Changing and Toilet Facilities in Public Buildings

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, a YouGov poll from 2017 found that 59% of women queue for toilets on a regular basis compared with 11% of men. We all know about that, and many studies and recommendations have not been implemented. However, the situation goes much broader than that, because there really are not enough public toilets in the UK. There was a 13% decline in the number provided by local authorities between 2010 and 2018, according to a report by the BBC’s Reality Check in 2018, and this decline has coincided with cuts in local government funding since 2011.

There is no verifiable data on the total number of public toilets in the UK but the British Toilet Association estimates that there has been a 60% reduction just in the last decade. Therefore, there is a huge problem, the issue being that there are too few public toilets.

This is not a small and isolated problem. Fourteen million adults in the UK have a problem controlling their bladder and 6.5 million have bowel issues. According to NHS England, women are five times more likely to develop urinary incontinence than men. Fewer public toilets make it harder for these people to leave their home. A Royal Society for Public Health survey in 2018 found that one in five people do not feel able to go out as often as they would like due to the lack of public toilets provided throughout this country. The same survey found that 56% of respondents restricted fluid intake before going out to reduce the need to find a toilet.

Although overall the lack of public toilets has a greater impact on women, there are other toilet issues facing men. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Continence Care, which I am very proud to have chaired and now jointly chair, has launched a campaign called Bins for Boys. Currently, most male toilets do not have sanitary bins. However, many men have problems with continence, just as women do, so that is appalling. For example, here in the Palace of Westminster there is only one sanitary bin in the 57 male toilets, so what do the men who have a problem with continence do in the whole of this palace?

One bit of good news is that in stations—in London, at least; I do not know what happens in the rest of the country—there is now no charge for public toilets. That is a huge improvement and we are very pleased about that.

This is an important and widespread issue but it is largely hidden and must be publicised. It is something that people do not like to talk about but, in my view, they should, and it is an issue that needs to be resolved. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for introducing this debate because it has given me an opportunity to bring up some of the wider matters relating to continence and incontinence in this country.