Localism Bill

Lord Reay Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reay]

My Lords, I have put my name to my noble friend's amendment. Litter thrown from motor cars is a scourge of the countryside. It is a regular practice for people to discard litter from moving vehicles—in particular, drink containers and food wrappings. I am sure that to try to reduce the incidence of that habit is a goal worth pursuing. It is surely one test of how well a country is governed how tidy it is. I remember, when I visited Libya in the last years of Gaddafi's regime, how staggered and disgusted I was to see the quantity of litter to be found on the road between the airport and the centre of Tripoli. It was knee-deep in plastic. Of course, that was under a dictatorship, where regulating such things should be easier.

I also understand that the present situation here, where responsibility must be pinned on the person who has thrown the litter, is unsatisfactory. It is difficult enough to trace a car from which litter has been thrown. To then require the prosecuting authority to identify the culprits in the car is surely asking too much. It seems to me quite reasonable to hold the registered keeper of the vehicle responsible. As my noble friend explained, that is the idea behind the amendment. Whether such a change in the law would be successful in reducing the amount of litter thrown, we would have to see. I can certainly imagine that it would have a deterrent effect, with vehicle keepers not wanting to be exposed to legal penalties as a result of the actions of other people, whether members of their family or not, and therefore to some extent themselves acting as policemen.

Unfortunately, the amendment, for a reason which I do not entirely understand, does not propose creating a new national offence. As I understand it, the Bill was thought to be an unsuitable vehicle, although the amendment in another place proposed exactly that. This amendment would simply enable local authorities to adopt by-laws along the lines my noble friend described. As he said, there are grounds for believing that many local authorities might be interested in doing that. On that basis, I recommend the amendment to the House. I very much hope that the Minister will indicate that the Government now intend to do something about this problem.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have huge sympathy with my noble friend’s amendment. Before he left the Chamber, my noble friend Lord Newton, who is taking part in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee, said that he was sorry not to be able to add his voice because he feels very strongly about this.

For nearly 30 years I lived in rural Essex within reach of my former constituency, and one of the disadvantages of the road we lived in was that it was perennially the subject of littering. There was a corner at the bottom of the hill with a bit of spare ground on the left-hand side and my children very quickly christened it “Mattress Corner”. It had become a place where people could dump their unwanted mattresses, which then had to be cleared up by the local authority. It was not only that. We lived a mile and a half outside the village where there was a fish and chip shop. We discovered that we were almost exactly the distance away that it took people to eat a bag of chips. I found myself as the riparian householder having to go out at fairly regular intervals with a plastic sack and one of those nice machines with which you can pick up things and pop them in the sack, simply to clear up the litter on both sides of the road that had been deposited by passing vehicles. Even if you saw a car with litter being thrown out of the window as it went past, there was nothing you could do. You did not know who the driver was or who had thrown it out. There was no point in taking down the number because nobody would do anything about it. You had to prove who it was. So I have every sympathy with this.

My noble friend Lord Marlesford said that it is not enough just to talk; you have to do. I have previously declared an interest as the joint president of London Councils and I am happy to say that London Councils is engaged at the moment in tackling this problem in London. It does this on behalf of the London boroughs and I think it is now ahead of the game. The London Local Authorities Act 2007 contains a provision to decriminalise the dumping of litter from cars and to impose a liability for penalty charges on the keeper of the vehicle. That is slightly different from the proposal put forward in my noble friend’s amendment but it is clear that we all have the same objectives in mind. A London Local Authorities Bill is currently awaiting its final stages in the other place. It will make a small drafting correction to that provision which will allow it to come into force.

Other steps are necessary. Discussions have taken place and progress is being made with the Ministry of Justice in relation to the making of regulations which will enable London borough councils to enforce their penalty charges under the civil regime in the courts. Officials are also co-operating on the necessary alterations to the Civil Procedure Rules and London borough councils understand that these changes and regulations will be made very shortly. I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to confirm that the provisions will be implemented very soon and the system can start to work in London. That is doing and not just talking. I believe London will show that this solution is perfectly feasible and can be addressed by local authorities. Other authorities may wish to copy what London Councils is doing and it will not be the first time that has happened. I support my noble friend’s amendment.