Litter and Fly-tipping: England

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the Communities and Local Government Committee for its report on litter and fly-tipping and thank the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and other hon. Members for an excellent debate. It is one of those debates that is relatively unusual in the House, in that it is on a subject that, on balance, probably unites us more than divides us.

Littering and fly-tipping cause great concern to residents, councils and this Government. They are antisocial environmental crimes that pose risks to human health and animal welfare, spoil relationships between neighbours and their wider community, and affect the way people feel about the place that they call home. There is evidence that high levels of litter can restrict the economic growth of an area, reduce property prices and increase residents’ fear of crime. For local authorities, it is also a significant issue. It costs them hundreds of millions of pounds every year to clear litter and illegally dumped waste from our streets and public spaces. As far as this Government are concerned, they should not have to do that. Litter and fly-tipping are avoidable problems. It is simply not right that the behaviour of a selfish minority ends up blighting our landscapes while imposing costs on landowners and local taxpayers. A change in our culture is needed to get Britain back to the “green and pleasant land” that we are so renowned for across the globe.

This is about personal responsibility, which means consciously not littering, even when it is mildly inconvenient to dispose of our rubbish properly. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Of course there are practical ways in which the Government can help. We welcome the Select Committee’s report and agree with many of its recommendations to combat the problems of litter and fly-tipping.

Local authorities are at the heart of our communities. They deliver front-line services to the public and are vital in meeting the challenge of eradicating litter and fly-tipping. Although litter and fly-tipping are clearly problems, the majority of local authorities can be commended for the fact that they are consistent in maintaining standards. In many cases, that has even been the case during a difficult period in which local government has had to do more with less, which does not make the Government at all complacent in its determination to reduce litter and fly-tipping. We need to clean up and change people’s culture, values and attitude to their environments.

This should not be a top-down approach. The Government are committed to localism and the transfer of power to local communities to deal with litter and fly-tipping problems, which require a local approach tailored to the characteristics of the area and the community in which the problems occur. Like the rest of the public sector, local authorities have worked hard over the last five years, but they still need to be thinking innovatively about how they can make litter and fly-tipping-related savings while protecting existing street cleansing services and standards.

The Chair of the Select Committee mentioned the work in Nottingham. The same has been happening in Bath and North East Somerset, where they use Bigbelly smart bins, which are electronic-type bins that tell the council when they are full. Bath and North East Somerset Council estimates that the way the bins work—the council goes out to empty them only when they need to be emptied—has saved 390 labour hours a month, which is a significant saving. I would like more local authorities to take the same sort of lead as Nottingham City Council, and Bath and North East Somerset Council. Many councils are putting in a significant amount of money. There have been a number of different estimates of that money, but we think they are probably putting about £700 million a year into dealing with litter.

As the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned, there is pressure on the provision of social care, bearing in mind that the population is getting older, yet it is important to point out that while growing old is inevitable, littering and fly-tipping are not. In the end there is a choice, and I would much rather that councils were able very easily to make the choice to put additional money into social care provision, rather than having to put so much money into the problem of litter and fly-tipping.

The Government still have a role to play, because no matter how good and innovative councils become, they need the support and the backing of the Government to tackle the problem. During the Select Committee inquiry, the Government agreed that their role was to enable local action in three ways: setting clear overall standards for cleanliness, ensuring legal powers to enable councils to take effective action, and ensuring that costs can be passed to those responsible for causing the problem. Our immediate priorities to achieve this will deliver on our manifesto commitments to review the case for increasing the fines for littering offences and to allow local authorities to tackle small-scale fly-tipping through fixed penalties as an alternative to prosecutions. That is something that a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), have raised today, and I am glad that there is significant support for that approach.

We want to work with local government and relevant stakeholders to develop a national litter strategy. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) was a little concerned about the wording in the Select Committee report, but I reassure him that we want a robust strategy to deal with litter and fly-tipping. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and I are absolutely focused on trying to achieve a robust litter strategy and we are working very closely to do so. We want a strategy that will enable effective and co-ordinated anti-litter work across England, focusing on affordable and measurable ways to change behaviour, reduce litter and improve the local environment. That is a priority for our communities, which deserve a lasting legacy of clutter-free towns and cities, and a countryside of which we can all be proud.

We have already begun to work with producers of commonly littered items, major retailers, some of the leading charities and NGOs in the sector, and local councils. We need to do more with those organisations to ensure that we really get to grips with and tackle the problem. In addition to those immediate priorities, the Government have agreed with the Committee’s recommendation to try to make a national litter-pick an annual event.

I am delighted that so much publicity has been given to the Clean for the Queen event. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and I have not disagreed on much, but personally I think that Clean for the Queen is a fantastic statement for us to make. However, we should not split too many hairs. The point is that on 3, 4 and 5 March, we will all come together as communities up and down the country, supporting each other to clean up those areas. I encourage any hon. Members who are not already signed up to a clean-up on that weekend to get involved. It is great to see so many hon. Members involved, and it was good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) here. She has done a lot with Keep Britain Tidy over the past few weeks to encourage hon. Members to get involved.

I note the comments of the Chairman of the Select Committee about the time it took for the Government to respond to the report. I apologise for the delay. I regret that we did not reply within a more reasonable timeframe. He acknowledged that the report was released very shortly before the purdah period and the ensuing general election, and I think he mentioned that the report cuts across several Departments. It actually cuts across many Government Departments and, although our response was positive, it was not provided as quickly as usually would be the case. I hope he takes my comments in the spirit in which they are intended.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned data. That is a hugely important point. We are certainly working with an advisory group. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse mentioned Keep Britain Tidy, which is part of that advisory group alongside a number of other important organisations in the area. We are trying to bring forward a package to ensure that we collect the necessary data so that the work of our litter and fly-tipping strategy is measured in relation to its success.

The hon. Member for Sheffield South East mentioned fixed penalty notices, which I assure him we are carefully considering. Fixed penalty notices should be a last resort, but they are an extremely important enforcement tool in the box to make people think twice about dropping litter. We are carefully considering what we can do to increase penalties to ensure that fixed penalty notices are a significant deterrent. We will not impose additional penalties without properly consulting the public first, which is right.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned smoking litter, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman)—I will address his points in a moment. I agree with what the Chair of the Select Committee says about that problem. He mentioned a tobacco levy, on which the Government consulted last year. It is obvious from that consultation that if we put any sort of levy on the tobacco companies, they would pass it straight on to the end user, which we have to take seriously. Effectively, he is looking to levy an additional tax on tobacco and cigarettes that would come back to the Treasury and, through my Department, go directly to local authorities to address some of these issues. It is slightly above my pay grade to make such commitments—it is an issue for the Treasury—but his point is on the record.

[Mr Betts]

I was nodding across the room to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) when the Minister said that the levy would be passed on to smokers. Ultimately, they are the ones who drop the litter. A little contribution from them towards local authority costs does not seem completely unreasonable, does it?

[Mr Jones]

I will only say that there would be an additional cost to end users, who already contribute significant amounts to the Treasury in taxation. When that money comes into the Treasury, some of it goes to local authorities in relation to their duties. Some of that money, by implication, must be spent on addressing the problem. I am not suggesting that the points the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East are making should never be considered, but they are taxation matters, which should be considered carefully by the Treasury.

[Mr Betts]

I will take the Minister a little further down that road into areas that he probably does not want to go into. When we get to 2019-20 and the full localisation of business rates, there will not be any Treasury contribution towards local authorities from tobacco tax or any other form of tax. Would that not be a different situation, in which there might be a need to reconsider whether there should be some Treasury contribution from tobacco tax towards the clean-up of tobacco litter?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is tempting me down a path that I will certainly not tread, but in a moment, in response to questions asked by hon. Members, I will cover a pertinent point about the full retention of business rates.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Minister for his remarks; I am interjecting on two points. First, the cost to the national health service of smoking-related diseases is greater than the Treasury’s income from tobacco products, so the position is not balanced. Secondly, local authorities have a public duty to encourage smoking cessation and to clear up the litter caused by smoking. The issue is how they get that funding, particularly at a time when the Government have chosen to reduce funding for public health. The proposed levy is therefore a way of providing local authorities with more money to fulfil their duties.

[Mr Jones]

As I have said, these are matters for the Treasury. My hon. Friend has got his point on the record today, and I am sure Treasury Ministers will be listening intently to this debate and will therefore have heard what he has said.

My hon. Friend made some interesting comments about finding chewing gum under a desk. I decided to take a pair of shoes back to my home in my constituency this weekend, and when I put them in my bag this morning there was a great big piece of chewing gum on the bottom of them. As he would expect, I was not best pleased. I appreciate exactly what he says about the challenges we face with chewing gum. The Chewing Gum Action Group has been mentioned, and its work was perhaps understated. That important group is working to address these issues. The companies that produce chewing gum are members of the group. It is important that the Government engage with those companies to ensure that we are doing all we can and that they are showing and taking a lead on ensuring that their products do not end up on pavements and floors across the country.



My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned highways. There is a pilot project in the midlands that aims to enhance joint working between Highways England and local authorities, with the aim of sharing teams and assets so that they can support each other to improve our A roads across the midlands. We are carefully looking at how that is currently working. Making the Highways Agency legally responsible for collecting litter is not as straightforward as has been said—primary legislation and complicated alterations to funding arrangements would be needed. It is important that we see how the pilot pans out before taking it forward.

The idea of fines for throwing litter from cars has been mentioned, and again we will carefully consider it through the national litter strategy and enforcement. We are well aware of the problem, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East mentioned instances where people get takeaway food and drive up the road, with the rubbish ending up in a hedge, in the bushes or in somebody’s garden. That is an important point, and it is something that we need to consider carefully.

The hon. Member for Sheffield South East mentioned the LGA, which has an extremely important role in this agenda. The LGA is part of our advisory group, and it will be an important organisation in getting across some of the messages that we need to get across to local authorities. Many comments have been made about reductions in spending, and obviously I am well aware of the challenges faced by local government. Those challenges have been managed extremely well over the past five years, for which I thank local government, but there is a critical point here. I mentioned earlier in my remarks that the issue is not just about the environment—the possible damage to wildlife and the fact that an area might look scruffy. It is a massive issue for local economies, because when an area is scruffy it is an indicator that the economy might not be doing as well as it could.

To return to the point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee about full retention of business rates, which will happen by the end of this decade, I think that all local authorities will look to raise additional business rate. Other funding streams for councils that are becoming more and more important are additional council tax, widening the council tax base and the new homes bonus. It is absolutely in every council’s interest to ensure that it is doing its utmost to keep its area clean, tidy and free of fly-tipping for that reason alone. Effectively, it will become an investment to bring in additional revenue for councils.

I heard what the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton said about household recycling centres, which several other Members mentioned as well. It is encouraging to see many councils working with charities that collect items, even from people’s homes. It is extremely positive when items coming into recycling sites go straight into shops right next to the site; I have a very good example of that in my constituency. Goods go on sale that many people on lower incomes can easily access, and it reduces the prevalence of litter and fly-tipping.

On the point about household recycling centres and municipal tips, as the hon. Lady called them—that is the term that I have always used; in my local area we say “going up the tip”—and on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East about councils charging for recycling of green waste and so on, it is obviously a decision for the local authority in question whether it wants to charge people to use a household recycling centre or to dispose of green waste. However, having experienced local government myself, I would say that those are services that local people expect to be provided, and they are concerned about it. As I said, in terms of the context of the change in how local government will be funded, I think that councils that do not think carefully about providing those services will meet challenges going forward in terms of generating the important income streams that they need.

[Bob Blackman]

When the Secretary of State came before the Committee to discuss these issues, we raised the point about monopoly services for which local authorities charge. We need to balance the cost of providing those services against the price that the local authority charges for those services. Given the wide disparity, will the Minister go back to his Department with the view that we need to review what is happening across local authorities to see whether there is any element of overcharging and profiting from such services that is then being used to subsidise other services?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

That is certainly a consideration that we have made in relation to other services controlled by local authorities, such as car parking. I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I would certainly be interested to hear any examples from hon. Members’ constituencies, if the type of practice that he described is going on to the detriment of local people.

I think that I have covered many of the comments made by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse. I welcome the initiative in Tower Hamlets and how the council is changing its thinking about emptying bins. It is halfway to the work being done in Nottingham and in Bath and North East Somerset. However, it is welcome to see a council looking differently at how it provides services and trying to innovate.

I was also encouraged to hear what the hon. Gentleman said about his local scout groups. It is important to get younger people involved in this agenda. Again, I think that we should consider it in terms of the litter strategy. My local scout groups have been very supportive. I have done a number of clean-ups in my constituency, including a river clean-up where the scouts came in canoes and helped clean out the river that runs through my constituency. Many young people are making a positive contribution in that way.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

The Minister has covered the vast majority of points that I made. The only one on which I would press him is the Marine Conservation Society comment about the inclusion of marine, beach and aquatic venues in the national strategy. I volunteer with Thames21, which does fantastic work cleaning up the Thames, and the Government support it hugely. A lot of the litter is plastic bags, but obviously there is more to litter in those environments than just plastic bags. Can he assure us that marine, beach and aquatic environments will be incorporated into the national strategy?

[Mr Jones]

We are considering carefully all different environments. Although some people have not been as positive about it as others, I think that the charge on plastic bags has reduced plastic bag usage significantly, by an estimated 80%. That should decrease significantly the number of bags going into our rivers and canals, and into the sea off the coastline, which must be positive, particularly given the damage that they can do to wildlife.

I will not delay colleagues any longer. I thank them for this important debate about an issue that affects many people in our communities and about which thousands and millions of people across the country feel passionate. I have sensed that when I have made comments in press articles and received correspondence from across the country. We will introduce a strong and robust litter strategy, because this Government recognise that litter and fly-tipping are antisocial, and we need to crack down on them. We are absolutely determined to get on and do so.