Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, for introducing this Bill today. He is seeking to address a long-standing, expensive and unpleasant problem. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for their comments.

I have a confession to make. I do not smoke but I have been known occasionally to chew gum. However, I promise that I dispose of it responsibly at all times.

Over the years, in your Lordships’ House and in the other place, a number of questions and debates have been raised on this issue and we have seen legislation to deal with the problem of litter. However, still there are people who persist in irresponsibly disposing of their litter in unhygienic and unpleasant ways. All litter is bad, a point made by the noble Earl, and the cost to local authorities is enormous, as the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, said. I would like to see local councils publishing in their annual accounts how much it costs per resident for them to clean up other people’s mess. I call them litter louts, although some of them do not like that description.

As the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has said, the Bill seeks to address the two specific areas that have been targeted—chewing gum and cigarette butts. I had not realised that there is a significant industry devoted to chewing gum removal and disposal. Just a quick trawl on the internet identifies several companies selling products to businesses, councils and individuals, all to deal with chewing gum. There are disposable wrappers that can be carried in pockets or handbags; there are solutions to try to remove chewing gum from clothes, which is extremely unpleasant; there are also industrial-strength machines, to which the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, referred, that remove flattened and dirty chewing gum from pavements.

I first saw one of those machines in operation when I was Environment Minister in Northern Ireland. It was a huge expense and effort for the local authority, but it was an absolute necessity because the sight of the very dark pavements in the town centre against the dirty, off-white used chewing gum was pretty disgusting. I also recall my husband joining me on a visit to a school at which I was speaking as part of the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme, and the school was very embarrassed when he left with his trousers covered in chewing gum from a school chair. I can tell the school that I put the trousers in the freezer and managed to get it off later.

Clearly, this is a problem. It is an unpleasant and ugly problem and innovative ways are being sought to address it, and have been for many years. As early as 1959, Lonnie Donegan reached number three in the pop charts with a solution to the problem of chewing gum disposal, with the hit song, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)”. Noble Lords may not be aware that the problem goes back even further, to 1924, when the original version, “Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?” was a hit in the USA. I suspect that that chewing gum from 1924 has lost its flavour.

When the Labour Government set up the Chewing Gum Action Group in 2003, they brought together charities, government and the chewing gum industry to change public behaviour and alert people to the penalties that can be imposed. I am grateful that this Government continue to support that body. The chewing gum industry is committed to playing its part in the group and provides financial support to help tackle the problem. When it is active, it can achieve great results. In one area there was a 93% reduction in the problem. But I was disappointed to note from the group’s website that this year only 14 local authorities have signed up to it. Clearly many more would benefit from doing so.

Last year in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for an update on dissolvable chewing gum—which apparently has been invented—because,

“chewing gum is the most horrendous litter problem on our streets”.

The Minister replied that he was meeting Wrigley that very afternoon, and that he hoped that his noble friend was,

“reassured that this matter is under control and I will stick to the solution”.—[Official Report, 9/7/12; col. 903.]

It would be interesting to know what further progress has been made since then. I understand that one UK company has invented a chewing gum that can be removed from pavements just with water but I am not aware that it is in widespread use with all the companies. My one reservation about dissolvable chewing gum is that it might make some people even more reckless in disposing of it if they think it can be removed so easily.

Of course, the other problem that the Bill seeks to address is that of cigarette butts. I commend efforts to tackle this problem but there is a debate to be had as to whether the imposition of fines and such duties as suggested by the Bill is the best way forward, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, indicated. I will use an example from my own local authority, Basildon District Council. The council hired a security company, Xfor, to police the town centre and issue fines of £75—the current maximum—to those it witnessed dropping cigarette butts. Xfor charged the council £45 for every fine it issued. There was no request to pick it up, no warning, just the fine of £75. I think the idea was that immediate harsh action would be an effective deterrent. In the first three months of the scheme, 1,460 fines were issued but 495 were not paid, leaving the council £17,000 out of pocket. Obviously, the private security company could not verify names and addresses; nor could it check that the names and addresses it was given were those of the people to whom the fines had been issued. At the time the company was quoted as saying that it was trying to make it cost-neutral for council tax payers but it seemed that the more fines it issued, the greater the loss and expense to the council. My understanding is that as a result the contract had to be terminated; it just was not working. The point made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, reinforces the example I have here.

Last week a teacher in Northern Ireland was fined for throwing an apple core from his car window into a hedge because he thought it was biodegradable and would not cause the same kind of problem as throwing a cigarette packet or chewing gum out of the window.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Just because it is biodegradable does not mean that it is not litter, unfortunately. I think the noble Baroness will find that under the Act it is waste the moment that it is not being used for the purpose for which it was intended. It is therefore litter even if an animal eats it.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, the noble Earl is correct about the legislation. The point I was making is about misunderstanding: people not believing that they are committing an offence. A very responsible citizen, a local teacher, now has a fine and a criminal record.

Litter disposal points are very welcome, but we have all read, and we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, about local authorities who have got rid of many regular litter bins, in some cases citing security and in others because they cannot afford the staff to empty the bins. All across London, there are cigarette disposal units on the side of buildings—often pubs, sometimes offices, anywhere where people congregate to smoke. They are sponsored by a London-based company, but so many of them are either overflowing or damaged and the area underneath and around them is littered with stubs. That itself is a problem in disposal.

I am very fire safety aware. Many of your Lordships will have received a letter from me about your fire safety training, which I hope that every Member of your Lordships' House has undertaken. I found through trawling the internet that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said, it is possible to buy a small, almost disposable ashtray. It is a fully closeable box so that smokers can safely keep their stubs until they can get home and properly dispose of them.

The objectives behind the Bill are wise and seek to address a problem that costs us all. However, I think that more debate is needed on the effectiveness of the measures we have in place and what measures could be effective in future. It is helpful that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, is engaging with local authorities. Clearly, further debate will be helpful to find a way forward to tackle what is a nasty, unpleasant problem.

Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Code of Practice for Surveillance Camera Systems and Specification of Relevant Authorities) Order 2013

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I will say a few words because this is an area in which I take an interest. In principle, I have no trouble with using surveillance cameras around the place to find out what happened after an event and, in some cases, to anticipate what might happen. The only thing that has ever worried me is when things are linked together to try to surveil and track a population around. From that point of view, ANPR cameras could be used for purposes other than traffic management and could start to be used for tracking people. A lot of that stuff involves data protection, so all this looks fairly innocuous.

The main thing that I am worried about is whether it really does anything. At the end of it all, these are all good words. Are we just adding more cost and stuff than can be more effectively used elsewhere? It looks like we have just invented a couple of extra posts, which will be very nice for someone; it will do a bit more box-ticking so everyone will think that it has all been covered. However, if it starts being really effective, it will interrupt other people’s jobs where they do need cameras, and make them more difficult.

So I am giving a few words of caution: let us not waste public money on something that is merely a cosmetic exercise. At the same time, many of the issues that do matter in this are covered by the Data Protection Act, for instance accurate databases and things like that. So they are already covered elsewhere. Will having an extra commissioner really make a difference? It is obvious that I am sceptical about it. It does not really address the big problem about the surveillance state and things like that, but we do not have that yet, thank goodness.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his helpful explanations and information. Just prior to the Committee, I indicated to the Minister that we are considering praying against these instruments. I apologise if he was not told beforehand, although the Whips’ Office knows. In future I would talk to them directly. These are important issues.

I want to offer the Minister the opportunity to answer my questions first, because that might alleviate some of my concerns. His answers will be very important in that regard. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, hit the nail on the head with some of the concerns that I want to raise as well. The Minister referred to our own Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which was quite damning about this order’s ability to achieve the objectives that the Government set out. It stated:

“While the principles themselves are commonsense, some of the explanation is vague, with frequently used terms such as ‘proportionate’ or ‘appropriate’ left undefined in the context”.

Those are wise words. I would impress on the Minister the committee’s final comment, which stated:

“The House may therefore wish to question the Minister about the Government's plans for the wider application of the code and to invite the Minister to clarify how its benefits will offset the costs of the additional bureaucracy involved”.

This SI increases costs and bureaucracy to local authorities and the police of installing CCTV. The Explanatory Notes claim that this is a policy decision motivated by a desire to halt,

“the extent to which private lives are exposed to ever greater scrutiny by other individuals, organisations or the State, leading in some instances to a potential exposure to criminality, or more generally, to an erosion of personal privacy”.

That is the point that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, made. Can the Minister say where in this order is anything that restricts the use of CCTV by individuals or private companies and makes any difference to the potential exposure of criminality that the Government have identified? I am not sure what that means in the context of this order. It may be a government objective, but it is nowhere in this order that I can find, because only public bodies—mainly the police and local authorities—are bound by the order before us today. The consultation and the order will not prohibit the installation of CCTV. What it will do is increase the paperwork and bureaucracy, making it considerably more expensive.

The Government have made a commitment to lean government, and I do not think that it was just a reference to Eric Pickles’s diet when the Chancellor said it. The impact assessment states that this extra flood of bureaucracy is not subject to the Government’s principles of “one in, two out”, in terms of regulation. Why is that? What is the point of having such a policy if the Government can then simply exempt a regulation from it? That makes a complete nonsense of the policy. The Home Secretary said:

“After years of bureaucratic control from Whitehall … this government trusts you to fight crime”,

but apparently not where CCTV is concerned. Here, the Home Office is creating 25 pages of statutory guidance for local authorities to go through—25 pages of hoops for the police to jump through before they can install CCTV.