Litter and Fly-tipping: England

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking about tobacco companies, and I mentioned chewing gum, but my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) just reminded me of companies such as McDonald’s. Our highways are often a litter-strewn disgrace, and while there are duties under section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to keep those highways clean, there is conflict between local authorities, which have the duty, and Highways England, which is required to provide protection for local authority employees for health and safety reasons. Highways England charges for that, so highways are not being kept clean—they are cleaned only occasionally when someone complains. In my constituency, the A64 is a litter-strewn disgrace that deters the tourism that my areas relies on, yet there is no joined-up thinking about how to clean the highways. Do we need to consider that as part of the national strategy to which he referred?

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be short.

[Mr Betts]

I understand that this is a very long road, Mr Turner.

The Committee did consider that point, and I am going to come on to fly-tipping, which often happens on highways, in addition to ordinary littering. We considered two issues about vehicles and highways. One was about the division of responsibility between local authorities picking the litter up and Highways England being responsible for safety on the highways. We suggested that responsibility for litter be transferred to Highways England after consultation. The Government said no and that they wanted to have another look at how that might work, so I will be interested to hear more details about that from the Minister. I am not saying that the Government are wrong, but we identified a problem and made a suggestion about how it could be resolved. It clearly needs a resolution, because what we have at present is unacceptable and is not working. If the Government come up with another idea, okay, but they ought to say that if their new approach does not work, they will come back and consider whether one agency should be responsible, because that is often the way to sort things out.

There is also the question of how we penalise the offence of dropping litter from cars. As I understand it, the offence is committed by the person who drops the litter, but the difficulty is that if a car whizzes past and litter comes out of it, can who dropped it be proved? The law in London is different, because the owner of the vehicle can be charged, irrespective of who throws the litter—it is for the owner to decide. The Committee suggested that that approach should apply nationally. The Government said that there was not enough evidence that the extra powers had led to an increase in fines in London, but I still urge the Minister to have a look at that option as it seems to be impossible to determine proof outside London, because if there are four people in a car and a cigarette packet or a sweet wrapper is thrown out of it, who actually threw that? We hope that the Government will consider adopting the London position.

We carefully considered the idea of taxing chewing gum to pay for the cost of clean-up. Cigarette material might be the most prevalent form of litter, but chewing gum is certainly the most difficult to clean—it is a nightmare. In the end, we said to the industry, “Look, this is the last-chance saloon. What are you going to do to help with the cost of this and the practicalities of clearing it up? Alternatively, how about producing chewing gum that is less difficult to get off the pavement if people drop it?”

The Government’s response referred to a wonderful-sounding organisation called the Chewing Gum Action Group. We hope that it is doing good work, but we would like to hear what it is going to do and how the Minister will judge its success. If, despite its work, chewing gum is still being thrown around to the same extent, with no change in the materials used in gum to make it easier to remove, and if the industry does not volunteer to take up its share of the burden, will the Minister consider alternatives? The Committee intends to reconsider the issue—and, indeed, quite a few of the points made in our report—to determine whether progress has been made.

Another big problem is fly-tipping. All the data we have, imperfect though they are, show that litter is a problem. In our report’s summary, we stated:

“England is a litter-ridden country compared to most of Europe, North America and Japan.”

The Government disagreed and said that there was no evidence for that, probably because the figures are not available, but most of us can see with our own eyes when we go to other countries that things there look better in general. However, it is absolutely clear that the problem of fly-tipping has become worse in this country. There is no doubt at all about that, because there has been a 20% increase in the previous 12 months, as we were told in evidence.

The Government accepted the suggestion of adopting fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping to add to the range of options for local authorities so that they may prosecute more simply. Fly-tipping is a serious problem, but while a builders’ merchant ought to be taken to court for a major incident such as dumping building material in a lay-by, for a discarded plastic bag, a fixed penalty notice would be the appropriate and proportionate response. It is extremely welcome that the Government will introduce such notices.

A further concern is that as local authorities get increasingly short of cash and look for savings, they charge for taking away bulky household goods. We encourage local authorities to team up with charities—a number of organisations do this—that will take away the goods, recycle and reuse what they can, and then take to the council site what they cannot. I talked to the British Heart Foundation, which operates such a scheme in certain parts of the country. That excellent scheme involves the charity recycling much of the furniture—sprucing it up, putting it on display and selling it off—and, by agreement with the local authority, taking what it cannot sell free of charge to the local council site.

I wish that more local authorities were involved in such schemes, because they could then tell people, “There is no charge for your bulky items. This organisation will take them for free.” Items could be put to good use and recycled, and the scheme is good for the charity as well, because it will make some money. The Government also welcomed that suggestion, but it could be publicised further. Perhaps the Local Government Association will do something to get the information out to its members.

We also suggested that retailers that sold a good should take the old one away free of charge, with the cost perhaps being built into the original price of the item. The Government said that existing electrical regulations meant that a company selling electrical products had to provide disposal of the old product free of charge. The catch is that the company does not have to take it away free of charge—only the disposal is free. That is a loophole, because someone then still has to pay for an old product to be taken from the home. Will the Government consider toughening up that measure? Furthermore, those regulations apply only to electrical products, not to things such as beds or sofas, which can be even harder to get rid of. Will the Government try to find a way forward?

We also suggested improving information not only about littering, but about fine collection and penalty notices. The Government accepted that recommendation and will consider how to do that.

The report, which was considered and focused on the main issues, had a generally positive response from Government, but we did not get a totally satisfactory or complete response to some of the items, which I have highlighted. I hope that the Minister will address the issues that still need to be dealt with. In short, we need better stats and a sense of how we really get to grips with cigarette, chewing gum and fly-tipping problems.

Everything, of course, has to be seen against the background that local authorities face further spending cuts. As councils concentrate on absolutely vital statutory services such as adult social care, areas such as cleaning up litter are those that can suffer and experience reductions in spending. We do not want further problems. Local authorities ought to be imaginative, so we suggested that they look at the modern bins available. Nottingham City Council has a lot of bins that give the council’s control centre an indication of when they are available for collection. That means that someone does not have to be paid to go around emptying bins that are not full, as the council will respond when a bin is full, rather than having a rota for collection at certain times. Local authorities can therefore act to meet the challenge, but there are many issues for the Government as well. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.