apply to water that is supplied by Scottish Water. They include new chemical parameters for substances that are commonly known as PFAS—perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—or forever chemicals, which are endocrine disruptors. PFAS are extensively used in products that have non-stick or water-repellent qualities, such as waterproof jackets, cardboard for food containers and sun protection factor creams. The regulations will require Scottish Water to check for the presence of those chemicals in drinking water that it supplies, to ensure that it does not contain them at concentrations that would breach the limits that the regulations specify, which are in line with the WHO’s recommendation.

There are some additional changes that the regulations will make. We are updating the existing values of substances that Scottish Water needs to monitor in drinking water and the methods that it will use to assess the microbiological, chemical and indicator parameters. The regulations will enable Scottish Water, with the agreement of the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland, to deviate from minimum sampling frequencies for drinking water. We could deviate before, but the regulations will make the requirements in that regard more proportionate and, therefore, we hope, provide for a more efficient approach. The regulations introduce the requirement that Scottish Water maintains an operational monitoring programme; again, there was monitoring before, but it will be enhanced.

As I said, the recast drinking water directive is long and complex, but we are taking action now to implement the WHO recommendations that we can implement, and we are the first country in the United Kingdom to do so.

We are also taking the opportunity to make some minor changes, outwith the recast directive. For example, the draft regulations update the frequency of sampling in relation to water that is supplied by tanker, in response to Scottish Water’s increasing use of mobile tankers. We are implementing that provision following consultation with Scottish Water.

The committee will wish to note that 1 January 2023 has been selected as the coming into force date. That date was selected because Scottish Water’s annual monitoring programme begins on 1 January, so the approach will allow a full monitoring record for 2023. Again, we decided on the date following consultation with Scottish Water.

The approach that is being taken to align with the EU’s recast drinking water directive is in the best interests of Scotland. It ensures that the excellent standards of Scottish drinking water to which we have become accustomed are maintained. We are doing that by prioritising the health-based WHO-recommended improvements of the directive, which we can now make.

We have estimated £10 million as being the upper limit of the cost of what we seek to implement; we estimate it to be less than £10 million. The costs arise in relation to the storage of chemicals at water treatment works, so that the standard in relation to chlorate and chlorite can be achieved.

There will be some additional sampling costs. However, taking into account all that and the very stretched position with regard to public finance, that £10 million is money well spent, given that it is so directly linked to the maintenance of the highest-quality drinking water, to which we have become accustomed in Scotland.

You are quite right. That is one of the things that we would never want to see a diminution of as a result of having left the EU, so we are keen to retain such consultation and have sought to do so in this process.

The changes that we are discussing have an operational impact on Scottish Water rather than on the public. People will turn on their taps and water will flow, and they will look to us and to Scottish Water to ensure that the water is of the highest possible standard. Therefore, we focused mainly on consulting Scottish Water and the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland. We shared a draft version of the regulations with them, and they were able to point us to some suggested improvements, particularly with regard to aligning the coming-into-force date with Scottish Water’s reporting period.

We also undertook a series of project workshops, as I think we called them, with a suite of stakeholders on the directive itself and how we best align with it. Again, that involved Scottish Water, the Drinking Water Quality Regulator, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. I do not think that I have forgotten anyone. That was quite an involved process.

However, I compare that with something that might come down the road from the directive: work on private water supplies. That is a much larger piece of work that will have a much greater impact on the public. Therefore, I will look to undertake consultation again, but in a slightly different way that is more about public consultation, because the work will impact the public a great deal more.

Yes, there are. I will give my policy view, and then I might hand over to Luigi Pedreschi to provide the legal perspective. These regulations, and the 2014 regulations that they amend, constitute retained EU law. Therefore, although the Government’s policy position on that has been made clear by my colleague Angus Robertson—we want the bill to be revoked or, at the very least, we want devolved aspects to be carved out of it—on the basis of where we are now, the regulations constitute retained EU law and, without actions to preserve them, the UK’s bill as proposed would fundamentally undermine that. Luigi, do you want to add to that?

It is not a case of not knowing. I am part of the Executive and I am not going to direct Police Scotland on how to conduct its activities.

I am sorry, but I do not understand the question.

Convener, again, there are a number of questions in there, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to follow exactly what it is that Rachael Hamilton is trying to ask.

As I said, we have had on-going engagement with Police Scotland. We will continue to engage with Police Scotland as issues arise. At your round-table discussion last week, when the operation of the bill as it pertains to rough shooting was explained, the issue of vexatious complaints was raised by BASC and others, and my officials and I will engage with Police Scotland on that, likely before the formal move to stage 2.

On enforcement, investigative powers and police funding, I have confidence in Police Scotland’s ability to fulfil the requirements. Detective Sergeant Telford said that he has views on how the bill could be better but that, ultimately, Police Scotland will work with whatever is passed.