London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman said. He may think that all this is for the benefit of council tax payers and local residents, but I do not agree. Businesses pay lots of money through rates and so on, and they expect a service in return. The Bill wants businesses to cough up for the council to provide services. At the end of the day, the council can say, “By the way, even though you have coughed up for services, we don’t want to provide you with any services. We’ll get you to pay extra on top for anything that you might ever want to use.” That is an unfair system. If the hon. Gentleman is advocating that we scrap the rates that businesses pay and hold them responsible for anything that goes on, I might have a bit of sympathy, but he is trying to have the best of both worlds.

It seems as if we are doing this for the benefit of council officials who do not want to spend time trying to identify the individual responsible because they file that under “Too difficult”. They want to make businesses generally be responsible for anything that goes on anywhere near their premises—in that way, they can crack the problem and do not have to do anything.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend. This is the first occasion on which I have debated the Bill, and I am puzzled on two counts. First, if the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) is right that there is a means of reducing the burden on local authorities, presumably, at the expense of businesses, why should that be the case? Secondly—and forgive me for mentioning this, Madam Deputy Speaker—why should such a measure apply in London when there is no such provision in the rest of the UK? The legislation cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) covers every other metropolis in England, so why should London receive special treatment?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and gets neatly to the nub of the issue in the clause and the Bill. If this is such a big issue—the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) may even think that it is a big issue in his part of the world—the problem exists to the same extent across the country. If we are going to introduce measures to tackle it, regardless of whether it is a problem or not, the solution in the House is to introduce legislation that applies to every single local authority. If the problem is as the hon. Gentleman describes it—and perhaps he will try to square the circle—why should the measure apply only in London, but not in any other part of the country, including his own?

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Of course, the Bill would extend that to theatres. I should have thought that it was in London’s best interests to try to encourage the cultural attractions that we see in this city. Certainly, people who come to London from Shipley very much welcome going to the theatre. It is one of the great attractions of London. Many theatres are struggling. Not all are hugely vibrant commercial enterprises. Some of them keep going through good luck, graft and the generosity of many benefactors. Why on earth anyone would want to see some of these places closed down by putting extra requirements on them is beyond me.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend was advancing a persuasive argument until his last point. That this duplicates existing legislation is a perfectly sound argument for not allowing it to be done. I am a strong supporter of the “polluter pays” principle, and surely there is some argument for saying that if the theatre or the burger bar is responsible, they should pay for clearing up the mess.

[Philip Davies]

I will agree with my hon. Friend on the first half of his point, but disagree with him on the second. If he follows the first half through to its logical conclusion he will disagree with himself on the second half. He said that he believes in the “polluter pays” principle, and that is a perfectly sound basis upon which to start. There may well be some exceptions, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) will think of some. But in this case, the polluter is not the theatre. Just because the theatre issues a ticket to a customer does not mean that, when that ticket finds itself on a London street, it is the theatre that is the polluter. Surely my hon. Friend would accept that the polluter is the individual who dropped the litter, not the theatre. My hon. Friend is a very sound man, and I am sure that he believes as much as I do in individual responsibility. If so, he must accept that this is the responsibility of the individual, not the theatre.

[Mr Gray]

On reflection, I will disagree with myself and redisagree with the disagreement that I made against myself a moment ago, if my hon. Friend will forgive me for doing so. He is of course quite right. If the person who drops the litter is the person who pays the fine, as happens under the existing legislation without this clause, the polluter indeed pays. However, if the institution from which the polluter emerges pays, that is an entirely different principle under environmental law.

[Philip Davies]

I accept that. The point is that surely the problem would be worse. If individuals felt that they would not be held responsible for their actions but would get off scot-free, and that the theatre would take responsibility, we might end up with more litter, because individuals will feel free to throw it willy-nilly, knowing that they will not be pursued.

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[Philip Davies]

I commend my hon. Friend for being so eagle-eyed; I agree with him wholeheartedly on that point.

One of my problems with the Bill, and with this clause, is that they appear to intend to damage small businesses. We are in a terrible economic situation at the moment, and we know that small businesses are the engine of economic growth, so why on earth would the House want to pass measures that appear to have been designed to clobber small businesses? That is completely beyond me. These kinds of extra costs and bureaucracy are meat and drink to big businesses. I used to work for a large multinational company, and although these extra requirements were sometimes an irritation, we could afford to employ legions of people to deal with them. Many small businesses are struggling in the current climate, however, and they do not have the financial capability to deal with all the extra regulation and costs that the Bill seeks to impose on them. There seems to be a mindset that owning a small business is a licence to print money, that everyone who owns one has millions of pounds in the bank doing absolutely nothing, and that it is the job of a local authority to extract as much of that money as possible from them.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend is speaking with great passion from his own libertarian standpoint, but I have to admit that, unless I have got this wrong, I shall have to divert from his stance. Is he seriously suggesting, for example, that cafés and pubs should be able to place their furniture on our high streets and throw litter on the ground in the sure and certain knowledge that the local authority would clear it up at its own cost? Surely the “polluter pays” principle should pertain in such circumstances. If a café has chairs and tables on the street, is it not reasonable to expect the proprietor, who is making a profit out of the enterprise, to take responsibility for clearing up the mess?

[Philip Davies]

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) addressed that point. His local authority actively encouraged this kind of activity because it helped to keep the streets clean and tidy. The best thing I can say about the clause, which I am seeking to delete, is that it is a solution looking for a problem. My hon. Friend made it clear that there is not a problem, and that more businesses should be encouraged to make use of street furniture.

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[Chris Williamson]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray).

[Mr Gray]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, who poses an interesting constitutional conundrum: that because a group of local authorities is in favour of something—at least he believes that to be the case; I have not seen any evidence of it—this House should not have the right to consider that matter. Surely it is only reasonable that we, as the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom, should have the right to say whether we believe something to be correct and a good thing, even if every local authority is unanimously in favour it.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid constitutional point, but I thought that his party was in favour of localism and wanted greater local determination on the ground. Indeed, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) made that point earlier.

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[Chris Williamson]

Thank you for that guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was aiming to get to the substance of the Bill, but have been deflected somewhat by interventions from Conservative Members. However, I did not say that Members from outside London should not be allowed to vote on the Bill at all; nothing could be further from my mind.

I shall move on to the specifics of the amendments on street litter notices. A perfectly reasonable proposition is being advanced. I think the hon. Member for Shipley was labouring under a misapprehension, because powers already exist for orders to apply to commercial and retail premises, with the agreement of the Secretary of State. The Bill simply seeks to extend those designations, with the permission of the Secretary of State, to public buildings such as educational establishments and hospitals.

The hon. Gentleman spent a long time talking about smoking litter. As a result of the smoking ban there are now undoubtedly considerable quantities of smoking debris, and it is right and proper that local authorities should have another tool in the locker, as it were, with which to address that very real problem. It does impact on the street scene and the visual amenity of an area. I have pointed out that local authorities are already under considerable strain, given the cuts that have been made to their funding, and if they are to fulfil their obligations to their constituents—and to people from Shipley and Christchurch and every other corner of the United Kingdom who visit London—it is incumbent on those local authorities to find ways of ensuring that the street scene is not despoiled by every sort of litter—particularly smoking litter, which creates a real problem. It would be a significant step in the right direction in improving the street scene and helping local authorities to find other ways of ensuring that they can provide the adequate services that local people in their respective boroughs elect them to provide.

[Mr Gray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman who is being very generous and is advancing a cogent and interesting argument, but I have two problems. First, he used the expression “another tool in the locker” with regard to these provisions. That is precisely one of the arguments that we are advancing against them: there is already a tool in the locker—the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Why should we require another tool in the locker to achieve something that can be achieved by existing legislation?

Secondly, while I am on my feet, will the hon. Gentleman clarify for us the degree to which the provisions would apply to the parliamentary estate, and the Government estate down Whitehall?

[Chris Williamson]

I accept that other provisions are available, but they do not necessarily go far enough, and they leave local authorities in a difficult position because of the inadequate resources at their disposal. I repeat that hon. Members should support alternative ways in which authorities can deal with such problems.

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[Chris Williamson]

Her Majesty’s Opposition are genuine localists. We trust local government and those who are elected to serve their communities to do the right thing and not to abuse powers. Hon. Members should remember that the Secretary of State’s approval will be needed if the powers are to be exercised, so there are sufficient checks and balances in place.

It is incumbent on hon. Members to trust the elected councillors in the London boroughs to use the powers at their disposal responsibly. There is no evidence to suggest that London boroughs behave irresponsibly, and it is unreasonable of those Conservative Members who oppose the Bill to suggest otherwise.

Let me move on to turnstiles—

[Mr Gray]

What about the parliamentary estate?

[Chris Williamson]

If I may, I will pass on that question. Perhaps the sponsor of the Bill will clarify the situation.

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[Chris Williamson]

I have given way quite a lot already, so if the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will try to make a little progress.

To sum up, for the reasons I have outlined, there is a strong case in favour of the provisions on turnstiles in public toilets. I therefore hope that hon. Members will give the provisions their support.

[Mr Gray]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. On the question of public lavatories—I find it difficult to use the word “toilet” myself; I prefer “lavatory”; interestingly, the heading of the clause refers to “toilets”, but the body of the clause uses “lavatory”—does he not agree that the provision will lead to regressive taxation? There is no question but that we all want public lavatories to be readily available; the question is how we pay for that. Does the local authority pay for it as a responsibility under council tax or should it be the users who pay? If the cost were £1, £2 or £5, that would be a regressive tax. I do not mind paying that for a lovely, splendid, gleaming public lavatory, but what about the poor young family on benefits with five children? What will they do?

[Chris Williamson]

I can give the hon. Gentleman the benefit of anecdotal evidence that I have gleaned in speaking to young families, elderly people and disabled people about the retention of public toilets. Of course we would all love to have access to free facilities, but if there is a choice between losing the facility altogether and introducing a modest charge, 100% of the people I spoke to were prepared to pay the charge. As for the charge being prohibitive, we have to trust locally elected representatives to do the right thing. If local people think that their local councils have done the wrong thing, they have the perfect remedy at the ballot box, and can vote them out accordingly.

There are adequate safeguards and there is support for the measure. Yes, in an ideal world, if we could provide facilities across the piece free of charge, I would certainly sign up to that, but in the real world local authorities are under increasing pressure, even before elections, so it is not unreasonable to give them the opportunity to raise finance to maintain those facilities in good order and stop them closing down. All too many public conveniences across the country have closed because of the lack of resources available to the local authority.

Finally, clause 7 refers to “the use of objects” on the public highway. Again, the Bill makes a perfectly reasonable proposal to give local authorities the ability to levy a charge. At the end of the day, businesses using the public highway should not be able to use it to gain an income as a matter of course or right—it should be seen as a privilege. If street furniture is put out in that way, it often adds to the costs that fall on the local authority. Bearing in mind the fact that those businesses gain an additional profit as a result of being given the privilege of putting street furniture on the public highway, it is not unreasonable that local authorities should be empowered to levy a small charge to help pay for the additional costs incurred by the local authority as a direct consequence of that street furniture being put on the public highway. The alternative is to say that the council tax payer should pick up the tab, which would be completely unreasonable.

I am surprised that some Government Members—I am pleased that this does not apply to all of them—have suggested that the taxpayer should subsidise businesses in that way. That is the wrong thing to do, and a bad principle. On that basis, I support clause 7 and oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley.

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[Mrs Main]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on his forensic evaluation of the measure and rise to support his amendments. I have listened with growing concern about the lack of justification for the use of a sledgehammer to crack this particular nut. I am amazed that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who tried to defend the proposal, could not answer some of the significant questions he was asked. I have heard of no pilot study showing an attempt to deter bad behaviour, such as the dropping of cigarette butts, and facilitate good behaviour, such as the provision of ashtrays and similar street furniture. Let us be realistic. It is only a relatively short time since the previous Government put in place new regulations that led to more smoking outside, but local authorities have not had time to catch up with the fact that people are dropping cigarette butts because there is a lack of places to put them. Many local authorities have recognised that.

I do not think that we need new legislation to burden businesses with additional costs. We should be encouraging local authorities to work with local people to ensure sensible, reasonable and proportionate behaviour, but this is not a sensible, reasonable or proportionate proposal. Businesses might suddenly have an additional charge placed upon them so that they have to clean up a stray cigarette butt that someone has casually thrown out of a car window. It should be the polluter who pays. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister said that the Government’s position is that the polluter should pay. This proposal is not that the polluter should pay, but that the poor sap who ends up with litter in front of his door should pay, which I think is outrageous.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, big businesses can often swallow such charges. They shrug and say, “Yet another piece of legislation placed on our shoulders, but we’ll cope.” That is not the case for small businesses. Smaller businesses often have smaller premises and are shut at night, and in the morning they might find a whole raft of cigarette butts to clean up because they are down an alleyway or in a smaller part of town. Many of the smaller businesses in St Albans are down small, historic streets and suffer from antisocial behaviour, such as people urinating at night or dropping cigarette butts. I do not believe that those businesses, many of which take pride in their premises and already clean up in the morning, should have to pay a financial penalty for something that is in no way their fault.

I know that other hon. Members want to speak on the matter, but I do not think that any justification has been given today for creating more legislation. I am a natural conservative and believe that we should be chopping regulations. I thought that we had a pledge that for every bit of new legislation that came in we would throw out another, but this is another regulation on the businesses, particularly small businesses, that we are supposed to be supporting. There is no getting away from it: this has to be a money-generating scheme for local authorities.

[Mr Gray]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, as I did to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). With regard to the “polluter pays” principle, she is right to say when a cigarette is casually dropped by a passerby, it is clearly impossible for that polluter to be charged. None the less, is there not some merit in the principle that the vicarious polluter should pay? In other words, there could be a café on the pavement or a cheap McDonald’s food takeaway outlet, and even though it may not be McDonald’s itself that has dropped a piece of litter on the pavement, it would be reasonable to presume that it had made a profit from providing the hamburger to the person who dropped the litter. It is therefore not unreasonable that it should be asked to pay for clearing it up.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, and I never thought that I would be speaking up to defend McDonald’s, but that is exactly what happens in St Albans already. McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s with its carrier bags, and other big companies recognise the issue, work with the local council and help towards paying up. Sainsbury’s recognises that, if one of its carrier bags has drifted up against a fence 100 yards away from its supermarket, it will still help the local authority to clear it up—and is willing to do so. It is the poor small businesses that cannot carry the can. With huge businesses such as McDonald’s, people say, “That’s their packet, thrown away 100 yards or so from the restaurant,” but that is recognised, so often it will help local authorities to clear up and to contribute towards schemes that do so.

The clause will, however, penalise small businesses. What about them? If we were to have, as one of my hon. Friends proposed, separate legislation for branded litter, we might find it easier to enforce, but that is not what the clause is about—unless we are going to chase Marlboro and ask it to pay. The person who drops the litter should ultimately be responsible, and if that means better council surveillance and the recognition that it has to clean those areas more, so be it. Small businesses should not have to pick up the tab.

[Mr Gray]

I used a slightly bad example in my previous intervention by citing a big business and talking about McDonald’s; my point was the vicarious polluter pays. Let us imagine that a small business, such as a café, is set up on the streets of St Albans, and around its tables there is an increase in litter. Surely the reasonable presumption is that its customers have produced it and, therefore, that the café will have written into the cost of creating the cup of tea and sticky bun a cost to cover clearing up the litter.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, but I—and others in the debate have made this point—am not aware of any business that would want to serve its customers in a pigsty. Most cafés and small businesses take great pride in what happens outside their premises, but the Bill deals with litter that has been dropped and, in particular, with cigarette butts, not with the tomato on the floor which has come out of someone’s BLT from their local shop.