Litter

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I have secured this debate today because I really hate litter. It disfigures our parks, pavements and streets; it damages our beautiful countryside and harms our environment; it is a disaster for our oceans and waterways; and it costs hundreds of millions of pounds to clear up. It seems to get everywhere—it has even, on occasion, been present in this very Chamber. As I revealed to a shocked audience in a Westminster Hall debate in 2018, I found a discarded Crunchie wrapper just feet away from where I stand now, so it a universal problem that needs tackling.

On a more serious note, one of the most disturbing impacts of litter is on wildlife. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals receives hundreds of calls every year reporting the harm done to animals and birds by carelessly discarded items—suffocated by plastic bags, entangled in plastic can holders, trapped in cans or injured by sharp edges—and who could fail to be distressed and moved by the pictures we have seen on our TV screens of marine life choked on plastic or drowned by discarded fishing gear?

Government figures from 2018 indicated that every year more than 150 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans and 1 million birds die from eating it or becoming tangled up in it. There are other figures indicating that the problem may be even worse. The situation is intolerable and we must take action.

Litter problems intensified during lockdown, when dumping food and drink packaging in parks seemed to reach epidemic proportions. I found it depressing to see Oak Hill Park in my constituency strewn day after day with Costa Coffee cups. During lockdown walks, I also noticed that the rubbish at the roadside of the A1 where it passes close to my constituency was appalling—feet deep in some places. I am sure all Members of this House are aware of the grave harm caused by fly-tipping, the most extreme form of littering. It has been a particular problem in St Albans Road in High Barnet but, regrettably, it occurs on many streets and in many open spaces in my constituency. This blight on our communities must be tackled, and I know Ministers are determined to do so.

Change is on the way. In 2017 the Government published England’s first ever national litter strategy, setting out how they planned to deliver the aim of substantially reducing littering within a generation. The Environment Act 2021, which I was privileged to present to this House, paves the way for important action on the matters we are considering in this debate.

First, it will allow digital tracking of waste, providing important new ways to hold to account those responsible for disposing of our rubbish. Secondly, it contains new powers to tackle fly-tipping. In my time as Secretary of State, I was privileged to help set up in 2020 a joint unit bringing together law enforcement agencies, environmental regulators, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency in the war against fly-tipping and waste crime. Thirdly, the Act will pave the way for extended producer responsibility. EPR is a scheme to ensure that the companies that produce plastic packaging meet the full cost of disposing of it. The goal is to incentivise a reduction in the volume of packaging used and ensure that more of it is recycled. EPR will also create a new income stream to help local councils deal with the cost of disposing of rubbish and tackling litter.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that packaging producers will need to pay around £1.2 billion a year in EPR charges, which will go to councils. I want the Minister to assure the House that that important scheme is on schedule and that it will mean more council staff out clearing up our streets, funded by the companies whose omnipresent packaging makes up such a large proportion of irresponsibly discarded rubbish—especially food outlets. The Government said that they wanted the scheme to start in October. Will that happen? If not, when will it be implemented? A commitment to EPR was made back in 2018. Let us get it done.

I make the same simple point about the deposit return scheme for drinks containers. That is another crucial part of the Environment Act, and it should significantly reduce the number of bottles and cans that are thoughtlessly discarded. I acknowledge that there are complexities here. The mess that the SNP has made of its DRS in Scotland shows that we need to take care and get the scheme right on a technical level. In particular, it is important that we resolve the VAT issue that has arisen, and I hope that the Minister will confirm how the Finance (No. 2) Bill proposes to do that. A deposit return scheme would be popular. It is a manifesto commitment, and many other countries have been operating such schemes for years. DRS projects have been very successful around the world in incentivising a responsible approach to disposing of drinks containers. Let us get this done; let us make DRS happen.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend—my very good friend—for allowing me to intervene. I seem to recall that when I was a child, which was quite a long time ago now—[Interruption.] You are nodding sagely, Mr Deputy Speaker. One of the things that we used to get extra pocket money for was picking up bottles and taking them back to the store. I seemed to get quite a good income stream from that. It would be very nice if that sort of scheme were reintroduced. Does she agree?

[Theresa Villiers]

I do indeed agree. For many years, that kind of scheme was a feature of life in Britain, and I know that many would like to see its return. That is one reason why I have raised it in the debate.

There are other ways in which Government policy could step up the campaign against litter. More could be done to enforce the law in that area. Clearly, financial penalties should be issued only in appropriate and proportionate circumstances, but they are an important tool in the box for achieving the goal of litter reduction. There have been welcome steps forward on enforcement. Fines have been increased and rules clarified to make it more straightforward for councils to issue them. The Government have also changed the law so that if there is evidence of litter being thrown from a car, the registered keeper of the vehicle can be liable for a fine. It is no longer necessary to prove that they were driving the car at the time.

However, there is a strong case for greater use of cameras in enforcement. There are about 11,000 automatic number plate recognition cameras around the country to monitor vehicles and track stolen cars and movements by criminals. Why can we not use them to catch a few litterbugs as well? Prompted by my constituent Phil Little, I raised that in a parliamentary question two years ago. The Minister at the time responded that ANPR cameras are not suitable for use in that way. I find that hard to understand. When the use of cameras can be the basis of fines for so many traffic offences, why not for chucking rubbish of a car window?

I welcome the news that the Department for Transport will soon trial the use of CCTV to capture evidence of people littering or fly-tipping in lay-bys. It is good to know that National Highways is at last looking at whether automatic number plate recognition can be used to catch litter offenders. I also welcome last year’s announcement by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of £450,000 for CCTV, ANPR and rapid deployment cameras at hotspots to reduce unlawful dumping of rubbish and to provide evidence to identify the offenders responsible for it. I genuinely welcome the fact that my plea for the use of litter-cams two years ago seems to have been heard, but I emphasise that we need to see tangible progress on the trials and pilot schemes, especially on our road network.

Roadside litter can cause serious accidents, and collecting it can be hazardous. As dedicated campaigners such as John Read of Clean Up Britain point out, there are some truly appalling litter hotspots on our strategic road network. Cameras are part of Mr Read’s 10-point plan to tackle the problem, including greater use of dashcam footage. I too believe that cameras could be a powerful new weapon in the war against litter. Let us start using them.

I come now to action against commonly littered items. I am proud to have been the Secretary of State who extended the plastic bag charging scheme, which has seen their use drop by over 97% in major supermarkets and so must have reduced the number of bags littered, but let us go a step further and ban disposable barbecues as well. They are a fire hazard and can cause injury. It is truly appalling that people simply leave them behind after a day out, and tragic that they are left on some of our most beautiful beaches and our greatest beauty spots. Even a farm in my constituency has had to contend with this problem.

Can we have more concerted action on chewing gum? I welcome the establishment of a chewing gum taskforce, bringing together producers to invest £10 million over five years in cleaning up gum staining and encouraging responsible disposal. The reality is that chucking this stuff away is a truly vile and antisocial thing to do. It does significant damage, including getting matted in the fur or feathers of animals and birds. Can we learn from other countries in taking a really tough approach to the scourge of littered chewing gum?

What will Ministers do to ensure that tobacco companies take responsibility for the fact that cigarettes are by far the most frequently littered item in the country? Even as the number of smokers continues to fall, any litter-picker will tell us that if we look at the ground in more or less any public place on this island, we are likely to spot a cigarette butt somewhere close by.

Another key means of cleaning up Britain and keeping it free of rubbish is behaviour change. Over the years, many of my constituents have told me how important it is to push out effective communications to convince people of the simple message that they must take their little home with them and put it in a bin. I know that Keep Britain Tidy runs some very effective DEFRA-funded campaigns, such as its “Keep it, Bin it” campaign, but can we do more? What about a new litter awareness course, as advocated by Policy Exchange in its “Litterbugs 2.0” paper? The national speed awareness course is widely recognised to play an effective role in changing people’s attitude to speeding by educating them about its consequences. We should consider adopting the model in this context, too.

Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made on plans to use so-called geofencing at roadside litter hotspots, to drive anti-litter messages to the devices of people physically in those locations? Behaviour change messages aimed at commercial drivers, including overseas lorry drivers, are also important. The rubbish that collects around some truck stops shows that driver education is needed. It is also vital to ensure that loads are secured properly, so that rubbish does not blow off and become litter. A constituent of mine, Julian Dench, who came to see me recently to discuss these issues asked that more research be done into who is responsible for littering and why they do it. I ask Ministers what research is being carried out, particularly on how to persuade children and young people not to drop litter.

One only has to walk past some of the schools in my constituency to know that the problem of litter is, I am afraid, sometimes linked to children and young people, although I am sure that the majority would not indulge in this conduct. I therefore welcome the eco-schools programme funded by the Government, which includes litter as well as wider issues around sustainability, waste and recycling. We all know that in recent years, there has been a huge wave of concern about the environment among the younger generation. We must find a way to capitalise on that and explain that one of the most tangible and instant ways in which children and young people can safeguard our environment is to take their litter home and put it in the recycling bin. That is a message that I try to take to all the schools I visit, especially when I receive questions and points from students about plastics pollution in our oceans, as I almost invariably do.

That brings me to the topic of marine litter. As was shown so clearly by the BBC’s “Blue Planet” and, more recently, “Wild Isles” series, we have a plastics crisis in our oceans. We must stop the appalling outflow of plastic and other rubbish into the sea—we cannot let it continue. I know that the Government are putting a huge amount of effort into that goal, and the EPR and DRS schemes I mentioned earlier in my speech should provide further help once they are operational, but much of this problem comes from other countries, so only truly global action will fix it.

I pay tribute to the work that Ministers have done on the international stage on this issue. The UK can truly be said to be a global leader in ocean protection, with 38% of UK waters in marine protected areas. The Government also played a crucial role in establishing the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance to lead international efforts to tackle plastics pollution, and helped secure commitments on protection of the marine environment at last year’s COP15 conference on biodiversity in Montreal. Together with our overseas territories and dependencies, we in this country are responsible for one of the largest marine estates on the planet, and working with those territories we have introduced protection zones covering over 4 million sq km. That is quite an old figure; the current one may be greater. I believe it is reasonable to say that no other country in the world is doing more to stop litter polluting the marine environment.

In conclusion, I pay tribute to the street cleansing staff in Barnet and other areas who are working for councils across the country on the frontline of the battle against litter. So, too, is the army of volunteers who turn out to pick litter in their community. I have had the privilege of joining many such groups over the years, including—to mention just a few—Green Beings High Barnet, the Barnet Society, the Dollis Brookers, the Pymmes BrookERS, and most recently the Barnet residents association. The Great British spring clean and the Great British beach clean see those kinds of groups head out all over the country to tidy up their communities, many of them supported by the high streets community clean-up fund. I thank all those volunteer groups, and I thank Keep Britain Tidy, which does so much to make those litter picks happen.

As I have said many times in this Chamber, all of us who are privileged to serve here should strive to protect the natural environment—few tasks should be more important to any Member of this House—and combating the scourge of litter is an important part of doing that. It can also play a crucial role in levelling up our country and restoring pride in our towns and cities. Litter is an eyesore that blights our communities and damages our global reputation, so let us do everything we can to prevent it, so that we can safeguard this beautiful country that all of us are lucky enough to call home.

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

My right hon. Friend uses the bags herself, and I am delighted that she is a cheery recipient of that fund. More recently, the Environment Agency published a regulatory position statement, which allows local tips to accept litter from voluntary litter pickers, and enables volunteers to collect litter without needing a waste carriers licence. We will continue to use our influence to support and endorse national clean-up initiatives such as Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean, and encourage as many as are willing to participate in such events in the future. Our commitments extend to reforming how packaging waste is managed, which should help to prevent litter at source.

My right hon. Friend asked for an update on our extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme. That will move the cost of managing packaging disposed of in street bins away from local taxpayers and councils, and on to the producers of that packaging, hopefully reducing it. In January, we set out policy decisions and next steps for introducing a deposit return scheme for drink containers. The implementation of that scheme is expected substantially to reduce the littering of in-scope drink containers by up to 90% in year three of the scheme. We remain committed to our delivery timetable, and will continue to manage any associated risks in a way that supports the goals of the extended producer responsibility for packaging and deposit return schemes.

This is about encouraging people to do the right thing. In 2018, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the “Keep it, Bin it” anti-litter campaign with Keep Britain Tidy. The campaign encourages people, including young people, to dispose of their litter responsibly. We use social media to raise awareness of the impact of litter, and to encourage individuals to put their rubbish in the bin or take it home. Projects funded as part of our fly-tipping grant scheme for councils include the integration of CCTV and a digital fly-tipping awareness course for those caught fly-tipping in Durham. Once again, we have been listening to my right hon. Friend, and many of her suggestions, and the actions she undertook while in the Department, have proven positive and effective.

Since the introduction of our carrier bag charge, the number of single-use plastic bags sold by the main retailers reduced by over 97% between 2014 and 2022. That has translated to less litter. According to the Marine Conservation Society, there has been a 55% drop in plastic bags found on UK beaches since the charge was introduced, so it has been highly effective.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my good friend the Minister for allowing me to intervene. One thing we have not mentioned is invisible litter such as microplastics in the ocean. Marine life consume microplastics, which, through consumption, we then consume. Microplastics kill marine life, and they may well also kill human beings. The issue is growing and growing.