To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what discussions she has had with the Chief Medical Officer about the potential threat to public health caused by the disconnection of water to domestic dwellings;(2) what action she has taken through the Chief Medical Officer to examine the implications of the number of notifiable cases of dysentery and hepatitis A in the last three months.

We regularly discuss with the Chief Medical Officer any possible threats to public health. Provisional figures indicate that in the first three months of this year reported cases of Shigella sonnei—the principal causative organism of dysentery in the United Kingdom —and hepatitis A show a fall over the same period last year.