Motorways: Litter

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this debate. I agree with almost everything he said.

Litter is something I have repeatedly raised concerns about with National Highways and, previously, Highways England. It is unacceptable for my office to have to repeatedly raise the issues of litter, lack of effective maintenance and general poor standards of work with National Highways. I am pleased that the Transport Committee, which I am a member of, recently wrote to Nick Harris, chief executive of National Highways, about some of these issues, particularly the nearly 40% of the strategic road network that either has widespread litter or is heavily affected by litter.

Many of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent South frequently raise concerns with me about the disgraceful levels of litter and the bad impression that people get when visiting or travelling through our area on the strategic road network. One of my constituents said to me recently when I was out in the community that one of their relatives had visited from overseas and was completely shocked to see the standard of our highways and the scale of litter accumulating at the side of the road. As my right hon. Friend said, overseas we do not see the same scale of littering at the side of the highway.

Staffordshire is at the heart of the UK, with several key routes passing through it. We have seen major problems with litter and poor maintenance on this road network, and there are concerns with our motorway network, particularly on the M6 and around its junctions. The issue is not reserved to the motorway network. There are also major concerns about trunk roads, which are also under the auspices of National Highways. The A50 and A500 cut right through the middle of Stoke-on-Trent, and that has a significant impact on the surrounding communities. While these routes provide important strategic connectivity, they also cause many problems, including air pollution and litter.

The problems with litter have at times reached epic proportions, and I am extremely concerned about some of the wider maintenance standards, such as with vegetation management. The severe lack of grass cutting by National Highways has resulted in roundabouts and verges in the centre of Longton and Meir being totally neglected. Given that these roads cut through predominantly urban areas, standards of maintenance need to be different from those used in more sparsely populated areas. National Highways currently conducts only an annual cut, meaning verges become totally overgrown and completely filled with litter.

The lack of effective vegetation management has resulted in significant litter build-ups gathering in the overgrowth and attracting vermin. Following our calls, Stoke-on-Trent City Council has thankfully stepped in to cut some of these areas, including the most sensitive locations in town centres, which are still the responsibility of National Highways, but this really should not be happening. National Highways should take proper responsibility for the land that it owns.

[Margaret Ferrier]

On the point of vermin, littered food attracts wild animals such as mice, rats and foxes. Drawn so close to vehicles moving at speed, these animals have a higher risk of being killed. Many of them carry germs and disease, and it is not a nice job to have to clean up roadkill. Does the hon. Member share my concerns about the increased risk of animal deaths resulting from litter?

[Jack Brereton]

I agree that those are very serious concerns. Health and safety concerns were mentioned earlier regarding the impacts of the litter and the disease that could be carried by rats and other animals. That is a serious concern.

One of the things we have seen in our area because of the lack of effective maintenance is anti-social behaviour, with resultant massive build-ups of litter, including alcohol bottles and drug paraphernalia on National Highways land. As regards health and safety and the operatives who will have to remove some of that drug paraphernalia, that is extremely concerning. If there are syringes and things like that there, they will have to wear specialist safety equipment. I recognise that some projects have been undertaken to address some of the vegetation management in our area, but we need a far more comprehensive and proactive routine maintenance approach—and to a much higher standard than some of what we have experienced so far.

The situation is overly complicated, with differing responsibilities for different roads, and we heard earlier about some of the confusions in Bexley. That is repeated in a number of places around the country. Motorways are entirely the responsibility of National Highways. However, it is suggested that National Highways takes responsibility for litter collection on only some of its major A roads, even though the land is in its ownership. On many National Highways A roads, local authorities have to clear litter, so we see different standards across the country.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead, I commend many of the volunteers—particularly those in Stoke-on-Trent South, who have been doing an incredible job across the constituency in addressing some of the litter issues. However, they simply cannot do that on many highway locations, where safety is a serious concern and where we need National Highways or others to remove some of the litter.

National Highways has now started to form litter partnerships with local authorities, which is a positive step forward. Those partnerships are important given that it would be totally unsafe—impossible, in many cases—to undertake litter collections on parts of the National Highways network without road closures. There needs to be effective co-ordination for litter picking to take place when those roads are closed for wider maintenance.

[Sir Mike Penning]

On the point about collaboration with local authorities, the financial burden should not fall on local authorities for something that is the legal responsibility of a different organisation. If that happens, it will spread around the country. That would be wrong, because it is not the financial burden of the local authority.

[Jack Brereton]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. We see lots of pressures on things such as social care and everything else that local authorities have to deal with, so it is totally unacceptable that, in addition, they have to routinely clear up litter on many of those roads.

As I mentioned earlier, Stoke-on-Trent City Council has to cut the grass on many of the areas for which National Highways should take responsibility. Yet because its policy is for one annual cut, which is totally insufficient and results in massive build-ups of litter, we do not see the standard of service we need, and the financial impact for local authorities that have to deal with that is significant. In many cases, it just does not happen at all and we see the continued build-up of vast quantities of litter on much of the highway network.

I hope these partnerships, alongside other measures being undertaken by National Highways, result in a step change in the standards we need to see and in dramatic improvements, which have to happen, on what we have experienced previously. Forty per cent. is far too much of a blight on the network. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead said, there is far more than that and it is potentially an underestimate of the scale of the challenge. It is vitally important for people in Stoke-on-Trent, those visiting and the wider environment that we have an effective approach to maintenance and litter control on the strategic network. I thank my right hon. Friend for the debate. It is about an important matter, and I hope the Minister will address all the issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Brereton]

I want to ask the Minister about the accuracy of that data. As we heard earlier, we have serious issues with grass and other vegetation disguising litter. Once it is cut, it reveals huge amounts of litter. I therefore question the accuracy of the data, and I wonder what the Minister’s view is on that.

[Mr Holden]

As I said, I will write to my hon. Friend about that, because it is an important point. If there is not proper monitoring, we cannot know what is going on. I want to get to the bottom of policies on grass cutting and other things.

National Highways and the Highways Monitor will report litter performance to the public in their annual reports, providing increased transparency. That happened only in road investment strategy 2. That is the era we are in now—between 2020 and 2025.

As hon. Members know, in 2021-22 National Highways reported that 61% of the network was graded A, which is no litter, or B, which is a small amount of litter. That means that a large proportion of the national highways—39%—has a significant amount. Although that is an improvement on 2020-21, which was about 49%, there is clearly still a lot of work to do. I do not underestimate that. Those grades are alongside DEFRA’s litter code of practice. The data for 2022-23 will be published this summer, so I ask hon. Members to keep an eye out for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. This is about local authorities working together at TfL level in London and with National Highways, and I will ensure that his views regarding key performance indicators are taken into consideration.

I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead that the performance indicator is there. There is not a target; this is about monitoring at the moment. That is for RIS2, but KPIs might be exactly where we want to go at the next stage—I want to make that clear to him. We are working to ensure that there are targeted metrics in RIS3 and that the KPIs focus on the things that are most important to road users, and it is quite clear from today’s debate that keeping the highways litter-free is one of them. The current situation is not tenable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford said, and I will speak to National Highways about the specifics as we look at its KPIs for RIS3. Progress will involve considering responses to the forthcoming public consultation on the National Highways strategic road network initial report, and I urge right hon. and hon. Members, and interested parties, to feed into that. As I said earlier, there are discussions about introducing an awareness campaign going forward.

Regarding enforcement and the use of technology, I have spoken about using education and awareness to influence littering behaviours, and about the work and performance of National Highways in clearing litter from the SRN. I want to cover enforcement and penalties, because right hon. and hon. Members also mentioned them. The Government understand that enforcement plays a key role in this regard, especially for litter thrown from vehicles. The enforcement of penalties for littering is owned by DEFRA, and we work closely with it and National Highways to improve enforcement options. Local authorities may issue fixed penalty notices for littering offences committed in their areas where it can be proven that litter was thrown from a vehicle.

The Littering from Vehicles Outside London (Keepers: Civil Penalties) Regulations 2018 make provision about reporting littering from vehicles in England. In recent years, the Government have bolstered local authority enforcement powers by raising the upper limit on fixed penalty notices for littering and by introducing powers to issue the keeper of a vehicle from which litter is thrown with a civil penalty. As I said, I recently spoke to National Highways and visited its site at South Mimms, where I saw some of the cameras in action. National Highways passes on evidence of the most egregious cases of littering and fly-tipping, but more could be done to co-ordinate its work with local authorities. I will come on to some of that work, on which we are doing a pilot at the moment. In the end, though, it is for local authorities to decide whether to pass on that information and whether they believe they have sufficient evidence to take enforcement action in any given case.

[Jack Brereton]

I was going to ask the Minister about enforcement powers. As he has alluded to, National Highways does not have such powers. Is there no possibility that we could consider giving National Highways some of those powers? I have previously had discussions with the organisation about other offences being committed on its network that it is totally powerless to deal with.

[Mr Holden]

That is a broader debate, and it is up to Parliament to decide where these powers lie.

I would like to give a shout-out to a few local authorities. I will mention a couple of other examples later, but North Lincolnshire Council, Newark and Sherwood District Council and North West Leicestershire Council are three that National Highways has said it works very closely with. In the majority of cases, they do prosecute when information is passed on. National Highways is also working closely with Brighton and Hove City Council and East Hampshire District Council too, and I will come on to East Hampshire again.