Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declared my interests in detail some two hours ago; they relate also to this amendment.

Regrettably, my noble friend Lady Coffey is, as the Committee knows, abroad. She offers her apologies and has asked me to speak to her Amendment 71A, an amendment regarding litter on the strategic road network. Essentially, her amendment asks the question: which roads are the responsibility of National Highways? Due to previous legislation, National Highways has responsibility for litter only on all motorways and some A roads. When my noble friend Lady Coffey was MP for Suffolk Coastal, she witnessed a real conflict in trying to get National Highways to work effectively with the council on litter on the A14. Most litter can be collected only when National Highways closes the road, which is often overnight and does not really fit in with local council practices on litter.

My noble friend’s points are valid. She is right that it is very difficult for National Highways and local authorities to co-ordinate and to get this work done efficiently. There are challenges in night-time operations as regards who is the principal contractor, who puts whom to work safely and who holds whom to account when litter picking needs to happen prior to grass cutting, road space management, customer complaint management, responses et cetera. Having the responsibility for litter across the entire strategic road network sit wholly with National Highways would, it seems, make complete sense.

But I know that the Minister has lengthy experience. With flat opex, the challenge of maintaining the SRN will be exacerbated. I am not completely sure that we have addressed the issue of whether sufficient moneys will be redirected from local authorities to National Highways to offset the additional service demands and risks. Litter picking under NLR is a schedule of rates activity, so it would require new and additional funding. It could not just be absorbed solely through efficiency gains.

Litter picking is a current necessity, but it is reasonable to consider it a waste of taxpayers’ money. Working as a community to dissuade littering behaviour through campaigns and technology should perhaps be the continued primary focus. How do we accelerate? How do we use technology? How do we change legislation? How can we affect the level of prosecution for littering—which then could raise moneys to fund litter-picking activity until the problem hopefully ceases to exist? With 100% strategic road network coverage with CCTV an intended outcome, and with the help of AI, I hope that we can move this industry challenge forward. I believe that we will.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, lane rental has worked well in London; it should be rolled out across the rest of England. National Highways should of course pick up its own litter. Street works should be guaranteed for a decent period. As ever, Conservatives have all the best ideas. I look forward to a short speech from the Minister in which he agrees.