Local Government Finance Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Steve Double and Rob Marris

Thursday 9th February 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Steve Double]

I am grateful for that intervention. I was going to say that I feel partly responsible for the clause. Along with my colleagues in Cornwall, I lobbied the former Prime Minister and Chancellor hard on this issue, because our experience in Cornwall was that this was a particular barrier for maintaining the provision of public toilets. From my point of view—I cannot speak for the Minister—there is not a one-size-fits-all solution across the country. In different areas, there are different challenges in maintaining public toilet provision. The discretion allows local authorities to set out whether it is a priority in their area.

Let me explain why the measure is so welcome. In Cornwall, which has a large unitary authority covering a very large geographical area, having all those toilets run and maintained by the unitary authority is not the most efficient way to do it. It is far better to devolve the provision and maintenance of those facilities down to local parish councils, town councils or other groups that are better placed to maintain them and keep them open at the hours that the community needs them—that may not be all year round, or all day. Those organisations will be better and more efficient at keeping the facilities clean and well maintained, because people can do it locally, rather than there being a centralised process like the one that Cornwall Council had, with people driving all over the county just to maintain the facilities. Devolving down the running of the facilities to local groups and councils is much more efficient and effective.

In my experience as a cabinet member, one of the biggest barriers to parish councils taking over the running of the facilities was business rates. Often, a fairly small parish council whose precept was only a few thousand pounds a year would consider taking on the cost of maintaining the public toilets, but they would find that the business rate alone on the toilets was more than their whole precept. Deciding whether it was feasible and affordable to take on the facilities was a significant challenge, even if the council recognised that taking them on would be very beneficial to the community. Putting discretion in the hands of the senior authority is sensible, because in the case of Cornwall Council, it can then decide that it sees the value of these facilities across the county. It may want to play its part in helping to maintain them and keep them open, but it may not want responsibility for their day-to-day maintenance and running. It can make the decision to grant that discretion. That would help parish councils with the cost of taking on these facilities, and perhaps enable them to afford to do so. This is a sensible and welcome move, and it has my full support.

[Rob Marris]

Certain houses of repute with cultural artefacts get a tax break for opening at certain times of the year to the public. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton did not have time to mention that the redoubtable Brian Dean, the gentleman with Parkinson’s, tried every shop in a row of shops, asking if he could use their toilet, and was refused, as is their right. Having desperately tried to avoid it, it was only at that point that he had to soil himself. That is a sad reflection on those shops, but I understand it. I would like the Minister to give some thought to whether it might be possible to structure a business rate relief for private premises, such as a coffee shop in Allerdale, that allow the public access to their toilets, in the way that we allow tax reliefs for certain houses with cultural artefacts. We put something in; there are certain things that they provide; and they get a tax break for providing that service.

As we all know, with our ageing population, it is statistically likely that there will be a rise of near incontinence and urgency. The need for access to toilet facilities among the population as a whole, and the need for those facilities to be fairly readily available, will increase. I say that as one of the patrons of Wolverhampton Mencap. Many adults with learning difficulties get a sense of urgency and need to get to a toilet very quickly. I would ask the Minister to look at a system in which private premises that were not “wholly or mainly” a public lavatory facility, as in the clause, but that had a toilet—perhaps a coffee shop—and made it available to the public for a specified number of hours or whatever got some business rate relief for providing that public service.