Incontinence

Markus Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for bringing this issue to the House for debate. Unlike her, I am not an experienced health professional, so I will narrow my contribution to the issue of public toilets, their availability and their importance to those with incontinence.

There are people who did not go out last week and who may not go out today or next week. They are those whose trips are always challenged by the lack of, or uncertainty about the availability of, public toilets—not just those who are incontinent, but those who experience any sort of urgency: those with irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis; those who need to use the toilet more frequently because of age or pregnancy or because they are menstruating, have had prostate cancer, have stomas or other disabilities; and those who are caring for those with disabilities. Very few of us will not be affected by these vulnerabilities at some point during our lives, and we want our country to be one in which we are able to ensure dignity and the ability for those visiting public spaces to have access to public toilets.

Local authorities have powers to provide public toilets but no statutory duty to do so, and this lack of compulsion has contributed to the decline in the number of public conveniences. As a former local councillor, I know how stretched local authority budgets are, decimated through a long decade of austerity and the political decision to centralise funding. In my constituency, which encompasses the Lake District national park, we are very aware of the importance of good-quality public toilets to support tourism, and yet even there, at prime visitor sites such as the start of the Keswick to Threlkeld railway path—a fantastic facility for those with disabilities to enjoy the Lake district—there is insufficient money to provide public toilets.

Just two years ago, this House considered appointing a commissioner for public conveniences and making it a statutory duty for local authorities to have public convenience plans. I am not sure why something so simple would require the creation of a commissioner, but like so many plans under the last Government, it never came to pass. I ask the new Government to look again at establishing a statutory requirement on local authorities. In the meantime, I invite hon. Members across the House to lobby their own local authorities to ensure that they create, review and scrutinise public convenience plans, and make public spaces accessible to those for whom quality public toilets are the difference between inclusion and exclusion.

A recent survey by the Association for Public Service Excellence found that over a third of local authorities had reduced their provision of public toilets over the past decade. We know that provision had been declining even before then, but it is not all bad news. Half of the councils that responded in the 2024 survey did provide Changing Places toilets. I congratulate the campaigning organisation Changing Places, which has lobbied so long and so hard to seek provision for the quarter of a million people in the UK, and their families and carers, who have for so long been condemned to loneliness at home by the lack of accessible public toilet facilities.

The latest count of Changing Places toilets in the UK is 2,607. The campaign will have been instrumental in the 2021 building regulations requiring all new public buildings to put in large and well-equipped toilet facilities. Many local authorities have ensured provision in creative and economical ways, through community toilet schemes and payments or rates reductions for businesses that open their toilet facilities to the public. Local authorities can make planning permission, leases and premises licences subject to the provision of public toilets, and they can hand facilities over to community operators. These are not always suitable or appropriate substitutes for standard public toilets provided and maintained by the local authority, but as part of a portfolio of provision they help to increase access and often help to circumnavigate some of the issues of graffiti and inappropriate use that present problems for some communities.

I urge all hon. Members to engage with our local authorities and impress upon them how important it is for the public to be adequately provided with high-quality, well-maintained facilities. I look to Members participating in today’s debate to join me in calling upon this Government to draw up statutory measures. Providing public toilets that support the most vulnerable people in our communities should be a duty, not an option.