Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Litter and Fly-tipping: England
Bob Blackman Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Betts
I was just about to say it, but the hon. Member for Harrow East got in before me—I was reflecting on whether it was appropriate, but it obviously was.
It is a difficult issue, but the Committee—most of us are generally localists—decided that we understood the declaration and the LGA’s position, and that it was up to local authorities to make a decision themselves. We also said that if they did so, they should not allow themselves to be used in any way by tobacco manufacturers to gain any advantage or engage in any promotion of tobacco products—to give any impression that tobacco was okay because the companies were making a contribution towards a public service.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, I think for the first time. My apologies for being slightly late and missing the introductory remarks of the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), but I was at another meeting, which I was hosting.
I am one of the two surviving members of the Communities and Local Government Committee in the previous Parliament and the report we are discussing was our last one before the general election. Speaking personally, I compliment the Chair and everyone who participated in that inquiry, and all the other ones, because—as the hon. Gentleman said—we carefully considered a large amount of evidence in conflicting styles to produce a report with some comprehensive recommendations and conclusions.
We could not reach a unanimous view on one or two matters. It was not differing party views, but that some individuals in Committee had what we might describe as a more robust approach to dealing with responsibility for litter than others. I was one of them, as was the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). We had a more stringent view of what we should do to people who deposit litter on our streets unnecessarily.
There is no doubt that the problems of littering and fly-tipping are extremely prevalent throughout the UK. Locally, they are probably the most important thing to affect individuals in how they feel about the place in which they live. It is clearly a local authority responsibility to ensure that the area is clean, but in many ways we should remember that it is people who deposit litter in the first place. If people do not deposit litter, the problem goes away.
I want to concentrate on some of the issues that came out of the Committee’s report and the conclusions and recommendations on what we should do for the future. Then I will go a bit further and start thinking about some of the areas on which we took evidence, but which did not make it into the report that I hope the Government will start to look at. The first point is that actions have consequences. For example, the legislation to prevent smoking in public buildings such as cafés, shops and workplaces—which I strongly supported even though I was not in Parliament when it was happening—forced smokers out on to the streets. Previously, they would have smoked at their desks or in their places of work, but they now smoke outside and deposit their litter as and when they feel like it either on the street or—most of them—in receptacles, if provided.
As the Chair of the Select Committee said, cigarette butts are the most littered item and, as they are not biodegradable, local authorities unnecessarily spend enormous amounts of money clearing them up. I have a potential solution that is not in the report but I promote it as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health. The Government should increase the levy on cigarettes and tobacco products by about 5% above the rate of inflation every year, which would add about 37p to a pack of cigarettes, and all of that money should be dedicated to local authorities for two purposes. The first would be to ensure that they have the funding to take forward their duties on public health to aid smoking cessation and ensure that people do not start smoking in the first place. As the number of people smoking reduced, that would help to reduce litter. Secondly, and equally, local authorities could use part of the funds to clear up tobacco detritus, which includes not just cigarette butts but cigarette packets, cellophane and the other elements in the packs of tobacco that cause littering problems.
We also know that when people see litter around, they are less likely to feel that they should not throw litter to join that on the ground. If local authorities clear up the tobacco butts, which tend to accumulate in certain areas—particularly around stations, bus stops and other buildings—and then blow everywhere, people will be less likely to deposit other items of litter. That is a particular consequence.
On chewing gum, I am of the strong view that when people have finished chewing their gum, they deposit it where they like. In fact, only this morning I was in a Committee Room where some pleasant individual had deposited their chewing gum under the table. Why people do that I just do not know. I remember people did it at school, but surely in the mother of Parliaments—
Bob Blackman
I have a very good memory. Surely that should not be the case in a Committee Room in the House of Commons. I could take you, Mr Turner, to parts of London where you will see the pavement littered with people’s chewing gum that has been splodged on the ground and it is almost impossible to remove it. It is unsightly and unhealthy, and it causes immense damage to the local street scene.
Almost the only way to remove chewing gum is steam cleaning or an equivalent. That is expensive, because it requires operatives and it is a lot of work, so few local authorities actually do anything about it. There clearly should be a tax on chewing gum and that money should be passed to local authorities for the specific purpose of clearing up the chewing gum deposited on our streets.
I also believe in the importance of educating young people. I strongly support the Clean for the Queen programme, which is an excellent programme, among others—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) will promote other aspects of taking action in particular areas. That is a great thing to do. We need to educate young people in particular about the importance of not littering on their streets.
Victoria Prentis
Does my hon. Friend agree that a child who is encouraged to pick up litter in a scheme such as Clean for the Queen grows up to be an adult who does not throw litter? That is very much part of the impetus behind our push for such schemes.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that. Encouraging good habits at a young age is definitely the way forward. One of the problems in my local area is the fast food restaurant near the school: we see from the litter how long it takes young people to eat their food as they walk back to the school. They deposit it where they choose and the consequences are littered streets and concerned residents. Even worse, some young people throw it in someone’s garden. They think, “I’ve finished with this. What do I do with it? I’ll throw it in the garden.”
On numerous occasions I have told my local authority to provide litter bins on the routes between schools and the fast food restaurants. I remember an exchange with some officers who said, “We’re not going to do that, because the consequence is the litter bins will become full and then we’ll have to pay someone to empty them.” We might think, “Hang on a minute, surely it is cheaper to do that than to clear up the litter,” but logic did not prevail in that case. I think there is a semblance of a duty—we took a lot of evidence on this—on fast food restaurants to keep the place clean.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees that not all fast food outlets operate with the same disregard. In my constituency, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said, McDonald’s is good. It employs people to clean up around its restaurants and it organises volunteer days for its staff to do my local park. Some fast food chains take a responsible approach to the matter.
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. McDonald’s is clearly a shining example of what should be done. Its food is all right—I would not say it was great, but lots of people love it.
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend talks about McDonald’s being a shining example, but its products have a huge amount of packaging. If it was somehow forced or encouraged to reduce packaging, that might also help to provide a solution to the problem.
Bob Blackman
Clearly the packaging that McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants use is a matter for them, but the consequences of packaging are not limited to fast food—there are whole ranges of unnecessary packaging. However, the point is whether we should look at duties on fast food restaurants to act in the same responsible way as McDonald’s.
In my constituency we have a perennial problem with a Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-through restaurant where people drive in, park up the road, eat their chicken and throw the bones on the floor—they literally drop them out of their car windows—for local residents to suffer. Surely we can ensure that the fast food restaurants have a duty to keep their areas clear. I leave the implementation of that to the great thoughts of my hon. Friend the Minister, but we must say, “The consequences of you selling your products are the costs of clearing up.” Let us look at some solutions to that.
Mr Betts
I did not cover this point in my introduction, but the hon. Gentleman is right. My Committee gave specific praise to McDonald’s because of what it does and said all fast food restaurants, takeaways and so on should have a legal responsibility to clean up in their areas. The Government came back and said that they did not want a general duty, but that local authorities have powers to act under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 where there is a persistent problem. I wonder whether many local authorities use that power; I am not sure if figures are kept about that. Going down that route presumably has quite a considerable cost for local authorities. Does the hon. Gentleman think we ought to push the Government a little bit harder, to see what we can effectively do about this?
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman who chairs the Select Committee. We have to press the Government further on this issue, and we will clearly return to it in this term. If the Government do not take action, we will as a Committee almost certainly conclude that further action is required. If the Government do not come up with a scheme, we will suggest an alternative.
Another area of social change in this country is that we are shifting to a lot more people living in private rented accommodation. People quite frequently live in such accommodation for short periods of six months to one year and then move to another area, which may involve moving from one local authority to another. That has consequences.
As a true localist, I applaud local authorities collecting domestic rubbish as they so choose. However, if we go to any London borough or any local authority up and down the country, we will find different coloured bins for different types of waste—be it general waste, dry recycled waste, food waste or garden waste. In some local authorities, there are five different bins, all with different colours. No information is supplied to individuals living in households in the area as to which rubbish they should put in which bin, except when the local authority issues the bins.
The problem is that when people move, they may then put rubbish in the wrong bins, and it is particularly people who come from another country to live in this country—I am not blaming them for this. They want to do the right thing; they want to dispose of their rubbish. They put the rubbish in the bin that they think is the right one. They may have moved from one local authority to another, so they just use the same colour bin. However, when the rubbish comes to be collected, the bin men arrive and say, “Nope. It’s the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin,” and just leave it there and move on to the next house.
As a consequence, the bins rapidly fill up and overflow, causing rats, mice and other vermin to congregate. Worse still, particularly in shared households, what tends to happen is that people say, “I’ve got to get rid of my rubbish. What am I going to do with it? The local authority hasn’t collected my bin and hasn’t told me why. What I’ll do is put my rubbish in a plastic bag, wander down to the end of the road and deposit it on the corner.” Rats, foxes, dogs, cats and all sorts of vermin then chew the bags and the rubbish goes everywhere.
My suggestion is relatively simple. When someone moves into private rented accommodation, one of their duties is to register on the electoral register with the local authority. Surely local authorities should have a duty to issue people who move into the area and register for the first time with a simple guide to how to dispose of rubbish. It is not rocket science but, to my knowledge, that is not done anywhere in the country. Some enlightened places may do it, but the reality is that it is not generally happening. It would be so easy to do. It could be one sheet that goes out when someone registers to vote, saying, “Here’s advice on how you dispose of your rubbish.” At a stroke, we would remove quite a few of the problems that occur with fly-tipping. From what I can see, a lot of fly-tipping is a consequence of people not getting their domestic waste collected.
Another associated problem is that many local authorities are now choosing to charge for the collection of garden waste. I remember introducing wheelie bins for the first time in my local authority when I was a local authority leader. We had a great song and dance about it—“Throw all your rubbish in the bin. It’ll be collected once a week and we’ll sort it out for recycling and other purposes.” It was a great idea. For the first time, garden waste was collected, free of charge. The problem is that as local authorities then separated out the various different types of service, they cottoned on to the fact that they do not have to collect garden waste free of charge. They therefore then imposed a charge on collecting garden waste, which is deeply unpopular and is a monopoly service, because no one else provides it.
The reality is that the charges are very different depending on where they are in the country. I have done a study demonstrating that in London my own borough, which is introducing the charge from April, will have the highest level. That is a deterrent straight away to people registering for the service. People who have gardens and are therefore likely to generate garden waste will dispose of their garden waste somehow. One problem with the charge is that those people will say, “Actually, I’m not prepared to pay for a service that I think should be provided by the local authority free of charge”—and has been, by the way, for a number of years—“so I’ll find another way of disposing of it.” Fly-tipping will become more prevalent as a result.
It is certainly true that where charges have been imposed, fly-tipping of garden waste in particular has increased quite dramatically. That is a consequence of charging for services that people see as part of the council tax they pay. The Government need to look at that carefully. I take the view that the charges for such services should be kept under review, because it cannot be correct that equivalent authorities are charging very different prices for the same service. Something is going wrong somewhere when that is the case.
Mr Betts
I understand the problem. It certainly caused a great deal of concern in my constituency when charges were introduced. The problem was that it is not the council that introduced the charge; it is Veolia, the contractor. Veolia fixes the charge and refuses to take instalment payments, so people have to pay it up front. That is a deterrent to people, particularly those on low incomes. There is a challenge when contractors—ones that make a lot of money out of this—introduce that sort of charge for the service.
Bob Blackman
That is a clear concern. It depends, of course, on the contract that has been set up between the local authority and the supplier. In London—I cannot speak for the hon. Gentleman’s area—we have done quite a detailed study of this issue, and it is local authorities implementing the charges, not contractors. In my borough, it is a direct service—it is not even being provided by an outside contractor, which demonstrates that there is a particular problem.
Jim Fitzpatrick
To reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), there was a perversity when bulk refuse charges were introduced in Tower Hamlets, in that the concerned citizens who were reporting bulk refuse were the ones being told, “You have to pay the charge for the removal of that piece of bulk refuse,” even though it had been fly-tipped by somebody from somewhere else. Tower Hamlets had to go back to free collection of bulk refuse, because otherwise citizens would not report it out of fear that they would have to pay for the removal of something that was not their responsibility.
Bob Blackman
I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. That has happened in a lot of local authorities up and down the country.
I will move on to bulky waste, to which the Chair of the Select Committee also alluded. There are duties for certain items to be collected when someone buys a replacement, but I think we will all have seen beds, sofas, garden furniture and ordinary furniture just dumped on the streets and left to rot. The reality is that much of that, and mattresses in particular, could be collected at the same time as people are buying new ones. I have seen certain local authorities that routinely go around and collect mattresses that have been left in particular areas. In areas with houses in multiple occupation, landlords will turn out the beds on a routine basis, especially when there has been a turnover of people living in those properties. When there are mattresses on the street, they have to be collected and dealt with. Surely there should be a duty on suppliers, as part and parcel of the process of delivering mattresses, sofas and other items, to collect and take away the old ones and dispose of them free of charge to the individual who is buying the new product. The Government should look at that in order to reduce costs.
The other issue with fly-tipping is that it is definitely on the increase. We have to combat it in every way, shape or form. Two types of fly-tipping are of particular concern. There is fly-tipping on the public highway, which hon. Members have mentioned, along with fly-tipping on street corners and all sorts of areas of the public highway that tend to be out of sight. People just wander along and either dump their rubbish from a car or, alternatively, dump it on service roads, whether to shops or domestic properties, as access points to garages. They are often the biggest problem of all, for the simple reason that they are on private land, so local authorities will say, “Nothing to do with us; you have to pay for that rubbish to be removed,” whereas residents say, “Well, it’s nothing to do with us. We didn’t dump it there in the first place.” The rubbish then builds up and up, till it becomes a health hazard and finally the local authority has to step in, remove it and try and identify who was responsible. It is often good luck if they find anything associated with the individual who dumped it in the first place. Often that is not possible.
I suspect this will be difficult, but we will have to look at what the duties are to collect fly-tipping on private land and whether any can be passed on to local authorities or whether there is some other way of dealing with fly-tipping on service roads. I know this is of great concern to many residents up and down the country, and there do not seem to be proper regulations to control it.
Mr Betts
To deter fly-tipping, we said we wanted to see powers to impound vehicles engaged in fly-tipping. One very positive thing that we probably ought to report—and, again, congratulate the Government on—is that they brought those regulations into force on 6 April. That was really welcome. In serious cases, a vehicle engaged in fly-tipping can be impounded and taken away, which is a really strong penalty and deterrent.
Bob Blackman
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee again for making that point about a good thing that the Government have done.
All in all, this is a comprehensive report, with some simple recommendations about which most right-minded people would say, “Well, let’s implement those.” There are some dilemmas for the Government in their deliberations on fly-tipping and littering, but I would welcome the Minister’s views on how some of the ideas we have floated today can be taken forward and implemented across the country, while allowing local authorities to develop new strategies to deal with fly-tipping and littering as appropriate in their local communities. It is also about making it clear that there are duties to keep areas clean and duties on individuals to ensure that they do not dump rubbish and act in an antisocial manner.
In conclusion, it was a pleasure to work on this report. It upsets most residents across the country to see rubbish thrown everywhere. Clearly this is an area where a clean-up is necessary.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—before he leaves the Chamber—for his contribution, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and the hon. Members for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) who, I am pleased to say, are remaining in their place. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Select Committee, for his eloquent introduction to this debate and for highlighting these important issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse outlined clearly some of the Select Committee’s recommendations, but you will be pleased to hear, Mr Turner, that I do not intend simply to repeat what has already been said.
Litter and fly-tipping have been, and remain, a huge problem in this country. They are a blight on England—on our roadsides, public areas and public spaces. Unfortunately, cuts to local government funding are forcing many councils to make savings by closing municipal tips, which could increase fly-tipping. The closure of the local tip in Heywood in my constituency led to great concern among residents, many of whom contacted me to share their worries that such action would exacerbate the growing problem of fly-tipping.
I welcome the Select Committee’s recommendation on penalties for fly-tipping. The introduction of a fixed penalty notice for the fly-tipping of household items, which form the bulk of the incidents, would involve the lower standard of proof required for a civil penalty. I also welcome the recommendation, to which many hon. Members have referred, that the relevant industries introduce a scheme to take away unwanted household appliances and furniture when replacements are delivered. Additionally, it is vital that councils foster partnerships with charities that are willing to collect such items free of charge, as many councils do. Just because an item is being replaced, that does not make it obsolete, and there are many excellent local charities that will find good homes for appliances and furniture that are still usable.
As many hon. Members pointed out, incidences of fly-tipping are on the increase. I am concerned that that is being exacerbated not only by councils operating fewer municipal tip sites, but by some councils, again in response to cuts in central Government funding, introducing charging for items and waste deposited at those sites. We are in a bit of a quandary. The Government want local councils to become self-financing by 2020 and are encouraging innovation to enable them to generate their own funding. Many councils will see charging for waste disposal as a method of income generation, but it must not be forgotten that that in itself could lead to an increase in fly-tipping. The hon. Member for Harrow East made a similar and very valid point in relation to councils charging for the removal of garden waste.
That is why I welcome the Select Committee’s recommendation to introduce a national fixed penalty notice for small amounts of fly-tipping, which would require the lower standard of proof required for a civil penalty. I welcome the Government’s commitment to give councils the power to tackle small-scale fly-tipping through penalty notices, as an alternative to prosecutions.
The Select Committee rightly points out that no data on incidences of litter are held centrally by the Government. I am pleased that the Government appear to welcome the idea of having access to those data and, importantly, that they say:
“we will explore ways of obtaining it without imposing an additional reporting burden on local authorities.”
I fully support the Government’s sentiment. Although they appear to be expecting local councils to do more and more with less and less, it is vital that we try not to impose additional burdens on our already hard-pressed councils. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East highlighted the long period of time between publication of the Select Committee report and receipt of the Government response, so I hope that the Minister can offer some explanation for that.
Litter is of great concern to our constituents, and it is right that the Government should be taking positive action. I am a great supporter of, and have participated in many, community clean-ups and litter-picks. I applaud the idea of a community clean-up day. Clean for the Queen has been referred to. Personally, I would prefer a clean for the community day, although in an ideal world, no one would drop litter and community groups could spend their time on activities that really do improve their local areas, such as bulb and flower planting.
The issue of cigarette litter was highlighted by the hon. Member for Harrow East. There is a real job to be done of educating smokers. Many of them seem to think that cigarette butts are biodegradable, but they are not—once dropped, they remain very much fixed until they are cleared away. I feel that a portion of the tobacco tax should go towards the cost of street cleaning to local councils, but I fully appreciate councils’ sensitivities about being seen to be endorsing tobacco companies in any way. I will be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.
Bob Blackman
Will the hon. Lady comment on the solution that I raised—a tobacco duty escalator? The money would be passed on to local authorities so that they could fulfil their duties, and that would have the benefit that local authorities would not need to have anything to do with the tobacco industry, although they would be given the money that was raised.
Liz McInnes
I thank the hon. Gentleman for those comments. The Government’s response says that they will leave it up to local councils to decide whether they wish to work with tobacco companies. That is a sensible way of dealing with the matter, but personally I do not have an issue with tobacco companies putting in funding to clear up the litter that their users create, which does not show the tobacco companies in an especially positive light. An escalator could be one way of dealing with the situation, but I appreciate that other hon. Members have different views, so I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.
I am in danger of doing what I said I would not do—repeating all the points that everyone has made—but the report makes valid points. I have not yet touched on the responsibilities of chewing gum manufacturers and fast food companies. The Select Committee is not yet recommending a tax on chewing gum, but it does say that,
“this is the last chance for the industry to put its house in order.”
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East, I was quite entertained by the idea of the Chewing Gum Action Group, but behind that name there is some serious work to be done, including perhaps more information on packaging about how chewing gum should be disposed of—and not in the time-honoured tradition of sticking it under the school desk. I am really disappointed to hear that that practice goes on in this place as well. There is a job of education to be done not just among schoolchildren but, unfortunately, among some people here.
We have to see the situation of litter and fly-tipping against the background of cuts to local council funding, but I hope that the report’s positive recommendations can be accepted and acted on in an amicable, cross- party manner. This issue affects all our constituents, regardless of our political persuasion. As my hon. Friend said, many of the recommendations have been taken on board by the Government, and I hope that the Minister will now comment on those areas highlighted during the debate as still requiring more work and consideration.
Bob Blackman
I thank the Minister for his remarks; I am interjecting on two points. First, the cost to the national health service of smoking-related diseases is greater than the Treasury’s income from tobacco products, so the position is not balanced. Secondly, local authorities have a public duty to encourage smoking cessation and to clear up the litter caused by smoking. The issue is how they get that funding, particularly at a time when the Government have chosen to reduce funding for public health. The proposed levy is therefore a way of providing local authorities with more money to fulfil their duties.
Mr Jones
As I have said, these are matters for the Treasury. My hon. Friend has got his point on the record today, and I am sure Treasury Ministers will be listening intently to this debate and will therefore have heard what he has said.
My hon. Friend made some interesting comments about finding chewing gum under a desk. I decided to take a pair of shoes back to my home in my constituency this weekend, and when I put them in my bag this morning there was a great big piece of chewing gum on the bottom of them. As he would expect, I was not best pleased. I appreciate exactly what he says about the challenges we face with chewing gum. The Chewing Gum Action Group has been mentioned, and its work was perhaps understated. That important group is working to address these issues. The companies that produce chewing gum are members of the group. It is important that the Government engage with those companies to ensure that we are doing all we can and that they are showing and taking a lead on ensuring that their products do not end up on pavements and floors across the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned highways. There is a pilot project in the midlands that aims to enhance joint working between Highways England and local authorities, with the aim of sharing teams and assets so that they can support each other to improve our A roads across the midlands. We are carefully looking at how that is currently working. Making the Highways Agency legally responsible for collecting litter is not as straightforward as has been said—primary legislation and complicated alterations to funding arrangements would be needed. It is important that we see how the pilot pans out before taking it forward.
The idea of fines for throwing litter from cars has been mentioned, and again we will carefully consider it through the national litter strategy and enforcement. We are well aware of the problem, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East mentioned instances where people get takeaway food and drive up the road, with the rubbish ending up in a hedge, in the bushes or in somebody’s garden. That is an important point, and it is something that we need to consider carefully.
The hon. Member for Sheffield South East mentioned the LGA, which has an extremely important role in this agenda. The LGA is part of our advisory group, and it will be an important organisation in getting across some of the messages that we need to get across to local authorities. Many comments have been made about reductions in spending, and obviously I am well aware of the challenges faced by local government. Those challenges have been managed extremely well over the past five years, for which I thank local government, but there is a critical point here. I mentioned earlier in my remarks that the issue is not just about the environment—the possible damage to wildlife and the fact that an area might look scruffy. It is a massive issue for local economies, because when an area is scruffy it is an indicator that the economy might not be doing as well as it could.
To return to the point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee about full retention of business rates, which will happen by the end of this decade, I think that all local authorities will look to raise additional business rate. Other funding streams for councils that are becoming more and more important are additional council tax, widening the council tax base and the new homes bonus. It is absolutely in every council’s interest to ensure that it is doing its utmost to keep its area clean, tidy and free of fly-tipping for that reason alone. Effectively, it will become an investment to bring in additional revenue for councils.
I heard what the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton said about household recycling centres, which several other Members mentioned as well. It is encouraging to see many councils working with charities that collect items, even from people’s homes. It is extremely positive when items coming into recycling sites go straight into shops right next to the site; I have a very good example of that in my constituency. Goods go on sale that many people on lower incomes can easily access, and it reduces the prevalence of litter and fly-tipping.
On the point about household recycling centres and municipal tips, as the hon. Lady called them—that is the term that I have always used; in my local area we say “going up the tip”—and on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East about councils charging for recycling of green waste and so on, it is obviously a decision for the local authority in question whether it wants to charge people to use a household recycling centre or to dispose of green waste. However, having experienced local government myself, I would say that those are services that local people expect to be provided, and they are concerned about it. As I said, in terms of the context of the change in how local government will be funded, I think that councils that do not think carefully about providing those services will meet challenges going forward in terms of generating the important income streams that they need.
Bob Blackman
When the Secretary of State came before the Committee to discuss these issues, we raised the point about monopoly services for which local authorities charge. We need to balance the cost of providing those services against the price that the local authority charges for those services. Given the wide disparity, will the Minister go back to his Department with the view that we need to review what is happening across local authorities to see whether there is any element of overcharging and profiting from such services that is then being used to subsidise other services?