PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
DISCONNECTION OF DOMESTIC WATER SERVICES (25 November 1992)

That this House is appalled that the number of disconnections of water supplies to inhabited domestic premises has trebled, from 7,273 to 21,586, since 1990-91; notes that the health and safety regulations in the Factories Act 1901 and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 ignore the fact that for millions of people the domestic space is also their area of work, that there is no provision for emergency access to water where disconnection has taken place and that this could lead to extreme danger to health in the event of an accident or fire in the home, that where disconnection has taken place this is likely to affect access to heating and will furthermore expose people to danger due to heating systems running dry, and that the installation of prepayment meters does not solve these problems and can exacerbate them in the case of the frail and elderly; and calls on the Government to extend the Health and Safety Regulations to cover all inhabited domestic premises and to instruct the water companies to recover outstanding payments through the courts and not by disconnection.

Sponsored by:
Helen Jackson (Labour)