Litter

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. He is a decent, civilised man who cares desperately about the qualitative dimensions of life in Britain. He is right to have drawn attention to the scale of the challenge. Litter is not limited to the countryside; it is there in cities as well.

I live in one of those beautiful valleys of England. Just like the noble Lord, if I stroll up the lane that goes past our house, I pull rubbish out of the hedge. I can return home with a black sack full of rubbish. It is appalling. One thing that strikes me is that so often people say, “Something should be done about it”, rather than start by saying, “Could we do something about it?”. I find it very interesting that people give immense attention to the care and beauty of their own gardens, but if they step out of their gardens and into the lane beside their homes, they do not even think of picking up unsightly bottles or waste that has been thrown away.

Of course, we all have a responsibility. It is not a matter of political doctrine. In any kind of society that challenge would arise. In our little London flat, we have a basement entrance, and we are constantly picking up the rubbish that has been casually thrown into our basement by passers-by. Do not let us think that there is a social division about this. So-called yuppies, upwardly mobile people, are just as likely to do it as anybody else. There is an issue here, I believe, about style. There is almost a style in discarding your rubbish. If you are in a car and the window is open, you flick your cigarette. If you are crossing the road and you are having a last puff, it is almost ballet to watch the last few puffs and then throw the cigarette away. There are things like that. But I am so glad that the noble Lord emphasised the responsibility of food and drink producers and suppliers, because they should take very carefully the example of those who have a responsible approach and not, by their means of packaging or whatever, aid and abet this process.

Sometimes, of course, it is carelessness. Down this lane that I have described, we have the coast-to-coast cycle trail. Sometimes there are people there enjoying the beauty of our valley, not realising, as they think, “This is just a small bit of rubbish we’re discarding here”, what that accumulates into being—and, indeed, that it endangers the beauty of the valley.

The points that the noble Lord raised are very important, but we have to look behind it all. The issue has become more challenging because we live in a society in which consumerism has eclipsed citizenship and people are almost thinking of the countryside as something beautiful that is just a consumer good, not as something that is part of their responsibility as a citizen. With great respect to the noble Lord, I do not think that it is just about teaching about responsibility to the countryside. It is a matter of emphasising the whole concept of citizenship and what it involves.

We live in an age of profound acquisitive individualism, selfishness and greed. If we are going to get that right and get the issue of litter right, we have to have other values. I have never had a doctrinaire stand against the market, but the market is simply not enough in these spheres. We have to have other absolutes which must be there in our approach to society, education and government. It is essential. Without them, we are lost. This issue is desperately urgent, but it is a symptom of far deeper issues and challenges in society.