Localism Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Marlesford]

16: After Clause 47, insert the following new Clause—
“Litter deposited from motor vehicles
(1) Local authorities may make byelaws about litter deposited from motor vehicles.
(2) Such byelaws may include provisions about—
(a) the application of section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (offence of leaving litter) to litter deposited from motor vehicles;(b) the procedures for identifying the person in charge of a motor vehicle; and(c) the information which the registered keeper of a vehicle may be required to provide the local authority.”

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 16, I must declare two interests. The first, I hope, is shared by many on all Benches of your Lordships’ House, which is to campaign to do something to reduce the amount of litter that disfigures—indeed, I would say disgraces—our country. The second is to remind noble Lords that back in the 1990s I was for five years chair of the CPRE, which has supported this amendment.

I do not apologise for repeating this amendment 21 days after we last debated it. At that time, the Government’s reply to the debate was, I suppose I could say, sad. My amendment is simple and necessary. We have to do something about litter. I believe in the old political cliché of action and not words. I am not seeking to create a new offence; it has been an offence for 11 years to drop litter from vehicles under Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The problem is that it is very seldom that anything can be done about it because it applies only to the person dropping the litter and at the moment there is no way of knowing who dropped the litter. My amendment would simply make the keeper of the vehicle responsible, as is already the case for parking and for speeding. It is a simple amendment. To put it mildly, I am afraid that my noble friend Lord Shutt did not welcome it. He read out a brief that did not produce a single decent argument. Perhaps I may remind him of what he said on 10 October. He said that,

“extending the scope of the littering offence … raises issues of fairness and proportionality ... It may not always be a ready solution for the registered keeper to avoid prosecution by identifying who was the actual offender”.—[Official Report, 10/10/11; col. 1370.]

That is what he was asked to say, and he said it. That is his job, I suppose, in one sense. However, the only Whitehall bazooka that he forgot to fire was that the Government, I suppose, feel that they can never risk being taken to the European Court of Human Rights. No doubt his officials said to him, “Yes, Minister, it is always safer to do nothing”, and that is what happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for moving this amendment. We have had some discussion about it and have had two serious debates in this House. I am afraid that there are serious problems with the amendment. One of them was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The fact is that it is extremely difficult when most enforcement law is not carried out anyway and you are just adding to it. As the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, himself said, there are already powers regarding littering offences under Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act. What happens is that they are not enforced; there are not enough enforcement officers, or they are not around at the right time to ensure that littering does not take place. There are already penalty charge notices that can be given by enforcement officers, particularly in the towns, but all over the country, to enable enforcement on litter dropping. So I do not believe that the amendment is necessary.

What we need is proper education and proper campaigns. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, his authority is not sitting around waiting for a by-law—it has got itself up and going and is running a campaign with a quite attractive title. I have to say that it strikes one as something that might have had the noble Lord behind it. So we do not really need this.

There is a further difficulty. Local authorities can make by-laws only for themselves. If one authority has a by-law and another does not, where is the fridge going to be dropped? It will be dropped within the one that does not have a by-law. Furthermore, local authorities cannot deal with motorways or main roads outside their control. Those are in the power of the Highways Agency, which has not been included in the amendment.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, is going to be very upset with me, because we have had a discussion that will make him upset with me, but I want to go back to the position that we do have the London Local Authorities Bill, which has powers in it. I appreciate that it is largely urban, but London local authorities stretch out beyond the urban to the suburbs and even, may I say it, border on greenbelt and places that could be tempted to be rural. What we want to do is to see what happens as a result of that Bill. The Bill is a private Bill, as everyone knows, and is before Parliament now. It has completed its Lords stages and is at an advanced stage in the House of Commons. The expectation is that if there are no more challenges to it, it will proceed on its way. When that is implemented, we will be able to see what can be done. The Bill will allow a local authority to issue a civil penalty to registered keepers whereas the amendment of the noble Lord would make it a criminal offence. This would make it a civil offence with a penalty charge notice of £100, and that would be to the registered keeper.

There has been some discussion about whether the registered keeper is the person who ought to be responsible for this. Under the amendment of the noble Lord, the registered keeper would have to be asked who was in the car—very similar to a charge within a court of an offence asking for a statutory declaration. If we can move it into the civil area, I think that would be a worthwhile approach. The Bill will also enable local boroughs to issue civil penalties. We hope that is going to receive Royal Assent later this year. We want to see whether that can be a good route out.

In the mean time, I am going to use those terrible words about getting people to understand what they are doing. The Government are already supporting Keep Britain Tidy in developing the Love Where You Live campaign—that is nearly as good as the tosser. We are also supporting other campaigns in order to make people realise what they are doing. I do not underestimate in any way the problem of litter. I appreciate that it is an absolute eyesore. I think fridges may be outside the scope of litter, but I appreciate that is also part of a wider problem.

I cannot accept the amendment. I know the noble Lord will be upset with me about that, but there are still too many problems associated with it to make it one that we can put into legislation at this stage. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it after my explanation.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for her comments. I am most grateful for the support that I got from all sides of the House. I would like to answer the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, straight away. First, I am not creating a new offence as such. All I am trying to do is to make the 1990 Act, which has failed for the reasons we have discussed, work better. How many prosecutions there have been or how many there will be is completely unknowable. I suppose we could know how many there have been, but the point is that at the moment the thing cannot be enforced. In my book, unenforceable law is bad law. You should not have laws which put obligations and requirements which cannot be, and therefore are not, enforced. That is the way to bring the law into contempt.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. The Act applies to more offences than throwing things out of motor cars, so have there been any convictions for other litter offences without this problem of motor cars?

[Lord Marlesford]

I am talking about the problem, not of motor cars but of motor vehicles—a little wider than motor cars but not as wide as the noble Lord seeks to draw me. I am not concerned with other things that the Act does. I am sure there are lots of bits of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which work extremely well. What I cannot accept is the suggestion of my noble friend that it is not necessary. It is necessary for us to do something about litter. This is one thing we could do. It is a simple thing. It is an enabling power. It is a power which gives local authorities the opportunity, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin explained, to do what is being done in London. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate to the Bill. All too often one has found that the Government talk one thing and either do nothing or do something quite different. I would like to feel that this House will give a signal that it basically believes that something should be done and that something can be done. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.