Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 6 in my name would require the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the number of public lavatories kept open by the rates release provided by this Bill. I also want to speak in favour of Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which requires the Secretary of State not only to review the number of public lavatories in England but also to assess their distribution and whether the provision meets the needs of the community and also the cleanliness of public lavatories and whether baby-changing facilities are provided.

I very much regret that I was unable to speak in Committee due to sickness. I note the Minister’s offer to meet to discuss the issues that my amendment raises. I have since written to him saying that I would very much like to meet him, and I await his response eagerly.

I also want to thank the Minister for confirming in Committee that there are currently 3,990 public toilets in England and Wales. How does this figure compare with the figures of a decade earlier? According to the BBC report, “Reality Check: Public toilets mapped”, released in August 2018, there was a 13% decline in the number of public toilets provided by local authorities in the UK between 2010 and 2018.

We know that since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic many more public lavatories have closed. As I outlined in my letter to the Minister, the provision of public lavatories is an issue that has an impact on everyone in this country. To date, there has been a lack of data on public lavatory provision in the United Kingdom.

According to NHS England, 14 million adults in the UK have problems controlling their bladder, and 6.5 million have issues regarding their bowel. For too many, bladder or bowel continence issues are a significant barrier to living full and independent lives. As joint chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Bladder and Bowel Continence Care, I know well that a Royal Society for Public Health survey in 2018 found that one in five people did not feel able to go out as often as they would like due to the lack of public toilets available in England. The same survey found that 56% of respondents restricted their fluid intake before going out, trying to reduce the need to find a toilet.

The provision of public lavatories is a significant public health issue that requires far more attention than it currently receives. As part of the Government’s strategy to support people enjoying at least five extra healthy and independent years of life by 2035, serious consideration must be given by policymakers to how we can support people living with continence issues. The provision of public lavatories is clearly a critical part of this.

The aim of this Bill in providing rates relief for the providers of public lavatories is a good one that I hope will help keep more of these facilities open. The purpose of my amendment, and that in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is to ensure that the Government track the success of this initiative and, more generally, that they gather more useful data regarding the provision of public lavatories.

Given that the scope of the Bill is limited to rates relief, it was not possible to table amendments to address some of the broader policy issues regarding public lavatories and continence care. That will have to wait till another day. My amendment aims to improve our evidence base on public lavatory provision in this country to assist the Government with any future policy decisions in this area. I shall not put it to a Division, but I hope that the Government will agree to it being added to the Bill.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I thoroughly support the amendments, not to the point of wishing to divide on them but to say that the provision of public toilets is something that Parliament should have its eye on and that the Government should keep us in touch with. I do not believe for a moment that any of us want to go back to the condition of a few centuries ago when there were no such things. Those of us who are my age will have had the chance to sample such environments on our travels. Although I can attest for the sheer romance of being out on a dark evening and listening to the dung beetles scenting what is going on and humming towards you, that is really not the way that we, or anyone else in this world, should seek to run our towns.

I very much hope that the Government, in their attention in this Bill and in the consultation that they are conducting on toilets generally, will evolve a system of making sure that our provision of public toilets is not only sufficient to ensure that we have clean and hygienic towns and cities but that all those who might otherwise be restricted in their access to the world by a lack of public toilet provision are not so restricted. I encourage the Government, even if they do not accept these amendments today, to put the feeling that lies behind them into practice and, in due course, into law.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I can speak very briefly to Amendments 3 and 6, which I sincerely support. A review after 12 months and annual reviews thereafter are essential if we are going to get a real grip on how effective this Act has been, and we all want it to succeed. There may well be other ways of collecting statistics, but a specific return is very important, not least for planning for the future, and that is where I shall place my emphasis.

The Minister was very kind and met us this week. He seemed to share our concern that we must not go backwards in the provision of public lavatories and our feeling that this is an opportunity to start to plan much more strategically and successfully for the future. The Victorians, with their deep awareness of the priority of public health, infectious diseases and the rights of men and women, were in no doubt about the importance of public lavatories. We ought to take our lead from them, because Covid has had a devastating effect on public services. Provision of, and the priority we have given to, decent public lavatories has deteriorated.

As we heard from the British Toilet Association this week, there is no doubt that this service is in crisis. That is not a word it uses loosely. Covid has shown what happens when public loos are shut with no thought for what else might happen when everything around them is also shut—all the ancillary provision in shops, public buildings and so on. It matters now that there are only public loos available, and it has proved a real nightmare in some places, with the cuts in services—we have heard about Birmingham and the City of London already this evening.

This is a moment of opportunity which may override a sense of despair for three reasons. First, there is now a wider understanding than ever before of public health and how disease spreads, and people are aware of the need to take responsibility for their own health.

Secondly, public lavatories are now the only lavatories available to people in public spaces. When they are closed or in a disgusting state, it is no wonder that people are not very happy about leaving home and tend to reconcile themselves to staying in and feeling trapped and claustrophobic in the way we have all experienced to some extent during Covid.

Thirdly, this has direct economic consequences. It is not simply a right; it is a social and economic function. It means, in particular, that our town centres, which are suffering so badly, will have less appeal and less reason to be visited. They have taken the brunt of Covid in so many ways—there are forests of estate agents’ signs in the town I live in. If the Government are serious about making town centres the centre of our communities again, they have to prioritise the provision of public loos.