Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the total cost of clearing litter in (a) St Albans, (b) Hertfordshire, (c) the east of England and (d) England since 2010.
We have made no specific assessment of the costs of clearing litter in these areas. Data on local government spending, including on street cleansing, which includes tackling litter, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing.
The cost of litter clearance is not recorded separately; the figures reported for spending on street cleansing also include spending on clearing fly-tipped waste and on activities which would be required even if all litter was disposed of appropriately, such as sweeping up fallen leaves or emptying public bins.
We estimate the annual cost to local government of clearing litter in England runs to hundreds of millions of pounds.