Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to introduce free drinking water fountains at (1) airports, (2) railway and bus stations, and (3) major tourist attractions.

The Government recognises the importance of making drinking water more readily available in public places, as a means of reducing single-use plastic bottles. As laid out in the 25 Year Environment Plan, and Resource and Waste Strategy we are already taking action in this area.

Ministers have supported transport hubs, particularly railway stations and airports, to offer refill points. It is encouraging to see the positive response from Network Rail and rail operators. Around half of the UK's international airports have water fountains enabling customers to refill their own water containers.

The Government is supporting water companies, high street retailers, coffee shops and transport hubs to offer new refill points for people to top-up water bottles for free in every major city and town in England. The water industry is developing a network of refill points through its Refill app, managed by City to Sea. The app signposts to over 20,000 free refill points and is estimated to save over 100 million single use bottles from entering our waste stream by the end of 2019.