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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Nesil Caliskan)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.
I begin by paying tribute to Members from across the House for the incredibly thoughtful and personal stories that they have shared. I am very conscious that Members speak on behalf of their constituents, and that some Members speak from personal experience. Although I do not have that personal experience, I have a very close family member who does, and I have heard Members speak in the Chamber before about their own experiences and have reflected very carefully on the power of those remarks for those beyond the House who hear them. I thank Members very much for their contributions.
I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this very important debate, and for his continued interest in this issue. I know that he is a committed advocate for public toilet provision, including for those with non-visible disabilities such as stoma use.
I recognise the importance of the provision of good-quality, accessible public toilets more broadly. For far too many people, access to clean and safe public toilets can be the deciding factor in whether they feel able to visit a town centre, a high street, a park or any local attraction. As others put it so eloquently, such facilities support the dignity and independence of people with disability and accessibility needs. Of course, accessibility to a decent facility encourages everybody to spend more time in their local areas, and to use the shops, services and attractions in them. I do not need to detail the benefits of that in itself.
It is true that for many people, it is just too difficult to access the facilities that the rest of us can access so easily every day. Members have correctly pointed out that that is a challenge not only for those with a stoma, but for many other people, including those with ulcerative colitis or irritable bowel disease. The list is much longer than that; the point is that many people are impacted by the lack of accessibility facilities.
However, this debate is focused on stomas, and I want to place on the record the Government’s recognition that this is absolutely a real challenge. Approximately one in 335 people of all ages in the UK is estimated to be living with a stoma, and each year more than 13,000 people in the UK undergo stoma surgery. For people living with a stoma, access to suitable toilet provision is not simply a matter of convenience; it is fundamental to their dignity, safety and independence. Many people living with a stoma feel anxious about leaving home, particularly in the period after surgery.
The Government recognise that being able to live well, to work, to enjoy days out, to shop and to socialise requires access to appropriate public toilet facilities. However, as Members across the Chamber have said, standard public toilets may not always provide that facility for everybody in a safe and dignified way. It is important that we recognise the specific experience of people with invisible disabilities, who are often uneasy about using a disabled facility for fear that it may be a challenge to do so—assuming that the disabled facility would even meet their needs.
In recognition of the importance of this subject, at the last spending review, in 2025, the Government committed more than £5 billion over the next three years for essential local services, including public toilets, and we continue to provide 100% mandatory business rates relief for stand-alone public toilets, which is helping reduce ongoing costs for local authorities, but I absolutely accept that the facility needs to exist in the first place. I recognise that, for stoma users, practical features such as clean shelf spaces and discreet disposal bins can make a significant difference. I thank Members for raising the issue of facilities in male toilets, which are so frequently overlooked.
It is worth highlighting that all building work must meet the functional requirements of the Building Regulations 2010, which address accessibility and provide guidance on meeting those requirements, including the installation of shelves, sanitary disposal units and accessibility toilets. However, I accept that the very fact we are having this debate means that the reality on the ground is very different.
The Building Safety Regulator has a duty under the Building Safety Act 2022 to keep the standard of buildings under review, and I welcome the fact that the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), drew attention to the £30 million Changing Places programme, which supported the targeted installation of almost 500 new disabled toilet facilities. I learned much about that programme when I served as a council leader—if I learned anything from my days in local government, it is that bins and toilets are two topics that people get very passionate about.
The role of local authorities is central to this conversation. It is the Government’s view that local authorities are best placed to understand the needs of their communities, and to make decisions about the provision that is right for their areas. I take careful note of the important arguments made about statutory requirements and regulations, but I say gently that local authorities might not think that is the best approach. I am yet to come across a local authority that does not want to do the best for its area, and I think there is a conversation to be had about how we can better support them to do that.
Mr Snowden
Having been a councillor and served on the front bench of a council, I know about delivering these facilities, and I feel for councils when it comes to doing so. As has been said, the reality is that even if councils want to do their best, and they know what is best for their local areas, funding is tight. We all know that ever-increasing adult social care bills and so on are creating bigger burdens on local government finances, and statutory requirements will always take priority over other things. I do not want to create a system that ends up costing more than opening the toilets themselves through its complexity and bureaucracy, but it is really important to place some greater requirement on councils to understand the provision and fill the gaps. If the Minister is looking for a commissioner for the crappers in the future, it may be a role for me!
Nesil Caliskan
I absolutely take the point. There is a conversation to be had with the sector, local authorities and the Local Government Association about how we can best support local authorities to do that. I think there is a real willingness among local authorities. I accept the point about statutory services, but there are great examples of local authorities providing services that are not statutory because they recognise the importance of public provision.
Vikki Slade
I take the Minister’s point. As a former council leader, I know that the last thing that councils need is a whole load of additional things that they have to do, but the point is that there is fear and inconsistency. If there is a postcode lottery when it comes to whether a council is sufficiently interested in ensuring provision or making information available to people, people will end up staying at home because they do not know what the rules are in the place they are travelling to. I gently urge the Minister to think carefully about placing a duty on local authorities to make provision in their area. If we want everybody to have the opportunity to engage in public life, that is the bare minimum.
Nesil Caliskan
I absolutely take the point, but there is scope for us to consider how to do that without putting additional statutory burdens on local authorities. Ultimately, we want the same outcome: we do not want a postcode lottery. A person who needs accessible toilets should know that they can leave the house and access them. I am open-minded about whether we do that through regulation or by having schemes that support the roll-out of better facilities. There are good examples of services being delivered across the country, so we should look at how the sector can learn from them and how the Government can best support local authorities.
Bins and toilets are areas of interest for local authorities, councillors and council leaders. I note the experience of Members in the Chamber who have a local government background. I recall rolling out a community toilet scheme when I was council leader. That required very small things, such as small grants to businesses—I think they were £1,000—to encourage them to make their facilities available to the public. That meant that the local authority did not have to think about additional toilet spaces. In many ways, the provision of a toilet in a local business or on a high street meant that our residents had more access than they would if they had to go to a park.
Vikki Slade
I cannot resist the opportunity to plug the fact that, prior to being the council leader, I had a business on Broadstone high street, and we were part of the community loo scheme. There are currently five or six businesses in my ward that have open access to their toilets. Previously, there was one public toilet, which was often closed, vandalised or subject to crime. I want to take the opportunity to tell the public that “use your loo” schemes are there for people; they do not need to buy anything. It is really important that we remind our residents of that, because people are often reluctant to go into a café if they are not going to spend money.
Nesil Caliskan
That is exactly the point that I am making. I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting that very good example of what local leadership can deliver in the community. It is important that we empower local authorities and leaders to think outside the box, champion this issue and speak up on tricky topics. That gives me the opportunity once again to pay tribute to hon. Members for taking part in this debate. By talking about and giving attention to a difficult subject, we are able to shift views and encourage our public sector to provide facilities that meet the needs of our communities.
Jim Shannon
The role of councils is incredibly important. The Government’s 10-year health plan sets out a shift from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention and from analogue to digital. For stoma care, moving from analogue to digital could mean remote monitoring for high-risk people living with a stoma, app-based ordering of stoma appliances, reducing prescription errors and delays, and digital self-management for diet, hydration and troubleshooting. Those are all critical issues for the health service to consider when moving from analogue to digital. I ask the Minister, whether or not it is in the notes I gave her, to look at that point as well. I also ask that she meets Colostomy UK with all Members present. That organisation has much more knowledge than me, and we look forward to that opportunity.
Nesil Caliskan
Absolutely. I am very happy to meet any campaigning organisation to discuss this important issue. I note that other hon. Members have also made that request. If charities would like to contact me, I will happily meet them to talk about how we can better support the needs of all our communities.
On the important point the hon. Gentleman makes about the NHS plan and healthcare support, he is absolutely right. It is all the more reason why we need a joined-up approach to what local authorities and NHS local boards are doing. I take the opportunity to highlight health and wellbeing boards across the country, which will play a really important role in making sure that, as one part of the local authority is delivering something, it is making the most of what it is doing so that it meets the objectives of a different part. In the case we are talking about, health is a really obvious example.
To return to my general point about local authorities thinking outside the box and doing things differently, one area we should encourage them to consider is how they conduct procurement. There are many examples across the country where public toilets in parks and open spaces have fallen into disrepair. Some local authorities are addressing that through procurement processes by stipulating, for example, that the owner of a new café must look after the toilets in that space. Those are good ideas that should be encouraged and will ultimately make it easier for our communities to access facilities.
Mr Snowden
The Minister is being incredibly generous with her time. She probably entered this room and, having seen only one Back-Bench Member, thought this debate would not get close to 4.30 pm—but here we are.
I have two points. First, is there a greater role for section 106 moneys, potentially through planning processes, in supporting public toilets? The Minister gave a really good example of creative thinking around ownership of toilets in parks and cafés. My sister will kill me for saying this, but when she was growing up she had a phobia of metal toilets. I think it was actually just a phobia of unclean spaces. A lot of people would rather use a well-kept toilet in a private business, where they will not be judged for using it—provided it is not at the far end and they do not have to walk past all the tables with everyone looking at them—than use a public toilet that, by its nature and because it is not in a manned location, cannot always be guaranteed to be as clean. I think that is a great example. Will the Minister work with colleagues in local government to see whether that can be rolled out more, and consider how section 106 moneys might help to create more of an incentive for commercial operators who might not otherwise be able to afford it, or for whom it might not be viable?
Nesil Caliskan
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. Section 106 moneys are often thought about in terms of big infrastructure money, but for a very small amount of money we can make a big public impact; the grant funding of £1,000 to a business is a good example of that. I am very happy to take that back. There are lots of examples across the country of where this is being done well, and we should, as a Government—I will take this back—find a better way to communicate some of that best practice.
I also want to comment on the very important point the hon. Gentleman makes about lived experience. Too often, Governments and councils design and deliver schemes with good intentions, but they do not necessarily meet the real needs of communities. That is why lived experience must be at the heart of policymaking. He referenced his sister’s experience, and I will join him: my sister’s experience is not dissimilar. As he said, many people who live with such conditions develop great resilience over their lifetime. My sister, too, is incredibly resilient, because of her experience of living with her colitis, which was diagnosed as a teenager, as it is for many people. It is a very particular experience to be diagnosed with a lifelong condition as a teenager.
People who experience that are some of the most resilient individuals in our community, and their lived experience is central to making sure that our councils and the Government design provision and services that meet their needs. In that spirit, I welcome continued dialogue with Members. I know that there are others who are not in this Chamber who also feel very strongly about this topic. Local government, MHCLG and partners can work together to deliver more accessible, well-maintained public toilets. We should look at existing schemes and new schemes that can encourage such provision.
I thank hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Strangford for securing this important debate and for his warm words in welcoming me to my place; it was very generous of him. The Government recognise the importance of ensuring that public spaces are accessible, inclusive and supportive of people’s dignity and independence. I welcome further representation from hon. Members, the brilliant charities that do fantastic campaigning on this issue, local authorities across the country and other partners who want to see the provision of public toilets improve.