Orders of the Day — Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill

House of Commons, 21 February 2005.

Clause 2 — Gating Orders

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I beg to move amendment No. 28, in page 3, line 3, at end insert

'save with the agreement of the owner and occupier of any such dwelling.'.

For the benefit of the House, may I take this opportunity to mention my declaration in the Register of Members' Interests in regard to the Royal Automobile Club? I should also like to mention that I own a modest amount of shares, which are not registrable, in BT and a number of individual company personal equity plans and individual savings accounts in utility companies. In my spare time, I am also undertaking a placement with Network Rail, which has been of great interest.

Speaking to amendment No. 28 gives me the opportunity to mention a loophole in the Bill that came to our attention after the Committee stage. We hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that the Government will look favourably on inserting into clause 2 the provision that

"the agreement of the owner and occupier of any such dwelling"

should be taken into account in regard to certain gating orders. This relates to issues raised by farm owners and landowners and, in particular, to concerns raised by the Country Land and Business Association—the CLA.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Given that the hon. Lady has been complaining of insufficient time to scrutinise the Bill, will she tell us why there are no Conservative Back Benchers present to scrutinise it?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point, but I am afraid that she is treading on thin ice. Bearing in mind the huge—and short-lived—majority of Labour Members, I must point out that only one or two of her colleagues are on the Labour Benches at the moment, so she might regret making that remark. Also, Conservative reinforcements are arriving as we speak.

The amendment would add flexibility in regard to when gating orders could be made, and would allow for them to be made if the owner and occupier of the dwelling in question agreed—[Laughter.]

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The hon. Lady seems unaware of what has just happened behind her. The empty Conservative Back Benches were occupied briefly by a Conservative Member, who entered stage left and walked all the way to stage right before going straight out of the Chamber, so captivated was he by her words. I remind her that 18 Labour MPs spoke vigorously in support of the Bill on Second Reading. They felt that it was the right Bill because of all the discussions that we have had with everybody about how effective it will be. But I must allow the hon. Lady to get on with her scrutiny.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Indeed. Perhaps if there were fewer interruptions of that low level, the level of scrutiny might be greater.

The Bill as drafted does not allow gating orders, and the associated barriers, to be put in place on a route that forms the principal means of access to a dwelling. In our view, and that of the CLA, that is simply too restrictive. In many cases, the persons most in need of a barrier are those who live in a dwelling and suffer from persistent crime and antisocial behaviour because of the access available on that right of way. Once made, the gating orders will be flexible and need not prohibit access completely. The amendment would add flexibility in this regard, and would allow for a gating order to be made when the owner of the dwelling agreed to it. I submit that this would be a minor but beneficial improvement, and that it addresses some of the points put to us that we did not have the opportunity to raise in Committee.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

On the face of it, I suppose it might seem not unreasonable for residents to agree to curtail their own access, but they would also be curtailing access for a wide range of others who may have a legitimate purpose for having access. For instance, this proposal could hamper the delivery of mail and of other services for which providing access keys might not be practical.

The hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) says that she was briefed on this concern by the CLA, but I have to say that the CLA has not raised it with me, although I speak to it regularly. The legislation is intended to provide for gating back and side alleys to deal with problems that have been experienced in inner urban areas. It is not intended to provide for gating the principal means of access.

I see the purpose of proposed new section 129B(4) as ensuring that the legislation is not used for purposes for which it is not intended. For that reason, I suggest that the hon. Lady withdraw her amendment.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

With some disappointment, we learn that the Minister does not seem to have grasped the reasonable points that we made and is unable to offer the assurance we seek. However, I am sure that there will be opportunities—when the Secretary of State introduces regulations, for example—for the CLA to be consulted further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 6 — Abandoned vehicles

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 12, in clause 3, page 5, line 41, leave out

'he proves to the satisfaction of the court that.'.

Government amendment No. 24.

Amendment No. 13, in clause 4, page 6, line 18, leave out

'he proves to the satisfaction of the court that.'.

Amendment No. 14, in clause 4, page 6, line 26, leave out

'he proves to the satisfaction of the court that.'.

Government amendment No. 25.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

For the benefit of the House, I should say in discussing this little group that I wish to press amendment No. 12 to a vote.

In a moment, I shall say how amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14 are linked. First, however, I urge the Minister to look sympathetically on new clause 6. We believe it is important to have a definition of an abandoned vehicle, but—strangely, in the circumstances relating to this part of the Bill—there is no such definition. Indeed, there is no such definition anywhere in the legislation, nor is there a definition of a vehicle fit for destruction.

In 2002–03, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions consulted on proposals to speed up abandoned car removal. That mainly involved shortening the statutory notice periods—15 days on private land and seven on a highway. The consultation resulted in no action, and it was generally understood that that was because of the concern expressed about historic and restorable vehicles, particularly in relation to when people were away on business or on holiday.

There were also understood to be Human Rights Act 1998 concerns about the right to property and whether the rules were widely enough understood. Concern was also expressed that many local authorities had difficulties in assessing vehicles and judging them to be abandoned. There were calls, albeit by the DTLR in its consultation, for a statutory definition and guidance.

Many local authorities were concerned about having to pay compensation, although it was suggested that motor trade assessors could be used to estimate value. Other concerns involved value, what is personal value, what is market value and how those should be defined.

Since that consultation, many local authorities have established links to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database. Indeed, some are using the DVLA's untaxed removal powers, which is probably the best way forward. A definition of abandoned vehicles has been difficult to get to grips with, but it was felt that this was the right time to have a go. On the criteria in relation to what should establish a definition, a vehicle shall be deemed to be abandoned if a number of factors are in place: recent observations; evidence relating to its inactivity; no activity regarding it on the DVLA's database for five years, such as road tax or statutory keeper listings; all identifying features, number plates and vehicle identification number removed.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

So that I may understand the hon. Lady's new clause better, will she say whether an abandoned vehicle will have to meet all those criteria or just one to be deemed to be abandoned? What consultation has she had with respect to her proposed definition? Has she taken advice from the Local Government Association, for example, or others who would have to implement this definition?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am not disclosing a secret by saying that the Automobile Association provided that definition, and it has had several discussions and followed closely how effectively it would be implemented. There would be no point in having a definition that did not work in practice. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to make that point.

Not all the criteria would have to be met, but they are indicative criteria. The two most useful would probably be statutory off-road notification, which is the official declaration that a vehicle will not be used on the public highway—every vehicle in normal circumstances must be taxed or have been given SORN, as being in limbo or any other status is simply not permissible—and the vehicle identification number. The VIN is unique to each vehicle, marked on its engine—concealed on the chassis, I am told—and gives more information than simple registration numbers. It is therefore important to have a definition. That follows up the loophole that has been found.

Other criteria include: all identification features have been removed, including the number plates and VIN; no SORN has ever been notified and recorded on the DVLA record; the vehicle is burnt out; the vehicle is deemed to have no value, which could be verified by the official motor trade estimate; and the vehicle is a hazard or a danger.

I hope that the Minister will look favourably on new clause 6. Any one of those criteria would be helpful in determining the status of a vehicle as abandoned. The Minister must see the difficulties that the former Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions got into by failing to have a definition of an abandoned vehicle. This definition is put forward in the same spirit of co-operation as was demonstrated throughout the Committee stage.

I now come to amendments Nos. 12 to 14. Amendment No. 12 relates to clause 3 and touches on one of the most sensitive and contentious parts of the Bill, which time did not permit us to reach in Committee—the imposition of a reverse burden of proof on exposing vehicles for sale on a road. We would prefer to reverse that by removing the offending words,

"he proves to the satisfaction of the court that".

Historically, in England and Wales and in Scotland, in law, it has normally been the case that a party is innocent until proved guilty. This provision reverses that presumption and puts the onus on the accused to prove his innocence. That reverses one of the most fundamental tenets of English law, and we take a grave view of it.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I have looked at the amendment and tried to work out what is behind it. I cannot agree with the hon. Lady, although hers would be a serious charge if it were justified. Surely a court would have to decide whether a person was guilty under clause 3(1) first, and clause 3(2) merely provides an extra protection for an innocent person. There is no change from the basic legal presumption of "innocent until proven guilty". I think that what the hon. Lady has said represents a misreading of the clause.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The hon. Gentleman may not have had time to consider the clause to the extent that we have.

Paragraph 303 of the Government's explanatory notes, on page 47, refers to the court case. I understand from a radio interview in which I took part yesterday that there is already a legal precedent, although I do not know whether it relates to the court case in question. As I have said, we take a serious view of any removal of the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty". Paragraph 303 states:

"The Bill contains a number of new reverse burdens of proof (which means that, to take advantage of a defence provided, the accused is required to demonstrate his innocence once the prosecution has proved certain facts, rather than the prosecution being required to prove the accused's guilt on all issues)."

That is a classic definition of reverse burden of proof.

"A reverse burden can be legal,"

the Government argue,

"where the burden is on the accused to prove that the defence applies to him on a balance of probabilities, or evidential, where the accused must bring sufficient evidence for the defence to be an issue, and then the prosecution must disprove the defence."

The Minister may be able to refer to other cases, but paragraph 304 tells us—I challenge this in amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14—that reverse burdens enjoy a lawfulness confirmed, in the Government's view, by the House of Lords in the cases of Sheldrake in 2004 and R v. Johnstone in 2003,

"where the prosecution has to prove the ingredients of the offence and the overall effect is that the accused has a fair trial, and the reverse burden is reasonable, proportionate and in the public interest. The Court of Appeal gave guidance on reverse burdens in AG'S REFERENCE (no 1 of 2004 . . . The European Court of Human Rights has recognised that reverse burdens are lawful in SALABIAKU V FRANCE (1988) . . . and PHILLIPS V UK if the overall presumption of innocence is maintained."

I realise that we are not in court now, but I would argue that the presumption of innocence is overruled in the event of reverse burden of proof.

"The Government believes that the reverse burdens contained in the Bill are within those criteria and seek to promote the general interest of environmental protection. The Government therefore concludes that the new provisions are compatible with Convention rights."

Let me say at this early stage, before the Bill goes to another place, that I believe that the reverse burden of proof has no place in environmental crimes—not that Conservative Members do not accept the seriousness of such crimes, and the frequency with which they are committed. We believe that in a free and fair society and in accordance with the terms of natural justice, there should be no place for a reverse burden of proof.

Amendment No. 13 extends that criterion to clause 4, which deals with repairing vehicles on a road. We propose to leave out the offending words

"he proves to the satisfaction of the court that",

and revert to the presumption that an accused person is innocent until proved guilty. Amendment No. 14 does the same.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I am a new boy to these proceedings as I did not serve on the Committee, unlike the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), the Minister and one or two other Members present. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) has been detained, so I have taken his place. However, it was with great interest that I prepared for this debate, read Hansard reports of proceedings in Committee and listened to the hon. Member for Vale of York. [Interruption.] Others doubtless also read those reports with great interest.

In principle, the hon. Lady is on to something with new clause 6. I replied to the Government consultation on abandoned vehicles. I do not often reply formally, as a constituency MP, to such consultations, but abandoned vehicles have been a huge problem in my constituency, where we have been pressing the Government to act for some time. Although that consultation was conducted several years ago, it was an important move and it led to some significant changes. In the royal borough of Kingston upon Thames, initiatives taken at local level, along with some of the policy changes supported by the Government, have had a major impact in terms of clearing up abandoned vehicles. It was a good consultation, which moved the game forward. The question is: can we go further through the Bill and the new clause?

I agree with the intention behind the hon. Lady's proposal, in that we may well need the benefit of a stricter definition of what counts as an abandoned vehicle. The question is whether she and the AA have produced that definition. On reading it, I am not convinced that she has done so, although I congratulate her on trying. The new clause would lead to two problems. It could prove too weak in some cases by failing to catch some vehicles that are actually abandoned, and prove too strong in others by catching vehicles that have not been abandoned, the lawful owners still having the right to their property. Therefore, there is a danger that the new clause will result in the worst of all possible worlds. I should emphasise that that does not mean that the Government should not try to come up with a suitable definition, perhaps in another place.

In Committee, the Minister said that local authority officers who have to implement such legislation can understand the wording of the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978, which has been clarified through case law. He made a fair point, and it has proven difficult for the AA and the hon. Lady to produce a definition that covers all circumstances. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister is prepared to examine this matter again, and to see whether we can go further than the 1978 Act.

The hon. Lady has just spoken to amendments Nos.12, 13 and 14 and, as I suggested in my intervention, I have some problems with them. She is worried about removing the presumption of innocence. As far as I can see, the Bill and clause 3 do not do that, except in respect of fixed penalty notices.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman missed our proceedings in Committee and I hope that the Hansard reports have captured the excitement of them. However, he should look at clause 3, which includes the phrase

"if he proves to the satisfaction of the court that he was not acting for the purposes of a business of selling motor vehicles."

Normally, it would be up to the courts to prove that that was what such a person was doing. To achieve the same end, surely all that we need to do is to drop the phrase

"he proves to the satisfaction of the court that",

as suggested in our amendment.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I am more than happy to admit that I might have misunderstood, but that is the whole point of this debate: to scrutinise legislation.

It seems to me that the presumption of innocence is taken away with respect to fixed penalty notices, which is the whole point about fixed penalty notices. However, on clause 3, we are talking not about fixed penalty notices but about a court's decision to levy a fine if there has been an appeal. If a case comes before a court, I presume that it will look at it afresh.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The hon. Gentleman talks about removing the presumption of guilt, but he just said that a person was to be "convicted" of an offence, if it were proven, under clause 3(2),

"to the satisfaction of the court that he was . . . acting for the purposes of a business of selling motor vehicles."

There is no reverse presumption, but the provision has the same effect.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

My point is that the fixed penalty notice provisions in this and other parts of the Bill remove the presumption of innocence, but that clause 3(2), which the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) are so concerned about, offers extra protection for the innocent person. It provides them with a plea at the court, if the matter goes that far. I repeat my initial point that there has been some misunderstanding of the drafting. Everyone in the House would, presumably, agree with the hon. Lady that removing the presumption of innocence before a court would be wrong, but I do not know whether the Conservatives are now against all fixed penalty notices in all circumstances. If so, that is an interesting development, but I had assumed that previously they were not. We are discussing the only removal of the presumption of innocence that appears in the Bill. We understand the hon. Lady's concerns, but if she presses her amendments to the vote, we would have to dissent because we do not believe that her analysis is correct.

I wholeheartedly welcome Government amendments Nos. 24 and 25, because similar amendments were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow in Committee and the Minister undertook to reconsider the points that he made, particularly those relating to whether the fines should move up a category from level 3 to level 4 in order to assist proper prosecution and to act as a sufficient deterrent to persistent offenders. Clearly, the Government have reflected on what my hon. Friend said, so I am sure that he is proud of his influence on the Minister and glad that the Government amendments have been tabled.

The Government amendments and other provisions are very important, but hon. Members will know from their constituencies that when car selling or car repair businesses are set up in communities, they can cause a huge nuisance and great offence to those communities. The Government are right to tackle that problem, and they have our full support. I know of a number of streets and areas in my constituency that have been subject to massive disruption and great inconvenience by such businesses. Vehicles can often take up empty spaces on roads when parking is scarce, and the noise and pollution generated by those businesses are additional problems. The Government are right to act.

Clause 3(1)(a) makes it clear that a person is guilty of an offence if

"he leaves two or more motor vehicles parked on the same road".

Having read the explanatory notes and the Committee debate, I wonder whether the terms of that provision might be somewhat restrictive. I know of areas in my constituency that have suffered because a local person has caused great problems by selling or repairing vehicles on two or three adjoining roads. I understand why the phrase "on the same road" has been used, but its terms could be too restrictive for some communities. I am not asking the Minister to promise tonight that he will amend the provision, but I would be grateful if he reflected further on it. As I said, in parts of my constituency, the current provision would not deal with the problem that the Minister wants to solve.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I welcome the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) as a fresh face to our consideration of the Bill. I also welcome the fact that he has engaged with these issues from a constituency point of view, which is what most of my hon. Friends did on Second Reading and in Committee.

I was rather surprised to hear that the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) did not have time in Committee to investigate one or two points. I recall, and comments were made by various members of the Committee, that the hon. Lady had all the time in the world while every clause was debated to the exhaustion of those listening, so I am surprised that she feels that she did not have enough time. She was absent on one day and if that is what she meant, it was not lack of time that defeated her, but the need to be elsewhere.

The hon. Lady claims that the AA supports her new clause 6, but that is surprising because the AA has not contacted me as a Minister, nor as one of its members. I thought that I should declare my membership, although it is not a substantial interest under the provisions of the House.

Put simply, new clause 6 is unnecessary. Plenty of guidance is available to local authorities, not least from ENCAMS and the Local Government Association, as well as from their own experience, on the characteristics to take into account when deciding whether a vehicle has been abandoned. Such a definition is not necessary in the Bill. Legislation leaves the decision on whether a vehicle has been abandoned to local authority discretion. Specifying criteria would remove councils' flexibility, so this appears to be another example of the old-fashioned Stalinism that seems to be rampant in the Conservative party. More seriously, it would fly in the face of experience. The fact is that local authorities have rarely been challenged on any decision concerning abandonment. My advice to the hon. Lady is, "If it ain't broke, don't look for ways to fix it."

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

During the Government's consultation, the main practical problem seemed to be deciding whether the car was merely untaxed and, therefore, a matter for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, or abandoned and, therefore, a matter for the local authority or the police. Does the Minister have any comments on that aspect of definition and whether greater clarity is required?

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Clearly, deciding whether a vehicle is abandoned is one issue. Vehicles are not considered to have been abandoned if they are taxed and the Bill will help with that. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that was one obstacle. Others include the length of time a car has been left and so on. Those are the sort of issues that we are tackling in the Bill.

Detailed considerations such as those set out in new clause 6, as opposed to the sort of issue that the hon. Gentleman pointed out, are not appropriate for primary legislation. Clause 13 requires local authorities to have regard, when carrying out their functions under the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978, to guidance issued by the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales. If necessary, the new provision can be used to put the current guidance on a statutory footing.

On amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14, it is a matter of fact and practical experience that local authorities have had great difficulty in proving that someone is acting in the course of a business when a transaction occurs in the street. The offence of exposing for sale specifically covers two or more vehicles because we want to make it clear that we are targeting rogue traders, not private sellers. The offence relates to two or more vehicles being advertised for sale on the same road, which would suggest the presence of a business venture, so the burden of proof should be on the defendant. In the unlikely case of a private seller selling two or more vehicles at the same time, it would be easy for them to prove with DVLA documentation that the vehicles were registered in their own or their family's name and that it was coincidence that they were being sold at the same time. The burden of proof is not beyond reasonable doubt, but on the balance of probabilities.

The clause provides a clear line of defence if there is prima facie evidence of an offence, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. It is a line of defence more than a reverse burden even if, technically, it is a reverse burden to some extent. The first part of the clause as drafted indicates what amounts to a person being guilty of the offence. They must be shown to have left

"two or more . . . vehicles parked on the same road where they are exposed or advertised for sale"

or to have caused that to happen.

Subsection (2), on the other hand, provides the defence that someone who is not a trader can bring forward. If the words are removed, as proposed, that defence would be rendered meaningless as a person would not have to prove that it applied in their case. I suggest that the proposals would render nonsense the legislation as drafted.

I shall now explain Government amendments Nos. 24 and 25, which, you will not be surprised to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I support and want added to the Bill. Cars sold on the road through commercial businesses can cause problems and annoyance for ordinary people and a significant blight on an area. Cars repaired on the road can take up valuable parking spaces, look unsightly and pollute the local environment. The amendments are minor but important and would raise the maximum penalty for offences of nuisance parking to ensure consistency and to bring them in line with other environmental offences.

As the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton pointed out, the hon. Members for Guildford (Sue Doughty) and for Ludlow (Matthew Green) tabled a similar amendment in Committee, and I undertook to consider the points that they made in discussion. Having done so, I have proposed the amendments. The maximum fine for other environmental offences, such as abandoning a vehicle or littering, is level 4, so they are appropriate.

I urge hon. Members to withdraw their new clause and amendments and to accept our amendments Nos. 24 and 25, which I commend to the House.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I have listened carefully to the debate. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), in his debut performance on the Bill, made some interesting comments and I am sure that they were meant to be constructive.

The Minister will appreciate that I received his note only 40 minutes before the beginning of the programme motion, but we have a difficulty with the reverse burden of proof. We are not unsympathetic to his amendments, which would raise the maximum penalty for nuisance parking offences under clauses 3 and 4. However, it was unfortunate that the Minister did not have the benefit of participating in the radio programme yesterday. I, too, value my Sundays and I do not often take part in live radio programmes on that day, but if the Minister had done so he would have appreciated the public's growing concern that the Government are increasingly using fixed penalty notices for a number of offences. Under these clauses they are introducing fixed penalty notices for an environmental crime—nuisance parking—and if the amendments are accepted the maximum penalty will be increased. As a lawyer, albeit non-practising, I find that an unhappy situation.

In Committee, I pressed the Minister about the level of evidence. It was against that background that we provided the definition in new clause 6 for the level of evidence needed to prove that someone had committed that type of environmental crime. The Minister was not forthcoming in Committee and I am not entirely satisfied with his explanations this afternoon. The situation is deeply unacceptable. The defence against a fixed penalty notice will be seriously weakened and people will have to go to court.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am trying to follow the point that the hon. Lady is making. If we are talking about interruptions to Sundays, perhaps I should say that I was able to make the point on "Countryfile" yesterday about how important the Bill will be to people who live in rural areas. However, I do not quite follow her point that there is no defence against fixed penalty notices. If people do not like the fixed penalty notice, they do not have to pay the penalty, but they must then go court and marshal their defence at that point. I am not sure what point she is making. Many people have been affected by the sort of evils that are addressed in the clauses and they want them to be tackled vigorously. Surely the hon. Lady agrees with them.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to give us other cases where such a reverse burden of proof applies. We would find that very helpful.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I have made the point to the hon. Lady already that these provisions relate to how people can present a defence if there is a prima facie case, not to any reverse burden, which is an inappropriate term to use, although it may be technically correct. These provisions are intended to ensure that people who are not guilty of undertaking the sort of commercial activities that cause the problem are able to demonstrate that they are innocent of the offence.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The Minister uses an unfortunate expression. He should be mindful of the fact that the Government have used such a term at great length in the explanatory notes.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is that, although it may be true that the defence is not useable until a court case takes place because someone eventually says, "This is unfair, so I'll go to court", the nature of that defence may have a real effect on the occasions on which and the care with which people issue fixed penalty notices? The worry about fixed penalty notices is that, if they are issued willy-nilly, people are put in an extremely difficult position in deciding whether they should go through all the hassle of going to court and many people will therefore give way. We want to ensure that fixed penalty notices are not issued without due care, and I understand that that is what new clause 6 is supposed to do.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

My right hon. Friend puts our case so much more eloquently than I have done. Indeed, that is precisely the point that was made in Committee and to which we allude in this little group of amendments.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I wish to answer this point.

We do not know for sure who will issue the fixed penalty notices. Even with community support officers or the police issuing the notices, public concern has been growing about some of the high-handed tactics used and the lack of training given. The Minister will recall that we raised the issue in Committee about precisely what level of local authority official may be able to issue the notices and what specific training they would be given because, although the crime is considerable, level 4 penalties are substantial.

I am mindful of the time, the guillotine and the fact that there will be an opportunity to press the issue in another place, so following this exchange of views, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 — Exposing vehicles for sale on a road

Clause 4 — Repairing vehicles on a road

New Clause 2 — Duty to keep land and highways clear of litter

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 10—Street litter: chewing gum—

'After section 93 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (c. 43) insert—

"93A Street litter: chewing gum

(1) The appropriate person shall consult litter authorities and other persons and bodies as he thinks appropriate regarding—

(a) the most effective methods for removing discarded chewing gum and the remains of discarded chewing gum, and

(b) how producers and consumers may be made jointly responsible for the disposal of discarded chewing gum and the remains of discarded chewing gum

and shall publish the results of that consultation.

(2) The appropriate person shall implement policies to increase public awareness of the penalties for the illegal disposal of chewing gum.".'.

Amendment No. 3, in clause 18, page 14, line 40, at end insert

', subject to subsection (4) below.

(4) But land adjacent to or in the vicinity of railways, railway carriages and buses shall be deemed to be open to public access for the purposes of this Part.'.

Government amendments Nos. 26 and 27.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

New clause 2 elaborates a duty in section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to keep land and highways clear of litter. It would make specific provision for the Secretary of State to issue regulations to establish standards in respect of discarded chewing gum different from those that apply to other litter. It would allow for the subsequent consultation of local authorities and others about the proposed regulations. Those regulations and the consultation on them would provide an opportunity for consideration and discussion of the costs of gum clear-up, and of the standards that realistically could be achieved.

We discussed clause 27 at some length in Committee. For the first time, the definition of "litter" covers discarded chewing-gum, the discarded remains of other products designed for chewing—I presume that means bubble gum—and the discarded ends of cigarettes, cigars and like products. One of the clause's perceived benefits is that it would strengthen the ability of local authorities to enforce the provision making the discarding of gum a fixed penalty litter offence. We have had numerous discussions with Westminster city council, whose record on the clearing of litter is second to none. In its view, the discarding of chewing gum is rarely seen, and the scope for applying fixed penalties for litter offences to this problem is slim. One of the problems is being able to identify the point at which chewing gum is discarded.

New clause 10 would insert a new section 93A in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. That would be a positive step in bringing all parties together to look at more imaginative, socially responsible and environmentally friendly ways of disposing of gum. With a general election not too far away, we hope, as an aspiring Government, to work with producers and consumers to consider ways of introducing biodegradable gum and wrapping paper. The thrust of the new clause is very much in that spirit. We would work with relevant parties, including the litter authorities and such other persons and bodies as the Secretary of State thought fit, to consider

"the most effective methods for removing discarded chewing gum and the remains of discarded chewing gum".

The House will recall that the Government spent £60,000 to study the ways in which people dispose of chewing gum, but they were unable to come up with a best means of removing it. We believe that all parties could work on this together, and we would like to see how producers and consumers could be made jointly responsible for the disposal of discarded chewing gum and its remains. The results of the consultation would be published.

The Secretary of State would also implement policies to increase public awareness of the penalties for the illegal disposal of chewing gum. It is all very well having fixed penalty notices, but this is very much a matter of educating and informing people, in particular schoolchildren. That is the right way forward. We await the Minister's response with interest, but it is my intention to press new clause 2 to a vote.

Amendment 3 is to clause 18, and would mean that

"land adjacent to or in the vicinity of railways, railways carriages and buses shall be deemed to be open to public access for the purposes of this Part."

The public pass close to such land and they throw litter on to it. The amount of litter thrown, and the costs to the railway undertakings, are substantial. We hope that the Minister is inclined to look sympathetically on the amendment.

Clause 18 provides for the extension of litter-dropping offences to land to which there is public access. It appears to be a weaker proposal than that set out in the "Clean Neighbourhoods" consultation that took place in July 2004, which seemed to envisage that such offences would be extended to all land without caveat. We were thus surprised that the Bill excluded land to which the public do not have access, including boarded-off or fenced-off land adjacent to railways that is maintained by such bodies as Tube Lines and Network Rail. It would clearly be beneficial to them if amendment No. 3 were adopted and the caveat removed.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Will my hon. Friend help me by explaining why she thinks that the Government have specifically excluded such undertakings? It is difficult to expect private people to carry through such obligations when they see that they do not apply to other areas. Some of the filthiest places that impinge on the eye of the beholder are those along railway lines and close to railway stations.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I would like to help my right hon. Friend, but I have great difficulty in doing so. The consultation process that took place in July 2004—prior to the Bill's publication—led private undertakings, including Tube Lines and Network Rail, to understand that land on which the public do not walk, but on which they tend to throw litter, would be covered.

The problem is extremely costly. Trains must often be stopped so that tracks on which litter has been thrown may be accessed. The cost of a train being delayed by an hour while litter is picked up is £25,200. However, there would be a multiplying effect if trains had to be stopped during peak time. If a London terminal station had to be closed for eight hours for such a purpose, it could lead to a cost of more than £2 million. There is great concern about the problem. Network Rail recommended during consultation on the Bill that local authorities should only as a last resort serve notice to enable such private undertakings to access tracks, and even then, only at the safest and most cost-efficient times.

These are not just probing amendments. We hope to elicit from the Government an assurance that such private undertakings will be put in a much stronger position, especially as envisaged under amendment No. 3. The private companies understood that they had been given certain assurances at the time of the consultation process, so we hope that the Bill will reflect that. Clearing such litter is extremely expensive, and the safety aspect of the procedure must be considered given the proximity of litter to tracks and trains. Transport operators think that they are the victims of antisocial behaviour, because it is the travelling public who tend to throw rubbish on the railway. Not only private companies such as Tube Lines and Network Rail, but bodies such as the London Transport Users Committee, are appealing to the House to support the amendment.

We could have gone further and asked for vehicles to be included under the scope of the provision, and perhaps the Minister will comment on Government amendments that relate to the exclusion of buses. We especially wish to press new clause 2 to a Division.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

I declare an interest as someone who chews gum, as someone who has a large number of constituents who work for Wrigley's, the main manufacturer of gum, and as someone who shares the exasperation caused by litter, including the inappropriate disposal of gum. I want to see an end to that as much as anyone does.

Understandably, people get hot under the collar about the impact of carelessly thrown gum. If we are serious about finding a solution, we need to ask why other European countries do not have the same problem, although their people chew as much gum as ours do. The simple answer is that other countries' citizens do not chuck their gum away in the way that some of our citizens do.

The chewing gum action group, convened by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has been meeting for just over 12 months. Wrigley's plays an active part in that. Through something that the group calls segmentation research, which the Standing Committee considered, it has discovered that people who cause that nuisance do so for a variety of reasons. Gum disposal psychology could form the basis of an interesting debate, but as I only want to make a short contribution, I shall resist that temptation.

We are beginning to understand a lot about responsible gum disposal. As with most things, a blend of carrot and stick has an impact on that, which is why clarification of gum as litter and stronger enforcement of fines have an important, but perhaps modest, part to play in dealing with the difficulty.

The chewing gum action group is preparing to launch a campaign based on what has been learned about gum disposal behaviour and the messages that are likely to encourage people to behave well, rather than badly. That has to be pitched carefully, because the wrong advertising campaign or programme to tackle the problem could make things worse rather than better. The industry will back that up with point-of-sale material, with the support of retailers, and will do more work on good gum disposal messages in schools—something that it has been doing for a long time. The action group will also consider developing an innovation fund to help councils develop new solutions. That will be an effective blend of carrot and stick.

The Conservatives always rail against too much regulation on business, so I am a little surprised that the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) proposes just that when so much work is being done. As the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) said in Committee, if that work does not reduce gum littering, we may need to return to the matter and consider legislation. In the meantime, I hope that the hon. Member for Vale of York will consider her position and withdraw the new clause, because the next time she or any of her hon. Friends want to deregulate, she may blush a bit when she recollects that rather than resisting the urge to regulate, she jumped on a popular bandwagon when it came along, before giving partnership and voluntary co-operation a chance to work and to produce a genuinely sustainable solution. I urge hon. Members to oppose the new clauses.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy). I do not think that she would accuse me of being an over-regulator, but I am surprised that she defends the industry, which has come into the debate only because of the considerable pressure placed on it. We must ask whether we should have done that a long time ago, given that most of us support the "polluter pays" concept. In this case, the industry puts on to the public market a product that is not biodegradable, that causes considerable unpleasantness, litters our streets and causes a great deal of damage to clothing and the like because of the way in which it is disposed of.

The hon. Lady is right to say that it is pretty disgusting that Britain is less clean than our continental neighbours. Perhaps that is another example of something that we can learn from our neighbours, instead of always believing that we can teach them everything.

I wonder whether the hon. Lady was entirely fair about the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh). My hon. Friend is seeking to put a much greater responsibility on those who create the problem in the first place. If the industry is making money out of gum and people are causing trouble not just in small numbers but all over the country, which is resulting in what most would consider unpleasant, that industry should be producing some hard evidence of research and answers so that people can eat gum that is biodegradable, or at least easily cleaned up. I see no such evidence at this stage, yet that is what we would expect in almost every other circumstance.

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Lady's points—that was a perfectly proper case for her to put, especially on behalf of her constituents—but we need to go a good step further, simply because, on the evidence, nothing will be done until there is so much pressure that the industry feels that it must do something. Corporate social responsibility might well have led the industry to do more in the past.

My hon. Friend also commented on the areas covered—if that is the right phrase—by the Bill. One must recognise that the environment in general, and the built environment in particular, have a huge effect on people's behaviour and their quality of life. I am therefore particularly concerned if we do not point to some of the most obvious examples of litter causing offence. Any of us who are part of the travelling public understand that well.

I find it difficult to defend the argument that we know that litter is filthy and disgraceful but that it is too expensive to collect it. There are two halves to that argument. One is that we need to do a great deal more to encourage people not to drop litter. Litter is one of the dirtiest aspects of our society, and I am afraid that we are worse than most of our neighbours in that respect. A visit to any other capital city in Europe will reveal that we have degenerated from the point at which once upon a time we were rather proud. We thought that we were rather good, but we are now at the other end of the scale.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

If my right hon. Friend wants to talk about litter, may I suggest that he take a drive down the A1, as I did yesterday? He will see the filthy state of that road. The amount of litter in some sections is way beyond the Government's recommendation to local authorities. That road has not been cleaned for months, and it is a disgrace that a main artery of this country is in such a state.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

My hon. Friend points to my concern about what people who visit this country must think about us when they see us behaving in such a way. Some of the worst roads are those leading from the airports into London. One cannot make a party political point about who does the cleaning up; it seems that in general we are dirty in the first place, and that we do not clean up satisfactorily.

I agree with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton that there are two sides to the issue, and that one is to try to encourage people not to drop litter in the first place. Part of that is to ensure that we reduce the amount of packaging. I declare an interest as chairman of Valpak Ltd., which is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to deal with our packaging obligations. Therefore, I have a little knowledge about the matter. We have not yet done enough to reduce packaging. If we had less packaging, and more biodegradable packaging, we would be protecting our streets and the sides of our railways.

The culprits are the people who drop litter, and we should improve how we teach people about litter. Perhaps more of us should follow the example of those redoubtable ladies who, when they see somebody drop litter, tend to pick it up and say, "You seem to have dropped this." One must be quite brave to do that, and "redoubtable" is perhaps an understatement of such people's nature. We must introduce much tougher penalties—a matter on which the Government have done a good deal. We must also ensure that people take responsibility for clearing up afterwards, which is the only way to drive them to try to improve the position.

The new clauses tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) and for Vale of York are worthy of consideration by the Government. Although the Bill is small it is valuable, but it could be improved, and those are two areas in which it could properly be improved. I shall be particularly concerned if the Government are not prepared to lay greater responsibilities on the creators of the products that specifically and particularly cause offence, even if that is done by saying that unless a significant improvement is made over a period of time, certain things will happen.

We have not gone far enough—on chewing gum, in particular. I hope that in another place the Government will go further, and come closer to meeting a reasonable objection from many people in our society.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

This is a tough problem. I am sure that all hon. Members are aware that stains left by chewing gum are present wherever we go. In some buildings, beautifully designed paveways have been ruined by chewing gum stains, which are a menace.

Conservative new clause 10 is similar to some of the amendments that we discussed in Committee, so we know that more must be done and that more consultation is required. The consultation must be tough because the problem is no longer acceptable. Some would like us to go for the industry now, while others say that we should engage in consultation and implement regulations if we really want to solve the problem.

As I said in Committee, although we have dealt with people who allow their dogs to make a mess, that does not mean that we can deal with people who drop chewing gum—a dog is an obvious culprit, but people who quietly drop chewing gum are not easily identified. The problem caused by chewing gum is far greater than that caused by dogs, and we must deal with the many people who think it reasonable to drop chewing gum.

Liberal Democrats in the London assembly have surveyed 33 local authorities, every one of which thinks chewing gum a nuisance. Some 81 per cent. of London local authorities believe that gum companies should concentrate on developing biodegradable gum, which is essential; 53 per cent. of them do not think that imposing fines will stop people from discarding chewing gum, which is an area that we must explore; and 41 per cent. of them say that they have established dedicated teams to remove chewing gum from the streets. Tube companies spend £2 million a year and councils spend £2.3 million a year on cleaning up gum.

Linda Gilroy (Labour/Co-operative, Plymouth, Sutton)

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is essential to tackle behaviour rather than putting money into perpetually cleaning up gum? Westminster council has said that the gum returns within 10 days of a clean-up.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

It is a complex issue. We need carrots and sticks to ensure that people do not constantly have to pay this money. London Liberal Democrats have suggested the introduction of a penny-a-pack levy on manufacturers, and I understand that Westminster council—we heard in Committee how much money it has spent—agrees with that.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does the hon. Lady agree that a company that started entirely afresh in marketing a new product that was known to have such an impact would, as a matter of corporate social responsibility, be expected to change its formulation or to arrange for some kind of compensation for those who had to clean it up?

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

On the whole, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. However, life is full of unintended consequences, and only after products are marketed do we find that people have developed a particular behaviour in respect of them. In fairness, I do not believe that chewing gum manufacturers ever imagined that their product would be sold to people who throw it down in the street and walk away from it, which is a pretty disgusting thing to do. We do not have the prescience to say, "Here is a new product—its consumers will immediately misbehave in this particular way." We could introduce biodegradable gum and withdraw the nasty stuff from the market, but even biodegradable products do not simply vanish—if we cleaned up Oxford street it would be just as bad 10 days later.

London Liberal Democrats recommended that chewing gum manufacturers should have to print large messages about correct disposal. That is a good idea and I hope that they will take it up. We need publicity campaigns to tell every person who buys this stuff not to throw it away, and we need more chewing gum bins outside major transport hubs. We worry about smoking waste, which is getting worse as people are driven outside to smoke and litter is created by doorways, but at least there are little receptacles on the walls indicating that people can put their rubbish there. That is not the case with chewing gum. We do not tell people, "This is where you stick the stuff", so they will stick it wherever they like.

If we do not quickly come up with some good ideas, local government will continue to face disproportionate bills to pay for the clean-up costs. That is unfair.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I agree with my hon. Friend. In my constituency, Clarence street, at the heart of the town centre, is littered with chewing gum. That causes a serious problem, and the local authority has been spending a lot of money on it. It seems that some chewing gum companies are reluctant to spend money on telling people about safe disposal because they are worried that it might put them off buying their product. We will have to be much tougher on those companies and possibly force them to take that approach, because they will not do it willingly.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

My hon. Friend makes a strong point that bears out my remarks. The consultation cannot be allowed to be a soft option. We should consider alternatives such as the penny-a-pack levy to be fed back to those who have to clean up this mess. Tough action is required. I hope that this will not be a lightweight consultation, because it cannot be allowed to be a soft option. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I shall be brief because we want to hear what the Minister has to say. I support new clause 10 because the problems with chewing gum need to be tackled. The Liberal Democrat spokesman said that it was a question of consultation—I fear that more is needed and that we should send a tougher message to chewing gum manufacturers, conveying that they are partly responsible for the damage that their product does. That point applies to all litter. The manufacturers of soft drink cartons should also have some regard to the biodegradability of their products. As I said earlier, many seem to end up on British roads.

People's behaviour is influenced by the state of the environment. Many years ago, when I was a councillor in London and we had taken over from a fading Labour council, we spent much more money and cleaned the streets. That had not been done properly in the time of Labour rule. One consequence of keeping the streets clean is that people throw far less litter. If one drives along a road such as the A1, where stretches are covered in litter, it is easy to think, "Well, I'll just chuck the can out of the window because it won't make any difference to the messy road." That applies to chewing gum. If the street is littered with chewing gum, it is a great temptation to throw it down and not dispose of it properly.

In Chicago, the mayor has made a tremendous effort to keep the city clean. It is interesting to observe that the citizens of that city, which was once filthy, are meticulous about putting their rubbish in litter bins. If we set a good example, people will follow it. That is why I believe that a message to manufacturers about taking some responsibility, rather than consultation, is needed.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I suppose that I should begin by welcoming the fact that one or two Conservative Members appear to have woken up to the importance of the Bill. However, on Second Reading, they opposed it and even failed to turn up to debate it, and they did not make major contributions in Committee. They therefore have a cheek to make such contributions to today's debate.

I must resist new clause 2 on a ground that I hope that the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) will find immediately convincing. It is unnecessary because section 89(7) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 already requires a code of practice to be issued on the discharge of the litter clearance duties. That has been achieved through the code of practice on litter and refuse of 1999. Subsection (9) allows the code to be modified or withdrawn and reissued. We plan to consult on a new version of the code in the summer to take into account the changes for which the Bill provides. I assure hon. Members that we will cover standards for litter involving gum and smoking-related products in that code.

New clause 10 is unnecessary and its principles have been debated in detail in Committee. The hon. Lady has a predilection for pointless regulation while resisting well considered efforts to tackle the real issues. The Government are already working with local government and the chewing gum industry through the chewing gum action group to tackle the problem of discarded chewing gum. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) referred to that a few moments ago. I set up that action group in autumn 2003.

Members of the group represent the interests of both the chewing gum industry and local authorities, including Wrigley as the largest manufacturer in the UK, the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and ENCAMS. We sponsor ENCAMS to run campaigns on behaviour change, which is at the heart of the matter. The group's remit is to find sustainable solutions, through a partnership approach, to the irresponsible disposal of gum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton referred to the segmentation research, which arose out of the group's work. The group considered the research and asked why people behaved in such a way. The segmentation research demonstrated that different groups in society dispose of their gum in antisocial ways for different reasons. That is why the campaigning work, which is being designed and worked on in conjunction with the industry and ENCAMS, is tailored to the genuine reasons for people's behaviour.

We have gone beyond simply saying that things are better elsewhere to asking how we can effect change by first understanding behaviour and then finding the levers that will lead to better behaviour, and litter disposal that does not cause the problems that hon. Members described. The action group is looking at national and local initiatives. The market research project will inform a national awareness-raising campaign that will take place later this year, which will be complemented by sustainable local campaigns around enforcement and innovative disposal solutions. There is no single solution to this; it is a question of carrot and stick and of behaviour change. It is a question of encouragement as well as exhortation.

I am pleased by the way in which the industry has responded over the past 18 months. It is now contributing financially to the measures that the group developed. I spent some time at Wrigley in Plymouth a couple of weeks ago, with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton, and I am convinced that the managing director, Gharry Eccles, and his team understand that, in regard to the more responsible disposal of gum, it is in the best interests of their company and the industry, as well as those of the wider public, to change the way in which people behave.

The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) sounded almost European in his wish to learn from other countries. I share his wish for better standards, but we must understand the problems of this country first. He clearly had not bothered to research his subject before coming into the Chamber to speak on it; otherwise he would have been aware of the work that the industry is now doing with us. It was unfortunate that he sought to attack the industry, and Wrigley in particular, in his speech.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I am proud to make the statement that I am a European. I am a European, I am proud of it, and I shall continue to be so. I should like to make a point to the Minister that I think is reasonable. I did not suggest that the industry had done nothing; I suggested that it had not done enough. I ask the Minister again to give us some time lines in regard to what the industry is going to do, when it will do it, and how soon we can expect to see any alteration. If he could do that, we would be happier with what his committee has been doing.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I accept that as a sort of qualified apology from the right hon. Gentleman. I should not be too hard on him when he is clearly—

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That was not an apology, and I would not like it to be accepted as such.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

That is not a matter for the Chair.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I was being generous to the right hon. Gentleman, but if he does not want my generosity, he can do without it. I was about to say that I should not be too hard on him because he is now supporting a Bill that his party opposed on Second Reading—a point that needs to be made to Conservative Members time and again.

Amendment No. 3 will be resisted because it is unnecessary. Clause 18 will make it an offence to drop litter anywhere in the open air, including on land beside railways, railway carriages and buses. It will cover structures such as bus shelters and railway platforms that are covered but accessible to the public. It will also cover land to which the public does not have access, such as boarded or fenced-off land adjacent to railways where dropped litter can easily accumulate.

Subsection (3), by virtue of section 86(13) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, will exempt land that is both covered—albeit open to the air on at least one side—and not accessible to the public. Littering in such areas is really a matter for the occupier to deal with, as it does not impact on the quality of the local environment. The amount of litter likely to end up in such areas when thrown from a railway, railway carriage or bus is minimal.

I must point out to the hon. Member for Vale of York that, when she was talking about transport undertakers, she confused clause 18, which deals with the offence of dropping litter, with clause 20, which is about litter cleansing notices. Amendment No. 3 does not affect the latter. Railways are under a statutory duty to keep their relevant land clear of litter, and that is not affected by the Bill. Litter cleansing notices could be issued in respect of other railway land, but we will issue guidance to ensure that they take account of operational needs after full consultation with the relevant operators. I therefore ask the hon. Members not to press their amendment and new clauses to a vote.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Do the provisions in the Bill on litter and waste mean that a local authority will be able to serve a penalty notice on a householder who has put their household refuse out on an unadopted passageway to which the public have open access? My right hon. Friend will be aware that refuse bags that have been badly tied can lie in such passageways for days before disintegrating, causing huge litter problems across the whole neighbourhood.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I understand my hon. Friend's point. The simple answer to her question is yes. Under clause 48, it will be possible to issue a fixed penalty notice to anyone who leaves waste out on any land other than their own house or garden—the curtilage of their own dwelling. Section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires householders to follow the requirements of the local authority on the collection of household waste.

Government amendment No. 26 is necessary because, under clause 23 as it currently stands, the distribution of free printed matter in a public transport vehicle when on designated land could be covered by the offence. It could, therefore, be an offence to hand out leaflets on a bus if the bus were in a designated area at the time. We did not intend that to be an offence. Distributing material on a bus or coach is unlikely to result in the degradation of the local environment, and our amendment deals with this by clarifying the position. Controls on distribution will continue to apply, however, when material is distributed from a vehicle to people outside it, because in such circumstances, the literature could well end up being dropped as litter.

Government amendment No. 27 is needed because clause 23 does not currently make it clear whether the local authority is able to give consent that extends to anyone other than the person who applied for it. The provision was intended to be wide, enabling the local authority to give consent that would cover the applicant, as well as allowing his employees, distributors or any other persons to be included within the consent. Amendment No. 27 makes the position clear. For example, if a company wishes to distribute a free newspaper in a designated area, the consent given to the company will also cover all those who actually hand out the paper. I therefore ask the House to accept amendments Nos. 26 and 27.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Amendment No. 3 addresses the concern put to us by the transport infrastructure companies that their land is not currently defined as public land for the purpose of making it an offence to drop litter on such land. The amendment would define their land as public land for the purposes of the Bill. The companies are already working hard to clear up the litter, and the Bill will place additional responsibilities on them in that regard. They feel that they would be greatly assisted if it were made an offence to drop litter on their land.

I do not wish to press amendment No. 3 or new clause 10 to a vote, but I will persist with new clause 2. The Minister and his Department raised uncertainty by a proposal in their own consultation document, "Living Places—Powers, Rights and Responsibilities", that discarded chewing gum be defined as litter so that existing litter duties and powers would apply to dropped gum. The Minister referred to ENCAMS. A document on ENCAMS' website identified as the "MPs' pack" provides a guide to local environmental quality issues. It states:

"The Defra consultation document, Living Places, Powers, Rights and Responsibilities recommends that discarded chewing gum be defined as litter to which existing litter duties and powers apply. If these recommendations are accepted the law would be clarified to create a duty to keep land clear of chewing gum. However, the costs to local authorities and other impacts would have to be assessed before any such change can be formally recommended. It would also allow members of the public to be fined for dropping gum, as they currently are for dropping litter."

We believe that, once discarded gum has adhered to the ground, it cannot sensibly be considered in the same way as other litter. We therefore believe that there is scope for new clause 2 to be adopted, and we commend it to the House.

Clause 23 — Consideration on free distribution of printed matter

Clause 31 — Extension of graffiti removal notices to fly-posting

New Clause 15 — Waste Minimisation

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 16—Waste disposal contracts' compatibility with statutory performance standards and local waste development frameworks—

'The Secretary of State may make orders requiring local authorities that have contracts transferring waste disposal functions to specially formed companies to review those contracts to ensure compatibility with statutory performance standards and local waste development frameworks.'.

New clause 17—Retail packaging recovery—

'(1) A relevant retailer shall provide a safe collection point within the curtilage of each of his retail outlets for the return of packaging sold or otherwise supplied from that outlet in the course of business.

(2) A collection point under subsection (1) shall be clearly signed and shall be open to the public during all business hours.

(3) A relevant retailer shall ensure that packaging collected under the provisions of section (1) above—

(a) where reasonably practicable, is reused, returned to the supplier or recycled; or

(b) in any other circumstances, is safely disposed of using a licensed waste disposal contractor.

(4) The Secretary of State may make regulations for the purposes of subsections (1) to (3) above.

(5) In this section—

"packaging" means any container, material, substance or component supplied with a product but which is not a part of that product;"relevant retailer" means a person who carries on a business in a premises which—

(a) is approved for that purpose under Planning Use Class A1, A2 or A3, and

(b) has a net retail sales area greater than 250 square metres.'.

New clause 18—Sustainability requirement for waste disposal functions—

'(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations to require that, where a waste disposal authority enters into a contract with a third party for all, or any part of, its waste disposal duties, minimum environmental sustainability requirements shall be met.

(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may have particular regard to—

(a) the effect of the duration of a contract on waste minimisation;

(b) the effect of the duration of a contract on diversion of waste from disposal to reuse or recycling;

(c) the application of the proximity principle;

(d) the energy efficiency of facilities;

(e) the involvement of sustainability advisers at evaluation stage for bids for waste disposal contracts;

(f) the use of mandatory outcome-based requirements for sustainability objectives.'.

Amendment No. 37, in page 31, line 29, clause 37, leave out

'is being or is about to be'

and insert 'or is being'.

Amendment No. 29, in page 46, line 31, clause 50, at end insert

', in subsection (7)(c) after "authority", leave out "may" and insert "shall".'.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

The purpose of tabling these new clauses and amendments is to consider the problem of waste disposal. New clause 15 considers waste minimisation.

It would be wrong not to give the Government credit for the work of the waste and resources action programme, which is working hard on waste minimisation. We know that the waste strategy 2000 identifies both eco-design and redesign as ways to reduce waste, but we need to go further. WRAP is well supported by the Government, but it can only go so far. Waste minimisation needs to be taken further. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is ending its support for Waste Watch, which was doing valuable work in education. Having considered the previous group of new clauses and amendments on littering and so on, it is clear that education was one of the Government's tools, and not supporting Waste Watch will reduce the effectiveness of that.

We have a real problem, however, with the continuing rise in the total amount of municipal waste, which in 2002–03 was an estimated 29.3 million tonnes—an increase of 1.8 per cent. on the 2001–02 figure of 28.8 million tonnes. Although we are making progress in decoupling the rise in waste from economic growth, which is healthy, we need to go further and consider waste minimisation targets. WRAP is getting work done on redesign, but it can only provide a certain level of stimulation for redesign in relation to the waste minimisation needed if we are to achieve sustainability.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is that the Government indicators, which highlight how councils perform on recycling, do not reflect waste minimisation? Councils such as mine in Lewes, which have succeeded in reducing waste per head of population, therefore receive no credit for that, because the recycling figure bears no relation to minimisation.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

That is an important point, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. While we work with councils, consider recycling and alternative ways of disposing of waste and meet targets to reduce landfill, if we do not reduce the amount of waste that we produce, no matter how much we divert waste from one place to another, we will ultimately fail to meet those targets. We therefore have some major concerns.

Liberal Democrats have been debating zero waste strategies for some years, and it is now party policy. It is also the policy in other places, such as New Zealand, whose waste strategy includes major requirements to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place. In relation to zero waste, Mark Barthel of WRAP talks about the interesting concept of Z2, which considers sustainability in terms of zero waste and zero emissions and examines the problem in its totality. One of the worrying aspects of waste is that it not only fills up landfill but particular types of waste produce harmful emissions. New Zealand, Canada and Australia have taken that on board, yet when we asked recently what the Government were doing to examine further the question of zero waste, the answer was "nothing". It does not seem to be on the Government's agenda, and it is of great concern to us that such techniques should be evaluated by the Government. There is a large body of information from across the world on how waste can be reduced and minimised. Our Government would be foolish to ignore that, as some quick wins are possible.

People question whether zero waste can be achieved, but quality control always aims for zero faults. We should aim to continue to reduce the amount of material sent to waste, instead of digging up resources from the ground or plucking them from the trees and then throwing them away three or six months later. We are missing good opportunities to examine how to reuse materials and minimise waste.

It was sad, and it is a reflection of why we are not doing enough on waste minimisation, that a conference on zero waste that I attended last week was woefully under-attended. Some brilliant techniques were put forward, including work being done by WRAP, but without a Government strategy for waste minimisation, as opposed to initiatives through WRAP, we will not make progress. The new clause would put that right by requiring the Government to consult on ways in which they could strengthen the waste strategy by introducing stronger measures to support the top two options in a zero-waste hierarchy, reduction and redesign. We need much more focus on those options, which is why my party will press for a Division.

We hope that following their review of the waste strategy 2000, the Government will take the excellent opportunity that we are presenting to amend the hierarchy so that it explicitly includes redesign. Some work is being done through the waste and resources action programme, but much more is needed. We want the current way of measuring recycling levels to be reformed so that councils, such as Lewes, that reduce waste per capita by means of, for instance, home composting do not score less than councils that perform less well. That is why we are particularly concerned about waste minimisation.

New clause 16 is intended to ensure that consultation involves local waste development frameworks, and contracts relate to what is happening in the big world outside. The contracting out of waste disposal functions to the private sector or to arm's-length companies could result in inflexibility. The previous arrangements under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 can prevent waste disposal authorities from securing continuous improvements in the way in which they dispose of waste to meet recycling targets. We have major worries about contracts that are written and then cost an arm and a leg to change. Society and the Government may say that we need to change the rules to ensure a more sustainable approach to disposal, but councils are tied to contracts that do not reflect that. We want to help authorities to manage contracts while also making improvements.

In 1999, Surrey county council signed a 25-year contract that included incineration. Even since then, things have changed. We opposed incineration, and there was a change of MP in part of the Surrey area. Throughout Surrey people are beginning to recognise the need for a fresh look at waste.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The hon. Lady claims that her party is opposed to incineration, yet it adopts an enthusiastic approach to combined heat and power. How does she square the two views?

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I am very disappointed by that intervention. Combined heat and power does not need to be fed by incineration. A range of fuels can be used, and it is not necessary to burn waste to produce energy. Under a Conservative council, Guildford has not taken opportunities to make the maximum energy saving—but the debate is about waste, not energy. We must ensure that contracts requiring incineration do not promote the assumption that waste will continue to feed the incinerator.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

As a Select Committee member, the hon. Lady has a detailed knowledge of these matters. Does the very term "combined heat and power" not suggest the use of some form of incineration?

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

We are talking about the incineration of waste, not about combined heat and power. We are not discussing the use of wood chippings, sugar beet or anything else to produce heat. Combined heat and power presents a good many opportunities, but I do not understand what part they play in a debate on a Bill dealing with waste.

What concerns me is that after only two years the Surrey county council contract failed to meet its statutory performance targets for recycling. I am not trying to "beat up on" Surrey. I know that there has been a change of personnel and that the council is trying to take a fresh look at the possibilities for a sustainable environmental approach. It would be wrong not to give it credit for its use of "sustainability" in job titles. Some of the staff are deeply committed to sustainability, and I support what they are trying to do with the contract that they have inherited. The fact is, however, that although we have a local waste development framework on which consultation is taking place, what was done in 1999 set the course of waste disposal.

That is the reason for the new clause. If contracts could be reviewed and updated to facilitate compliance with statutory performance standards, Surrey council and the contractor would be obliged to confront the fact that at present the contract requires only 25 per cent. recycling. Moreover, that includes incinerator ash, which it is no longer legal to include in the calculation. The statutory target is 36 per cent., and excludes incinerator ash. The contract needs to be changed. Would that not best be done in conjunction with the local waste development framework?

The Government will expect such contracts to be reviewed in terms of best value. The problem is that we are consulting on frameworks at a time when a wet earth disposal strategy has been established in a contract. We want contracts to be tied to frameworks. Another problem is that although boroughs in Surrey have been trying hard to improve their recycling records, credit is going to the disposal authority, which has done far less than those boroughs. As the Minister knows, I have long had worries about the whole business of collection and disposal authorities. I have never quite understood why it seems to work against what is best. Some unitary authorities have a much more coherent approach.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

What puzzles me is that waste minimisation, along with recycling, often depends on the volume of waste. Does the hon. Lady agree that that gives authorities little incentive to deal with, for example, the recycling of batteries? I have seen it in France, but my local authority provides no facilities for it.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I understand that waste is measured by weight rather than volume. We have debated the issue for a long time, and I am sure the hon. Lady will know of the problems with disposal of plastics, which are bulky but light. Fewer than 0.1 per cent. of batteries are sent for appropriate disposal—recycling—and we still have a problem with batteries in domestic waste. Most authorities cannot make their sums add up, because this country does not have adequate facilities. I speak from memory and stand to be corrected, but I understand that although facilities are being set up, that is happening in Scotland—a long way from the point of generation in the south of England or the east, where the hon. Lady's constituency is. Adequate battery disposal is a matter of great concern to us all, and under a zero waste contract—or, indeed, under any waste contract—we want some of the harder-to-deal-with products to be dealt with appropriately.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I return the hon. Lady to her comments about waste being measured by weight. Is not the fact that local authority targets are fixed by weight one of the fundamental problems? Instead, one needs a much more selective mechanism so that, for example, packaging and other parts of the waste stream could prove valuable to local authorities in terms of contributing to national targets. We need a much more sensitive arrangement than the current one.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that useful intervention. I get the feeling that even with plastics, with which we know we are having problems, there is much more that we can do. In my local authority—I am not making a party political point; this is doubtless true of many other authorities—two major supermarkets, Tesco and Sainsbury's, have plastic "bring points". One might assume that one end of Guildford shops at Sainsbury's and the other at Tesco, but these "bring points" are used by people who work in the constituency but do not necessarily live there. For example, someone who lives in Reigate but teaches at a school in Guildford deposits plastic bottles at one of those sites. Bottles are brought to the collection area and left there in plastic bags; indeed, bag upon bag is left there.

We need to do much more to educate the public, hence my concern about Waste Watch. We need to ensure that, as in France and Spain, people drop their old batteries into a collection unit when they buy their replacements, assuming that they cannot use rechargeable ones. We also need to ensure that people know that the best thing that they can do with their plastic bottles is to stamp on them and, if possible, remove the paper wrapper. That would help everybody, including the markets, but unfortunately we are failing on the education front.

Such issues are also important in terms of how contracts work. We must create a framework whereby we modify those contracts and tell collection and disposal authorities that they must improve, increase recycling and reduce waste. In that way, we will avoid waste incineration, for example, which people do not want. We should also help people to dispose of their waste in the most appropriate way. On mechanical biological treatment, would it not be better to provide the option of anaerobic digestion, which is not an incineration process, even though it produces a gas by-product that can be burned? There are many other ways in which we can dispose of waste, and tying oneself into a long contract is not a good idea.

We still have a problem with retail packaging recovery and producer products. We buy such products at supermarkets, take them home—and then what? Again, the burden falls on local authorities. Some of the better organisations have had a serious look at packaging and are doing some good things; for example, B&Q is looking at end-to-end use of packaging. Unfortunately, although they are leading from the front, many other organisations are lagging behind and not playing their part. We want to introduce a measure on producer responsibility in order to increase recycling rates, and to provide an incentive for retailers to limit the amount of packaging used. In Germany, deposits form part of such schemes. There has been some negotiation as to how such deposits work, along with some discussion of how well the German scheme is working. There is room for improvement in terms of recovering bottles and other plastics, but such improvement is beginning to happen.

New clause 18, which would create a sustainability requirement for waste disposal functions, is also concerned with the problem of contracts. We need to establish what the sustainability requirement is. As we know, it is very easy to introduce private finance initiative-based contracts that include no real definition of sustainability. Although the Government look for best value in such contracts, they do not put the same effort into dealing with sustainability deficiencies. Some authorities will of course still choose to contract out waste disposal functions. For example, a small authority might not find it economical to carry out such functions or to build a partnership with a neighbour. Such contracts must have sustainability at their core.

A report produced by the Green Alliance last year, entitled "PFI: Meeting the sustainability challenge", pointed out that there are sustainability guidelines for agreeing PFI contracts, but that not a lot of attention is being paid to them. They are honoured more in the breach than in the observance, and they are optional. If there were firmer sustainability requirements, local authorities would have to take on board advice about sustainability, and bidders would have to pay greater attention to, and make firmer commitments to, meeting such requirements. We need to strengthen those requirements and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on this issue. He has the opportunity to tell us how sustainability will be brought into waste contracts and other contracts.

Amendment No. 37 follows on from a debate that we had in Committee on the failure to provide valid authority for transporting waste, and on the obstruction of officers exercising stop-and-search powers relating to that offence. We identified a discrepancy between subsections (2)(b) and (8)(b) of clause 37. The former states that a vehicle can be stopped by an officer if it

"appears to him to be a vehicle that has been, is being or is about to be used for transporting . . . waste".

However, subsection (8)(b), which deals with the offence of failing to co-operate with an officer exercising such stop-and-search powers, refers only to waste that

"was or was being transported".

The Minister said in Committee:

"An offence is committed only if controlled waste is or has been transported, which is the reason for the language in the Bill"—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 20 January; c.167.]

That, however, does not clear up the inconsistency between the two subsections. We are taking account of the Minister's response and suggesting that the phrase "about to be" be removed from subsection (2)(b). I hope that the Minister has had a chance to look at the amendment and that we will achieve a satisfactory meeting of minds. We already have enough problems securing adequate evidence and conviction, particularly in relation to transporting waste, and I would hate a loophole to be used to provide a defence in cases where we should be securing a conviction.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

I do not want to detain the House for very long, but I want to add a few remarks to those made by the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty), who made some very valid points about waste minimisation. The whole purpose of our recycling policy should be to reduce the amount of waste material going into landfill sites, but the hon. Lady will doubtless join me in congratulating the Government on increasing recycling in an astonishing way—one that I did not think possible in 1997.

In my own local authority, when Labour was in control in 1998, we were recycling 14 per cent. of domestic rubbish. That gave the Liberal Democrats a target of 28 per cent. to achieve by 2004, which they failed to realise. They have also failed the further target of 36 per cent. this year. I am sorry about that, because many things could quite easily be done to enable the council to meet its recycling targets.

I understand that the hon. Member for Guildford is talking about waste minimisation rather than recycling, but I hope that she agrees with me that the higher the rate of recycling, the less waste needs to go to landfill sites. I know that it is not always the case, but manufacturers sometimes seem intent on vying with each to produce more and more packaging, so we all end up with more packaging in our shopping bags at the end of the day. If we can increase the amount of waste for recycling, less material will need to go to landfill.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

The hon. Lady mentioned two figures relating to recycling in Cambridge. I cannot comment on the second, because I have not looked into it, but I understand in respect of the first figure that it had nothing to do with the change of council administration and a sloppy attitude, but reflected a change in the way waste was counted. It would not have mattered which council took over from the previous council: the figures would have risen in any case.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

That was the excuse offered by the Liberal Democrats on Cambridge city council, but the Government have not accepted it. It is not sensible to start quibbling about the figures; we should look at further ways to enhance recycling and improve waste minimisation.

In response to the intervention of the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), when Cambridge city council first introduced green bins, I was visited by one of the council's officers, who wanted to know why I was putting so little into my green bin. The answer was that most of the stuff that should have gone into my green bin had actually been deposited on my own compost heap. That is an eminently sensible way of dealing with the problem, rather than leaving it for someone else, though many people without large gardens have to resort to that.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Lady seems to agree with me and I noticed the Minister nodding helpfully. What seems to have happened is that the Government, with the best of intentions, have driven councils down the recycling route—we are all in favour of recycling—but not down the minimisation road. Councils now often actively recycle to get their figures up, instead of minimising in order to get the waste down.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. There is some good sense in what he says and I began by observing that I agreed with much of what had already been said in the debate. Given the importance of waste minimisation and given that the hon. Member for Guildford mentioned plastic bags a few moments ago, I am surprised that she did not mention—perhaps it is inappropriate in the context of the particular provisions that we are debating now—the idea of having a plastic bag tax, as in Ireland, where it has proved to be a sensible measure. I must say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I find it infuriating when I go into a supermarket with my rucksack—of course, I cycle there—and I am immediately offered plastic bags to put all my shopping into. As well as being infuriating, it is completely unnecessary.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I appreciate the hon. Lady's comments and I believe that we are of one mind on the issue. She will be pleased to hear that what she suggests will, subject to a full environmental impact assessment, become Liberal Democrat policy.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

I am pleased to hear it. At the national policy forum, which I attended in July, a resolution was passed to include in our relevant policy documents the need for a review of the plastic bag tax. I am pleased that Ministers felt able to accept that proposal.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

In taking that argument forward, is my hon. Friend aware that the Department is now investigating the environmental cycle of plastic bags and that there may be a downside as well as an upside? Does she agree that placing a tax on plastic bags would raise the profile of waste management? Should we not now get on with it?

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an excellent point. Yes, let us get on and do that.

I want to deal with the recycling of plastics generally, which has been a hot issue in my own constituency. I carried out a survey, based on a form that was sent to every household. I received more than 600 responses—not bad considering that people had to pay to post them back to me. What people wanted more than anything else was kerbside collection of plastics. I believe that it is a very good idea; I know that my waste bin is full of plastic, partly because I am reduced to buying convenience foods that all come neatly wrapped in rather rigid plastic containers.

I discovered, however, that it is difficult to carry out kerbside recycling of plastics, largely because of the bulk, which the hon. Member for Guildford mentioned. When plastics are collected, it is probably necessary to have a crusher to reduce the volume. Cambridge city council has proposed kerbside recycling of plastics and collecting them separately from other products such as tins, papers, glass bottles and so forth. I understand that most of the energy saved by recycling the plastic will be used in oil when the material is taken to China, melted down and re-used. I cannot believe that that is a sensible use of council tax payers' money. If the hon. Lady had some fresh ideas and could offer them to her Liberal Democrat colleagues on the council, I would be most grateful. I understand that that policy will increase council tax in Cambridge by about 10 per cent.—a horrendous amount for people to pay. I am advised that it will cost about 20p per plastic bottle recycled. That cannot be a sensible way forward, though it may appear to be so on the surface.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I think that we are both of one mind on the need to recycle plastics. The fact remains that, if more were done to stimulate the market for plastic recycling in this country, it would not be necessary for materials to go over to China. I looked into the problem and I am concerned about boats coming over full and going back to China, so—

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

Order. The hon. Lady must not go on making mini-speeches in her interventions. There is only a relatively small amount of time left for debate.

Anne Campbell (Labour, Cambridge)

I do not want to add anything further to what I have said and I know that we are all interested in hearing what the Minister has to say in response.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I rise to support amendment No. 28—

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

Order. I suspect that the hon. Lady means to speak to amendment No. 29.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I mean amendment No. 29, which relates to clause 50. I draw the Minister's attention to the instructions in the briefing sent by the Environment Agency to all right hon. and hon. Members. It deals with how to apply section 59 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The amendment would remove "may" and insert "shall", thereby requiring the relevant authority—the Environment Agency—to clear fly-tipped material or rubbish from all land. Once the landowner has proved that the material was fly-tipped—namely, dumped without his knowledge, consent or permission—we believe that that should be enough to qualify for removal: not at the landowner's expense, I hasten to add, but at the expense of the local authority.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

No, we have heard quite enough from the hon. Lady about this group of amendments.

The briefing says that we must stamp out all forms of fly-tipping. It is a form of environmental crime which is increasing. It has an element of cowboy activities with a strong criminal undertone, and we must remove the results from private land as well as public land. Why should landowners have to put up with what could be hazardous, noxious and very unpleasant waste on their land?

The purpose of the amendment is to require the relevant authority to clear fly-tipped material from all land. That would occur only when the occupier had established his defence that the material was fly-tipped. Without the amendment, authorities will continue not to clear waste from land in their areas, so the true scale of fly-tipping will never be ascertained and the necessary resources to deal with the problem will never be allocated.

I shall not speak at length on the note from the Environment Agency, but I wanted to draw the Minister's attention to it before he responds. It states clearly on page 1 that the agency cannot and would not want to require an occupier or landowner to remove waste or remediate against the deposit if there was no evidence that they were responsible. It also states that the agency does not have the power to require any other person, including the culprit, to remove waste unless they are the occupier or landowner. Again, the agency cites the background data to the effect that in 2003 it served 131 notices under section 59.

In conclusion, I humbly submit to the Minister that the Environment Agency is not empowered to require an occupier or landowner to remove waste or remediate against its deposit if there is no evidence that they are responsible. Clearly, it believes that illegally dumped waste on privately owned land is a more difficult issue than that on public land. Neither the local authority nor the Environment Agency is under any legal obligation to remove the waste. However, the agency states that in some circumstances it will remove illegally deposited waste to mitigate an imminent risk of pollution or harm, and then seek to recover its costs. That is unacceptable. Fly-tipped waste should be removed from all land regardless of whether ownership of that land is private or public.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

It is interesting how much ground has been covered during this short debate and I pay tribute to all hon. Members who have taken part.

The hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) acknowledged some of the actions that we are taking to improve our performance on waste disposal. I accept that the matter is fraught with difficult decisions and challenges. Indeed, so much could be said on the issues that have been raised that I will write to hon. Members who have taken part in the debate and will place a copy of my letter in the Library.

The impact on existing contracts, which are often—but not always—long term, is a serious issue. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) complained that recycling and composting targets do not reflect waste minimisation. That is true at the moment. We have focused on recycling and composting in current targets, but another best value performance indicator—the number of kilos of household waste per head—takes account of waste minimisation. We are reviewing the local authority recycling targets this year, along with a review of waste strategy 2000, and we will consider further levers to encourage waste minimisation as part of that. There are some points on which we can have a meeting of minds in attempting to deal with the issues.

I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for her helpful contribution on the whole range of issues before us.

New clause 15 is resisted because Government policy seeks to drive the management of waste up the waste hierarchy. Waste minimisation sits at the top of that hierarchy so, when planning for waste management, the potential for minimisation must be evaluated before consideration of any alternatives.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but will you confirm that in five minutes you will be required to put the Question on this stage of the Bill's consideration without the House having had the opportunity to discuss amendment No. 11 and dogs? We shall be unable to discuss that not because the Chair has forgotten about it, but because the restrictive programming motion leaves us no time to consider it.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

The hon. Gentleman may be premature in making his point of order. The Chair does not know what will happen in the next few minutes.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Well, the Standing Committee had a good debate on dogs. When we discussed the programme motion, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) took up some time referring to various organisations, which I have met and engaged with in recent weeks. I assure him that his and their concerns have been addressed. We can make progress, even if he is frustrated and prevented from making his contribution on the only issue in the Bill that seems to bother him.

New clause 15 is resisted because a number of means exist by which the same objectives can be pursued, including the new landfill tax escalator, the packaging obligations, and the waste and resources action programme. I shall expand on some of those and other issues in a letter to hon. Members.

New clause 16 is also resisted. We accept that waste disposal contracts must deliver the outcomes in a waste disposal authority's long-term strategy for sustainable waste management and deliver the infrastructure needed to reach those outcomes, as set out in the authority's local development framework. However, local authorities are autonomous bodies and responsible for making their own decisions on procurement within the regulatory framework. Sufficient mechanisms are in place to ensure that existing contracts are reviewed and that future contracts do not cause conflict.

The duty of best value, as the hon. Member for Guildford said, requires local authorities to secure continuous improvement in service delivery through challenge, comparison, consultation and competition. When an existing contract does not meet statutory obligations, the authority must find a way of taking additional action within or separately from the contract to address the problem, or face the consequences. That could involve formal intervention by the Government as a last resort if the authority is failing to deliver best value or a financial penalty under the landfill allowance trading schemes. A number of mechanisms exist—I would be happy to expand on them—that allow us to go in the direction that has led to the drafting of the new clause.

New clause 17 is also resisted. There are two separate issues: increased packaging recovery and persuading more consumers to recycle more. Both are vital, but it is not clear that compulsory provision of take-back facilities for packaging in-store is the best way of achieving both, although that may play a role. We do not believe that such a duty would add value to the mechanisms already in place. We are also concerned that the proposal would disregard the fact that local authorities have a statutory duty to collect and dispose of household waste, including household packaging waste. It is not clear how the amendment would fit with that duty. There would be practical problems with identification of material supplied from a particular outlet, lack of support from consumers, and so on. However, I do not deny that the proposal could make a contribution and that it is worth exploring further.

New clause 18 is resisted because waste disposal contracts must be environmentally sustainable, but local authorities are autonomous bodies, responsible for making their own decisions on procurement within the regulatory framework. Sufficient mechanisms are in place to ensure environmental sustainability of contracts, including a duty of best value, statutory performance standards and so on.

Amendment No. 37 is resisted because it would limit the flexibility of the enforcing authorities to take the most appropriate enforcement action at the most appropriate time. It would not allow them to search vehicles that were reasonably believed to be about to be used to commit an offence. Instead, they would have to wait until the offence was committed and only then proceed to carry out the search. It is important to retain the power to search vehicles that are, it is reasonably believed, about to be used to commit an offence.

Amendment No. 29 is resisted because the national and local taxpayer—

Clause 50 — Power to require owner of land to remove waste

New Clause 11 — Audible motor vehicle alarms: Amendment of the road vehicles (construction and use) regulations 1986

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 12—Audible motor vehicle alarms: amendment of the Motor Vehicles (Tests) Regulations 1981—

'(1) The Motor Vehicles (Tests) Regulations 1981 (S.I. 1981/1694) are amended as follows.

(2) In regulation 20 (fees for examinations)—

(a) in paragraph (3A)(b), after the reference to "anti-lock braking system warning device", insert—

"audible motor vehicle alarm"; and

(b) in paragraph (7)(c), before sub-sub-paragraph (i), insert

"(ai) audible motor vehicle alarm,".

(3) In Schedule 2 (the prescribed statutory requirements)—

(a) in paragraph 1(a) (which relates to light motor bicycles and motor bicycles), in the Table, after the row relating to item 5A, insert—

Item No. | Regulations | Affecting

"5B | 99A and 99B | Audible Motor Vehicle Alarm"

(b) in paragraph 2(a) (which relates to light motor vehicles other than motor bicycles), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (c) in paragraph 3(a) (which relates to motor cars and heavy motor cars), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (d) in paragraph 3A(a) (which relates to certain minibuses), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (e) in paragraph 4(a) (which relates to certain passenger-carrying and public service vehicles), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (f) in paragraph 4A (which relates to certain passenger-carrying and public service vehicles with forward-facing seats), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (g) in paragraph 5(a) (which relates to certain public service vehicles), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; (h) in paragraph 5A(a) (which relates to certain public service vehicles), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B"; and (i) in paragraph 6 (which relates to certain goods vehicles), after the reference to item 4, insert "5B".'.

New clause 13—Audible motor vehicle alarms: amendment of the Goods Vehicles (Plating and Testing) Regulations 1988—

'(1) The Goods Vehicles (Plating and Testing) Regulations 1988 (S.I. 1988/1478) are amended as follows.

(2) In regulation 16 (fees for re-tests), in paragraph (6)(c)(i), for the words "and 16", substitute the words "16 and 16A".

(3) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 (the prescribed construction and use requirements), in the Table, after the row relating to item 16, insert—

Item No. | Regulation | Subject Matter

"16A | 99A and 99B | Audible motor vehicle alarm".'.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce these new clauses. Those who pay particular attention to the workings of Parliament may note that there is a striking similarity between them and the Bill that I introduced which is due for a Second Reading on 18 March. I also record the fact that that Bill, which is replicated in the new clauses, has the support of Conservative and Labour Members of Parliament, and I hope that it will generate a response similar to the all-party support that I had for my motion on climate change two weeks ago. The Minister is not nodding now, but perhaps he will later on.

There is undoubtedly a problem with car alarms in environmental and noise nuisance terms. The Government have correctly identified the need to tackle noise nuisance through the Bill's proposals concerning audible intruder alarms. My colleagues and I broadly welcome what the Government have done on that issue. However, the Minister will also accept—he referred to it in an intervention on Second Reading—that there is a nuisance from car alarms. They can legally sound up to 120dB—the same level as a pneumatic drill or a rock concert. They tend to go off quite frequently, and they are assumed by those who hear them to be false alarms. When people hear an alarm go off, they do not say, "My goodness. A car has been broken into. I must telephone the police." Instead they curse the alarm, put pillows over their heads and try to go back to sleep. Car alarms are not even effective in what they try to do.

The new clauses have two aims. The first is to eliminate the environmental nuisance associated with car alarms and the second is to improve the security of motor vehicles. If people assume that a car alarm going off is a false alarm, it is obviously no deterrent. When I first raised the issue, one journalist to whom I spoke said that his car was broken into in the street in broad daylight, the alarm went off and the intruder just looked at passers by and said, "Bloody car alarm"—if I am allowed to use that phrase in the Chamber—and carried on with the theft of the car. All the people in the street simply walked by without responding. It is clear that car alarms are ineffective.

The Minister may be aware of the attempt made in New York to ban car alarms. If he has seen the evidence, he will know that 75 per cent. of 800 New Yorkers polled said that car alarms interfered with their sleep and 90 per cent. said that car alarms diminished their quality of life. More to the point in terms of the crime element, the New York police department, in a booklet that it produced, labelled audible car alarms as

"an annoying and sometimes unbearable disturbance for residents in their homes".

It said:

"audible car alarms frequently go off for no apparent reason"

and that such devices

"invite both further disorder and serious crime."

In other words, alarms not only fail to arrest crime, but generate it. The report pointed out that in Williamsburg during the year in question, two cars were purposely set ablaze because their alarms kept being triggered. There have been other stories of cars being vandalised because alarms have spontaneously erupted, so we can assume that car alarms create crime, rather than preventing it.

A better way forward would be for manufacturers to stop using 1960s technology—that is essentially what car alarms are—and move towards more effective crime prevention measures that are also less environmentally intrusive. The Minister will be aware of alternative existing technologies, such as immobilisers, which prevent a car from being driven away. He will be aware of pager alarms, which replace the siren in conventional alarms by instead sending a signal to the mobile phone, pager or landline telephone of the car's owner. He will also be aware that tracking systems are up and running that allow a signal to be sent from a car that has been taken, to its owner. That technology has the benefit of not only returning the car to the owner, but identifying the criminal who takes the car. Other systems that are currently available include anti-carjacking systems, so plenty of technologies exist that are far more effective than conventional alarms at detecting crime and preventing car theft, and much less environmentally intrusive.

The Minister might be aware that Val Weedon, the secretary of the UK Noise Association, wrote to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 10 February. The letter read:

"I am writing to ask whether the recent Private Member's Bill on audible car alarms, presented in parliament yesterday by Norman Baker MP, could be incorporated into the new Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill, presently making its way through parliament? I understand a similar thing was done with the Anti Social Behaviour Act and a Private Member's Bill on fireworks."

I am pleased to say that the letter went on to support my Bill. Incorporating my Bill in the Government's legislation would be an excellent idea, so the new clauses make that possible. I hope that the Minister agrees that alarms are ineffective and "alarmingly useless", to use the phrase of a pressure group campaigning against them. I also hope that he will take the view that manufacturers should be encouraged to replace traditional audible car alarms with devices that prevent crime more effectively and eliminate the noise nuisance that currently exists.

It seems to me that insurance companies are the driving force behind the continuing use of car alarms. Although I do not wish to misquote the manufacturers, they tell me that insurance companies require such alarms to be fitted. Insurance companies should examine whether there are more effective ways of preventing car theft and change their policies accordingly.

Train horn noise is not directly addressed by the new clauses, but it is germane to the matter that we are discussing because it leads to people suffering an intrusion similar to that caused by car alarms. Train horn noise is also about 120 dB and new trains require louder horns than the old slam-door rolling stock. I am disappointed that the Government have not addressed that problem. Individual hon. Members of all three parties have been required to put pressure on the relevant rail companies and we are making a little progress. The Bill addresses intruder alarms sited at a fixed point, but it singularly fails to deal with alarms on mobile technology—if I may call cars and trains that. The new clauses would limit the maximum sound emitted from a car alarm to 55 dB, which is the equivalent to background traffic noise, and would set a maximum sounding time for a car alarm of 90 seconds.

The Minister responded to a point about the matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) made on Second Reading by citing the Noise and Statutory Nuisance Act 1993, which states:

"noise that is prejudicial to health or a nuisance and is emitted from or caused by a vehicle, machinery or equipment in a street"

can be dealt with. He also pointed out that local authorities can

"enter or open a vehicle, if necessary by force, to silence a car alarm and to remove the vehicle from the street to a secure place."—[Official Report, 10 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 121.]

That is undoubtedly true, but the legislation is not working. Not all local authorities operate 24-hour services, and those that do will not respond within 90 seconds, which under my private Member's Bill would be the maximum time for which a car alarm could sound. In practice, local authorities come out only if an alarm has been sounding for two, three or four hours, by which time an entire neighbourhood could have lost its sleep.

The new clauses plough the same furrow as the Government's attempt to limit noise nuisance. The Government have identified the problem of noise nuisance, and although they have addressed stationary alarms in the Bill, they have missed a trick by not dealing with car alarms. It is not sufficient to hope that manufacturers will adopt modern alarm systems, because they are relying on 40-year-old technology instead. I hope that the Government will give a sympathetic hearing to the new clauses, because they are an attempt to make life better not only for car owners, but for those who suffer from the noise nuisance caused by car alarms.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am aware of the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on this subject, and I acknowledge that a range of options are now available for people who want to try to prevent car crime—both the theft of vehicles and breaking into vehicles. Indeed, one could point out that that range of options has made a significant contribution to the reduction of car crime.

In addition to achieving excellent public relations for his private Member's Bill, the hon. Gentleman recalled that I commented on car alarms on Second Reading. In fairness, he went on to remind the House that I also pointed out that legislation exists to address the problem. I reinforce that point now. Car alarms can be silenced under the Noise and Statutory Nuisance Act 1993, which amends the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to include

"noise that is prejudicial to health or a nuisance and is emitted from or caused by a vehicle, machinery or equipment in the street".

It allows local authorities to enter or open a vehicle, if necessary by force, to silence an alarm and to remove the vehicle from the street to a secure place. The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that point, but suggested that the legislation was not working. However, I suggest that we should not consider whether that legislation is working, but the extent to which a real problem exists. He will know that consultation on the elements that form the Bill arose from considerable discussion with local authorities, and that the provisions are based on problems with which local authorities must deal after the public have brought them to their attention.

It is worth pointing out that under the Police Reform Act 2002, the police can seize any vehicle that causes annoyance or nuisance. It must also be borne in mind that there might be occasions when a car alarm needs to sound for longer than 90 seconds— for example, if it detects continued interference. Additionally, establishing requirements for the duration of alarms and assessing that during MOT tests could generate a lot of alarm noise around MOT stations, which might not be all that popular.

The hon. Gentleman told us about the experience in New York, so he might be interested in some of the findings from this country, as they come from rather closer to home—the area in which he wishes to legislate. In 1999–2000, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs national noise attitude survey questioned 2,849 people—I am not sure where the 2,850th person, to allow the figures to be rounded up, was. One question was:

"When you are at home, how much do you personally feel bothered, annoyed or disturbed by noise from car alarms?"

The UK results were 39 per cent. "not at all", 13 per cent. "a little", 5 per cent. "moderately", 2 per cent. "very", 2 per cent. "extremely" and 40 per cent. "don't hear".

If we rank specific traffic noise sources in terms of the proportion of respondents bothered, annoyed or disturbed, we get an interesting hierarchy of complaints. At the top, at 34 per cent., are vehicles accelerating or going too fast; private cars and taxis are at 27 per cent.; heavy lorries are at 24 per cent.; motor bikes and scooters are at 24 per cent.; music from vehicles is at 23 per cent.; and problems associated with residential estate roads and country lanes are at 22 per cent. Car alarms are only seventh in the hierarchy, at 21 per cent.

We are not aware of specific statistics on complaints to local authorities about noise from car alarms, because they do not show up on current record keeping and reporting statistics. However, the complaint does not seem to get the attention from local authorities that the hon. Gentleman gives to it.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I challenge the Minister's logic. The fact that six things are higher on the list does not mean that the seventh, about which 21 per cent. have complained, should not be dealt with. It is a curious logic to say that we should deal only with the top one or two on a list. There is an issue to address. Many people are irritated by car alarms, and the Minister should be less complacent.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am not being complacent. I am saying that measures are in place to allow local authorities and the police to tackle the issue when it is a real problem. I tried to give a sense of proportion to the extent to which it is a nuisance. Clearly, it is a nuisance in some circumstances, and provisions are available to use in those cases.

The new clauses are not appropriate because their provisions could be achieved by changing relevant regulations made under the Road Traffic Act 1988. More importantly—this would be a serious concern for the House—they would involve the use of primary legislation to amend secondary legislation made under a different Act. That would result in amendments that could be amended or revoked only by primary legislation, while the rest of the regulations would still be amendable or revocable by secondary legislation. That would produce an unworkable hybrid.

I acknowledge the enthusiasm with which the hon. Gentleman tries to address the problem in his private Member's Bill and in the new clauses, and the way in which he has pursued the problem. My point is that if more action needs to be taken—although that does not come through strongly in the consultations that we have undertaken or in the views of the Local Government Association—the means are to hand. The hon. Gentleman will clearly pursue the matter further in his private Member's Bill and will receive a response to that when it is debated in due course, but the provisions are already in place. If a local authority has a problem, it can tackle it.

The primary problem is that the new clauses are not appropriate. They would require primary legislation to amend secondary legislation under a different Act, and that makes them totally unworkable as a proposition. The hon. Gentleman has succeeded, as he has a talent for doing, in airing the issue, but I hope that he accepts my problem with the technicalities, if not the principles, behind the new clauses. He raises his concerns quite genuinely, but I urge him to withdraw the motion.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to the Minister for considering the issues. I am always happy to accept that anything tabled by people who are not on the Government Benches may be imperfect, because we do not have the advantage of a parliamentary draftsman. He knows that the reason for tabling amendments and new clauses is to raise issues. We do not necessarily expect them to be adopted by the Government—although I always remain hopeful that that will be the case.

The Minister addressed one issue—the problem of noise nuisance, which is, after all, the primary purpose of this part of the Bill. I do not accept that the nuisance is as limited as he suggests. I have had correspondence from people up and down the country saying, "Thank God someone's raising the problem." Those of us who have followed the issue have had some indication that there is popular support for further measures to tackle car alarms. It may well be the case that for many people that has never been an issue, but for some it is a big nuisance and affects their quality of life dramatically. It is incumbent on us to find a way to help them, and I am sorry that the Minister did not come up with an alternative.

The Minister says that relevant provisions exist in legislation enacted in the past 10 to 15 years. I do not agree that they are effective. I do not agree that the police are interested. They are stretched—overstretched, one might say—and their general response when an environmental health issue arises is to refer people to the local council. I spoke to Sussex police about car alarms. Their standard response when they are telephoned is to assume that it is a false alarm and refer people to the council unless there is immediate evidence that someone is breaking into a car. If someone rings up and says, "I can hear a car alarm," Sussex police say, "Ring the council." The police assume that no crime is being committed. The nuisance issue is not as minimal as the Minister suggests.

The provisions are not effective because they rely on councils taking action. They invariably take a long time before they do so, because if they responded immediately every time they were called out to a car alarm, they would do little else. I am not convinced that current legislation is effective in dealing with the nuisance.

The Minister did not refer to my point that car alarms, as used, are largely ineffective in preventing—

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I did.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to differ. It passed me by. I do not mean to be discourteous, but the Minister concentrated on the nuisance rather than the crime aspect.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I concentrated on the nuisance aspect because that is what is in the Bill. I also acknowledged that there is a wide range of other ways of preventing car crime and that there are effective options and means for people to consider.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister did say that, and I am happy to accept his point. However, he did not conclude, as I hoped he might, that the new clauses—or at least the spirit behind them—would propel manufacturers to consider more effective, readily available and comprehensively applied ways of limiting car crime. Manufacturers are resting on their laurels with existing car alarms. They are covered by insurance companies. The manufacturers say that they have done their job and can tick the box, but they are not doing people who buy cars a service and providing decent effective alarms. The spirit behind the new clauses would have the effect of driving manufacturers further along that road. The need to do that has not been fully accepted.

However, I have had my run around the track. I may get another one—who knows?—if my Bill's Second Reading on 18 March is successful. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 99 — Abandoned shopping and luggage trolleys

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 73, line 23, at end insert—

'(6) In proceedings against a person under sub-paragraph (4) for enforcement of a charge, it is a defence for the person to prove that he took all reasonable steps to prevent abandonment of his trolleys.'.

Local authorities are involved in a revenue-raising exercise in respect of abandoned trolleys. I am reliably informed that shopping trolleys are more of a problem than airport or railway trolleys, and we want to address supermarket trolleys in particular.

Local authorities currently send invoices to retailers for amounts between £50 and £2,000 per retail unit for the cost of trolley recovery, storage and disposal. One can imagine why retailers are already taking steps to prevent the abandonment of trolleys, as even £50 per trolley represents a significant loss. Retailers and DEFRA have identified a lack of communication between local authorities and retailers who are not alerted to the problem despite taking reasonable steps to manage their shopping trolleys. The amendment would encourage partnerships between retailers and local authorities to identify the problem and find a common solution, instead of a local authority sending an invoice to retailers without first making them aware of the problem.

The issue has been identified as a problem by at least one major supermarket company, which has worked with the British Retail Consortium in undertaking an effective exercise alerting us to the dangers of the omission from the Bill. I hope that the Minister will be minded to accept the amendment, and I commend it to the House.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

It is interesting that on the issue of chewing gum the hon. Lady wanted to add to the burdens on business, but she takes a different view on this clause. She was quite wrong, and under a misapprehension, when she suggested that our approach was inflexible. I must resist the amendment because the intention of the clause is to place responsibility on trolley owners. The regulatory impact assessment accompanying the Bill estimates that the overall cost to local authorities of dealing with abandoned trolleys is of the order of £2 million. That is currently paid for by the taxpayer, but I consider that it is reasonable for businesses to pay a higher proportion of that cost. That does not mean that the approach is inflexible or that this is merely a matter of sending letters or a demand for money with menaces, as the hon. Lady implied.

We have made it absolutely clear that through guidance we will encourage local authorities and retailers to work together to reduce trolley losses, such as through the installation of wheel-locking devices. The Government have encouraged that approach in many circumstances, and it is in the interests of the retail trade as well as of local authorities. The schedule already allows local authorities to approve trolley collection schemes and to agree not to impose charges. The whole point is that that is a matter for the local authority to decide in relation to local circumstances. The hon. Lady seems not to understand that the Bill allows and encourages a partnership approach involving businesses and local authorities. The guidance will encourage that approach. I say to her strongly that accepting her amendment would be a retreat from the encouragement of the partnership approach.

Valerie Davey (Labour, Bristol West)

The Minister may be aware that in connection with the "Living Rivers" project in the Bristol area recently, 135 trolleys were rescued. The cost of storing and disposing of them was considerable. However, that did not happen without contact being made with supermarkets and their being aware of technical devices that lock wheels when trolleys go beyond the perimeters of premises. Is that not to be applauded, and could not other supermarkets do the same?

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

My hon. Friend makes the point precisely: a partnership approach at local level can make an enormous difference and there are mechanisms that can be used. This is not just a question of fines or of putting burdens on business, but of asking business to work with local authorities. I recently experienced something similar when I took part in a study of the way in which voluntary action is cleaning up the River Thames. Trolleys were in evidence, along with all sorts of things that would be a great shock to anybody—spoiling the main river running through our capital city. I have seen the same in my city of Cardiff. It is sad when major cities and environments that should be enjoyable for everybody are spoiled by trolleys.

I do not seek to place the blame on the supermarkets alone, because the real problem is clearly individuals taking trolleys and leaving them in inappropriate places. A partnership between the local authority and business can achieve the implementation of mechanisms of the sort that my hon. Friend described, to discourage bad behaviour and to try to avoid the defacing of the local environment by trolleys—trying to achieve what we all want: better behaviour and less degradation of the local environment. That is what most of the measures in the Bill are aimed at, and it is why they have received such support from people such as my hon. Friend, and the many hon. Members who spoke on Second Reading.

I understand the wish of the hon. Member for Vale of York not to put inappropriate burdens on business. I share that desire. That is why the schedule creates conditions for partnership and encourages local authorities and business to get together to create the right environment locally, for the benefit of business and of everyone in the locality.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I listened very carefully to the Minister, but I regret to say that he is plain wrong. If he really is saying that Members on both sides of the House want to promote better behaviour, we should be seeking to reward those who are taking measures to retain trolleys on their premises. Let us take the classic case of Morrisons, which is a very good local supermarket where I live in North Yorkshire, although now that it has taken over Safeway, its methods will benefit many more parts of the country. I do not have shares in Morrisons, so I can say that. It has established a practice of inserting £1 to take a trolley, which can be reclaimed when the trolley is redeposited. We want such good practice to be rewarded.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The hon. Lady was engaged in deep discussion when I made the point earlier. I do not think that she appreciates the fact that the schedule allows local authorities to enter into partnership approaches and therefore to lighten the burdens on business while tackling the issue. Does she believe that the burden should continue to fall on the council tax payer rather than following the principle that she mentioned earlier—that the polluter pays? Partnership between the local authority and business should be the method used to eradicate the problem, as the schedule allows.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I again cite the experience of Morrisons, although I believe that other companies, too, pursue that responsible policy.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

It is in the schedule.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The Minister may say that, but if he reads between the lines of the regulatory impact assessment, he will conclude that the Government are imposing a burden too far, and too extensive, on business. Businesses have quantified that in answer to me: up to £2,000 per retail unit. Therefore, I commend the amendment to the House.

Clause 103 — Sections 101 And 102: Supplementary

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the Third Reading of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill. The Bill addresses the real concerns of people in urban and in rural areas, and I am delighted to have been associated with it. It has arrived here not only through the drafting at a policy level of the issues that it addresses, but from a great deal of consultation and discussion, particularly with the Local Government Association and with those who have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement.

When people are asked what is most important to them about the environment, most mention the state of their own neighbourhood. People want to live in communities that are not blighted by litter, graffiti, fly-posters and burnt-out cars. Rural and urban communities alike see this as a major issue. It is rather sad that the Conservatives' amendment on Second Reading, which demonstrated that they have a complete lack of understanding of the problems in rural and in urban communities, was negative about what the Bill seeks to do.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

The Minister mentioned the consultation that has taken place. I am puzzled by that because he made the same observations in Committee. I wonder whether he would care to comment on an e-mail dated 13 January—after Second Reading—that was sent to me by the National Dog Warden Association and states categorically:

"The NDWA have not been consulted on this Bill and a number of matters we feel need referring back to the Committee."

Given that the provisions on the control and care of dogs are being changed, perhaps rightly, for the first time in 100 years, will the Minister explain to the House exactly whom he has been consulting if not the body of people who round up the stray dogs of Britain on our behalf?

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

There has been the widest of consultations, including wide public consultation. We have tried to promote discussion around the country from all sorts of organisations. On the provisions on dogs, as I said in Committee two organisations approached me to express concerns—the Kennel Club and the Dogs Trust. I immediately agreed to meet them to discuss those concerns, which we addressed in Committee. Indeed, amendments to the Bill deal with one specific concern that both organisations expressed—the possibility that there might be the transfer of responsibilities that are currently shared between the police and local authorities without an appropriate transfer of resources. For that reason, I agreed to amend the Bill in order to state that the commencement of that provision would take place only once agreement had been reached on the appropriate transfer of resources. I gather that discussions are proceeding.

Generally, there has been a welcome for the fact that under the Bill one organisation will be responsible for dealing with strays. The organisation that the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) mentioned saw fit to concentrate on briefing Opposition Front Benchers, but there are other organisations concerned with the future of dogs. The issues have been discussed at length with the police and local authorities, which have the greatest experience of dealing directly with the problems of strays. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman, frustrated by being unable to debate specific amendments in relation to dogs, brought us back to the issue that has caused him concern, and did so in an appropriate manner.

The Conservatives made a major mistake in opposing the Bill when we first had our discussions on Second Reading. We believe that the problems that it addresses are of direct concern to urban and rural communities throughout the country. That is why we see it as such a priority and why it is an integral part of the Government's wider strategy on the environment and community safety. We want people to feel safe in their local community, and that can happen only if the environment is treated with respect. Fly-posting, fly-tipping, graffiti and other things that damage the local environment make people not only feel that they are in a place that is not cared for, but that is not a safe place to be.

The purpose of the Bill is to improve the local environment as it directly affects people's quality of life, wherever they live. Neglecting the local environment creates a sense of unease and that "nobody cares around here", which directly leads too many people to say, "I don't need to care." That can lead to escalating problems of antisocial behaviour. There is an important link between the state of the local environment, antisocial behaviour and the fear of crime. That is why the Bill takes a strategic, cross-Government approach to the local environmental issues that affect our quality of life. I am particularly pleased by the joint working at official and ministerial levels between colleagues at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Office, as well as the National Assembly for Wales, which has some responsibilities in relation to Wales.

The Bill forms a key part of wider Government action. It will be the backbone of our cross-cutting "Cleaner, Safer, Greener" agenda, which, again, is dealt with by several Departments. It tackles antisocial behaviour by building on the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. It also links closely with a number of other policies that we are taking forward, such as on abandoned cars. This is not a single stick approach. We are approaching this not only from the point of view of legislation, but of working closely with local authorities on improving performance, working through the best value agenda and the use of comprehensive performance assessment to place an emphasis on local environmental quality. Our work with the Local Government Association, in particular, has been very productive; I am pleased by its cross-party support for the approaches embodied in the Bill.

The Bill provides enhanced powers for local authorities and the Environment Agency to tackle local environmental quality and antisocial behaviour. It is the result of two years of intensive consultation, including our "Clean Neighbourhoods" consultation last summer, a series of road shows around the country with practitioners, and many meetings with community groups, local authorities and other organisations. I am also pleased that it is complementary to other approaches, such as the Home Office's "Together Academy" approach towards promoting local community safety and crime reduction. That placed an emphasis on dealing with local environmental crime and the two approaches are therefore complementary. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's sustainable communities approach again includes consideration of environmental issues. There is a balance to be struck in regeneration between environmental, economic and social issues. All are complementary.

Throughout the process, key gaps were identified in the legislation on which local authorities and the Environment Agency rely to deal with the antisocial behaviour that affects the quality of our neighbourhoods. They often find current legislation difficult to use. It is not wrong, but perhaps there are bureaucratic obstacles to ensuring that requirements are enforced or that available mechanisms are used effectively. The Bill therefore responds directly to calls from those agencies for improved, more practical powers—better ways of doing things.

The Bill creates the environment for better partnership working between local authorities and the police, together with the local communities that they both serve. It will involve parish councils, local businesses and community groups in the fight against antisocial behaviour and help create strong, healthy local communities. Some parish councils are small and some do not want to use the powers for which the measure provides. However, many will want to exercise leadership locally. That is being encouraged through the quality parish council scheme and the work that we are undertaking with the National Association of Local Councils and the Society of Local Council Clerks. I pay tribute to the engagement of both organisations with trying to improve the quality of leadership at that most local level of our democracy.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

A year or so ago, the Minister presented a quality award to the Poynton-with-Worth parish council. It was very grateful and so was I. Will he give an assurance that active councils that want to take up the extra powers will have the resources to do so? Sadly, everything for which the Government legislate has a resource implication.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

In some cases there is no resource implication, but in others powers need to be given to enable people to do things more simply. The way in which parish councils can undertake their work depends on the atmosphere of co-operation that we and the National Association of Local Councils and the Local Government Association engender through a contractual arrangement between the principal local authorities in an area and the parish and town councils that want to take their responsibilities further.

Local government in this country has come to recognise the value of the contribution that parish and town councils can make to achieving outcomes. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) may agree that there is sometimes conflict and competition between different levels of government. Counties and districts have not always treated each other with mutual respect, love and affection. Principal local authorities have certainly not always fully appreciated the potential of local councils—the parish, town or community councils—in Wales. Sometimes the very local organisations have tended to be too inward looking, concentrating on the capacity to study the minutes of the previous meeting and say no to whatever is proposed for the area.

I believe that that has changed. Many principal local authorities have changed their attitude towards parish councils. That has been reciprocated. For example, parish councils have been encouraged through the parish plans approach not to wait and react to applications in their area, but to begin to consider the sort of future that they want. Poynton-with-Worth is a good example. That parish council has tried to look forward. Thinking through what is wanted for the parish in the long term helps to inform the principal authorities' decisions. That constitutes the partnership approach that it is in the interests of all parties to encourage.

The Bill shows respect for parish councils' capacity to undertake duties when they want and are able to do that. They are not forced to do so. The measure further encourages partnership by, for example, recognising the principal authorities' greater capacity for enforcement, thus allowing parish or town councils to exercise their powers, if taken up, in partnership rather than as if the different levels of local authorities existed in separate vacuums. They all exist together and, at their best, complement each other effectively. I hope that that deals with the hon. Gentleman's point. He is rightly proud of the performance of the Poynton-with-Worth council, where I enjoyed a productive visit and much discussion.

The Bill takes a strategic approach to engaging everyone in the work of improving the local environment and reducing crime and disorder in the local community. It especially extends the objectives of crime and disorder reduction partnerships, which are led by the police and local authorities, specifically to include local environmental crime.

The Bill also provides better tools for local authorities and the Environment Agency to deal with fly-tipping, litter, fly-posting, abandoned vehicles and other nuisances that blight our communities. Talking to people in my area and places such as Splott, which has experienced antisocial behaviour and environmental degradation, or constituents who complain that new graffiti is not a coincidental to the return of someone who has been in one of Her Majesty's institutions for some time, underlines the importance of making connections and ensuring that we create a better environment. I hear similar comments when I speak to farmers or those in rural communities who say that their areas are often degraded through fly-tipping or abandoned vehicles. Providing better tools for local authorities to tackle those problems is important. Local authorities and the Environment Agency have a will to tackle those issues better.

Throughout the Bill, we make greater use of fixed penalty fines and give local authorities the power to adapt them to fit with their local priorities. That is important. Fixed penalty fines can be imposed without the bureaucracy and obstacles that exist if people have to be taken to court. Of course, the right must exist for them to choose not to pay the fixed penalty, and thus for the option of prosecution to kick in. In some circumstances, it is up to local authorities to determine the level of the fine in accordance with their experience of what works best and the nature of the problems in their area. We are also giving greater powers to parish and town councils so that the most local level of our democratic structures can play a part in making things better. They will have the power to issue fixed penalty notices for litter, graffiti, fly-posting and dog offences.

Doing nothing is not an option. Dealing with local environmental quality and antisocial behaviour costs agencies about £3.4 billion per year. That is a massive amount of money and a burden that is ultimately borne by the taxpayer and the council tax payer. Abandoned vehicles cost local authorities £26 million in 2002–03. That is the cost of removal, clear-up and disposal. Even more significant is the damage to the morale of the local community. The measures in the Bill will help us to tackle these problems and to reduce the costs involved.

I know that the Minister for Housing and Planning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Keith Hill), has been a great supporter of the Bill, and I am delighted that he is here in the Chamber with us as we reach the latter stages of its consideration on Third Reading.

The Bill is a major part of the Government's strategy for improving the environment, for developing a more sustainable future and for dealing with antisocial behaviour. It will help to ensure a real improvement to the quality of life of many people in communities throughout the country, and I commend it to the House.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I echo the nuances expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway). These proceedings have been marked by a flawed consultation procedure. To take the example of dogs, it is beyond belief that the one organisation that has been responsible for looking after stray dogs—the National Dog Warden Association—was not even consulted or called in to see the Minister until we raised the issue in Committee. Many of the offences in the Bill already exist. I pay tribute to the Conservative councils that are implementing to the letter the powers provided in previous legislation—notably the Environmental Protection Act, which was passed in 1990 under a Conservative Administration—to enable them to fight environmental crime.

The cumbersome legislation before us today has not been given adequate scrutiny. It was deprived of such scrutiny in Committee, and I do not recall such an arbitrary use of knives and guillotines as we have seen today. We have been left with two hours for our Third Reading debate, and I hope that that will give us time to cover some of the remaining points. We were not allowed the time to give the Bill in-depth scrutiny in Committee or on Report, however, and the record will show our disappointment in that regard.

I want to talk briefly about costs. The Minister has referred in Committee and today to the reliance that the Government are putting on fixed penalty notices. I have a table here that has been prepared by the House of Commons Library, which is known for its impartiality and independence of thought and research. First, however, I must point out that as the Minister has failed to answer certain questions, either in Committee or on Report, I have taken the opportunity to ask the Solicitor-General what guidance she has provided to the Crown Prosecution Service on legislative provisions introduced since 1997 that involve a reversal of the burden of proof in environmental crimes—we learned today that that applies primarily to fixed penalty notices—and to ask her to make a statement to help us to understand such provisions. This was obviously a source of embarrassment to the Government. The Minister said that he had been talking to people in the countryside, but I am surprised that anyone there would want to talk to him at all since the Government have imposed the ban on hunting through their very ill-thought-out Bill.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

First, the Bill to which the hon. Lady refers is not ill-thought-out. It is very practical and straightforward and, as long as people want to obey the law, they will not have a problem in doing so. Secondly, people in the countryside are far more exercised about fly-tipping and the other issues that are dealt with in the Bill. Those matters are a bigger priority for rural people, as they are for urban people.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I shall return to the serious issue of fly-tipping later.

The Solicitor-General did not wish to make a statement today. In fact, she did not have to answer my question until today, which was probably very convenient. She has refused to give the information that I requested, and has promised to write to me shortly. It is most regrettable that the Government are not going to provide us—and the wider British public—with the information that we need to form a view on the Bill. On the existing offences that are being extended, we believe that the categories involved are very confusing. The Bill creates three separate categories: nuisance parking; abandoned vehicles; and illegally parked vehicles. We learned on Second Reading that the provisions on abandoned vehicles will be purely discretionary. It will be entirely up to a local authority to decide if it wishes to apply them. We are also told that if fixed penalty notices are paid at a rate of 75per cent., that is quite high. However, at the last Home Office questions we learned from Ministers that Home Office fixed penalty notices are paid at a rate of only 70 per cent. So, assuming that that rate reached the giddy heights of 75 per cent. in the first year in respect of the provisions on abandoned vehicles, local authorities in England and Wales would raise only £1.68 million across the board. The Library note tells us that the estimated cost of dealing with abandoned vehicles—this is from the Local Government Association briefing, which was provided to us in December for use in Committee—is £34 million. That would leave a £32 million shortfall on that one provision alone.

In Committee, we were staggered to learn from Westminster city council that including chewing gum and redefining it in the description of litter will increase the cost to that council to more than £9 million, yet we see in this well-crafted table from the Library that it will get no extra receipts under the fixed penalty notices. It will have to pay that additional £9 million bill due to that one redefinition alone.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

It really is irresponsible of the hon. Lady to repeat suggestions that have already been rebutted. She knows full well, because I made this absolutely clear in Committee, that all the Bill does in relation to chewing gum is ensure that those who are in any doubt about whether dropped chewing gum is litter have the matter clarified. The suggestion that it involves additional costs or additional requirements is an error on the part of Westminster city council. I have pointed out to her previously that her reliance on Westminster city council as her only source of advice and suggestions is a mistake on her part.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) quoted a similar figure from Kensington and Chelsea, so we are in no doubt as to what the costs are. The Minister obviously was not listening when I said this very day from this very Dispatch Box that he has singularly failed to clarify that point, which involves the staggering sum of £9 million.

I commend the Library table to the House, because on fixed penalty notices, assuming a 75 per cent. take-up rate on street litter clearing notices, only £75,000 would be earned as revenue across the board, whereas the total cost would be £342 million. That is a new figure.

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

I have been listening to this part of the debate very carefully, and if the Minister needs to intervene again I hope my hon. Friend will give way.

I was under the impression that the Minister said that the cost of removing chewing gum does not incur an additional cost to local authorities, but I can only say from my experience in the Macclesfield borough, where the shopping precinct is blighted by chewing gum, that adequately and properly removing it from the pedestrian areas involves a huge cost. If I have misheard the Minister I apologise, but I hope he can clarify precisely what he said.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am happy for the Minister to clarify what he said, but I think my hon. Friend is right.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) has quite misunderstood what I said. I was referring to the provisions of the Bill, which do not change in any way the onus on local authorities to remove staining—a very expensive and difficult problem for all local authorities. He is absolutely right on that. The claim made by Westminster city council and conveyed by its messenger on the Conservative Front Bench in Committee was that the Bill will place on it a new obligation to remove those stains. That is not the case. We simply discovered that some local authorities were being advised that there was a doubt as to whether chewing gum when dropped was a piece of litter. The answer is that it is already, but the Bill puts that beyond all doubt. That is the only change in relation to the issue, but it was misinterpreted by Westminster city council.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Without going over the ground that we covered in Committee, I think that Westminster city council has a valid point. The point that I made on Report was simply that, due to the size of a blob of chewing gum, it is difficult to catch someone in the act of dropping it. That is the point that Westminster city council raised through us in Committee and on Report today. Unfortunately, when someone steps on chewing gum as soon as it has been dropped but before it has been identified as litter, a stain is left on the floor. The Minister is being disingenuous in raising the issue, which will doubtless be revisited when the Bill reaches the other place for, I hope, more in-depth scrutiny.

The Minister spoke about the serious issue of fly-tipping, which according to Environment Agency estimates, costs local authorities £100 million to £150 million to remove 50,000 fly-tipping incidents a year. The Minister mocked my claim that the Bill pits urban against rural areas and put it on record again today that the Environment Agency is responsible for removing fly-tipping from publicly owned land in a town or urban area. In relation to a piece of land being rural and privately owned—our amendment on the matter was rejected—the Environment Agency, which is responsible for implementing this part, has said:

"There have been a number of cases where the landowner has been a party to the unlawful deposit. However, in most instances the landowner is a victim of this crime and may either choose to pay for the clean-up themselves or else do nothing. The Courts may award costs if these have been presented during the prosecution case, but cannot require the wastes to be removed or the land cleaned up."

I submit that that means that it is all right for the Environment Agency to pay for and use local council tax payer's money to remove waste that has been fly-tipped on to publicly owned land in an urban area, but it is not empowered, under either existing legislation or the Bill, to so relieve a perfectly innocent landowner who has had no knowledge of, and has not given his consent to, having waste fly-tipped on to his land. It is the landowner's choice to remove that from his privately owned land, and he must bear the expense. That is distressing and unacceptable, and has been a source of great concern to both the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

The hon. Lady makes a false argument. In urban areas, there is both publicly and privately owned property, as in rural areas. The Bill applies across the board, and it is a false dichotomy to pit urban people against rural people, which shows that she is wrongly and falsely pursuing another interest.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I have had excellent co-operation with ENCAMS and the Environment Agency in my area. They are alert to the fact that the Government have signed up to a number of directives that have led to an increasing incidence of fly-tipping, often with a criminal element involved. That is why we take this issue seriously. The onus should be on the Environment Agency to remove this stuff, and if it can identify the criminals who have placed it on private land in the country, it should prosecute them, which would help to defray the costs. Signing up to the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive and the landfill directive has seen increasing amounts of white goods being fly-tipped in rural areas. As co-disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes is no longer allowed, there are not sufficient sites to take those and landfill is closing down. I believe that we will return to this issue ad nauseum. The Bill provided an opportunity to rectify that balance and ensure that landowners were put in the same situation as others.

It is fair to add that the National Farmers Union welcomes many aspects of the Bill, although it has raised a number of concerns with us. I want to put those on record, because the Government failed to consider them sympathetically and act on the amendments that we tabled on the NFU's behalf. On gating orders, the union said:

"It is unclear on whom the responsibility of the installation, maintenance and operation of the barrier or gate would lie. This issue needs to be clarified."

Clause 2, entitled "Gating orders", did not clarify it.

On clause 11, "Notice of removal", the NFU said:

"Vehicles abandoned on farm land blight the countryside, have the potential to cause pollution and are a hazard, yet do not seem to be addressed."

Part 3, which deals with "Litter and refuse", includes clause 20, "Litter clearing notices". The NFU

"would like to see land where illegal events, such as raves or illegal encampments have occurred included in this list."

So far, they have not been.

Part 4 deals with "Graffiti and other defacement". We were not permitted to reach it today, although there were concerns about it, too. The NFU mentioned

"a requirement that any unauthorised advert should be removed. Farmers working land that"

—by its very nature—

"is widely spread, not easily accessible or infrequently visited may not be aware of an illegal advert."

The NFU believes that farmers could be seen to be being victimised. The union would have welcomed Government guidance enabling authorities to deal with illegal deposits of waste, but I made that point at some length a moment ago.

As for clauses 42 and 43 and fly-tipping,

"The NFU is concerned that the identification of the true culprit can be difficult to establish, and that the landowner or occupier is more easily established . . . The NFU would urge that landowners and occupiers should not have to pay for costs of enforcement, recovery, or clean-up until the final outcome of any appeal is known."

Clause 50 is entitled "Power to require owner of land to remove waste".

The NFU

"strongly believes that clear guidelines should be put in place"

so that landowners and occupiers are not required

"to remove the fly-tipped material simply on the basis that the perpetrator cannot be found. Enforcing agencies"

—in this case the Environment Agency—

"should be required to show that all reasonable measures have been taken to identify and act against the culprits."

Nicholas Winterton (Conservative, Macclesfield)

My hon. Friend is making an interesting case, but because of my other activities in this place and because I was not on the Standing Committee, much of this is new to me. Does she accept that fly-tipping and dumping—dumping cars in the countryside, for instance—and other antisocial acts are a result of people behaving badly? Does she agree that the way in which to deal with that is to impose firm and severe penalties on those who are identified and taken to court for such offences? I have not heard what we will do about offences that desecrate the countryside.

When I go home on a Thursday night, the first thing I do on Friday morning is clean up the litter outside my house—litter dumped not by the local authority, not by government, but by people who do not appreciate the value of the countryside, or people in urban areas who do not appreciate the environment in which they live.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I think my hon. Friend will find that the Bill is silent on that, particularly cases involving privately owned land. If the perpetrator cannot be found, it is the landowner's responsibility to remove the waste.

Andrew Selous (Conservative, South West Bedfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration? When a number of my constituents contacted me about a very nasty serial fly-tipper, I took great pleasure in relaying to local police what that individual was doing. When he eventually came up before the courts, he was fined the measly sum of £500 and asked to do some community service. He has now returned to fly-tipping just as badly as before, and we hope to catch him again. Does my hon. Friend agree that the courts need to take note of the genuine concern felt by all hon. Members in all parts of the House about the gravity of the situation, and that the courts are perhaps not taking this issue seriously enough?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The problem seems to be apprehending the perpetrator, whether that involves seizing the vehicle or finding out who dumped on the land, the issue about which we have expressed greatest concern. That remains a flaw in the Bill's provisions on fly-tipping. The same is true of fly-posting: we tabled a number of amendments on over-posting, which, regrettably, the Government did not see fit to accept. However, all is not lost, and I hope that it will be possible further to scrutinise this issue in the other place.

I turn to the last point that the NFU asked us to take up, which, again, we were unable to discuss because we did not reach the amendment on dogs. I hope that the Minister agrees that when the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 is fully implemented, it may become apparent that there are specific areas of farmland where dog control orders will be required to combat dog-related nuisance. I hope that the Government will seek to fulfil expectations in that regard.

On provisions relating to dogs, I yield to none other than my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, who has done sterling work in this regard. I apologise to him and to the House for the fact that because of the way in which the knives fell—the decision was not ours but the Government's—we were unable to move and debate amendment No. 11. There is a real need for such an amendment because the Bill is silent on how local authorities will implement such provisions. As my hon. Friend is aware, not every local authority will have a dog warden or access to kennels, and most will not provide a 24-hour dog warden service, as is currently provided. The Bill will require the provision of kennels to house stray dogs in each local authority area, and it will require the provision of treatment for injured dogs—and, regrettably, the putting down of dogs that are too badly injured. We did not have a huge amount of time to discuss that in Committee.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

I read the deliberations of the Committee on which my hon. Friend did such a sterling job in very limited time; indeed, only about 45 minutes were spent on the subject. Does she share my amazement that no real figures have yet been given, to the House or the Committee, on the additional costs to local authorities? The Dogs Trust has estimated a cost of £13.2 million if just one additional dog warden per local authority were appointed. I hope that the Minister might be able to put a bit of flesh on the bones of those costs. I could not find such figures in the Committee's deliberations, although my hon. Friend was clearly pressing the Minister.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Indeed. The Library has come up with a figure for dog control offences. Receipts from the issuing of fixed penalty notices at a rate of 75 per cent. would yield only £112,500 across all local authorities in England and Wales, whereas the actual cost would be between £1.8 million and £13.2 million. Those figures represent the estimated cost to police, plus the cost of one dog warden at £30,000 per annum, multiplied by 440 local authority areas in England and Wales. That information is taken from the Dogs Trust briefing to Committee members. I hope that it assists my hon. Friend.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I hate to interrupt the conversation between the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway), but I do not want the House inadvertently to be misled. Section 149(9) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires any stray dogs detained by a local authority

"to be properly fed and maintained."

That clearly includes the treatment of sick and injured dogs. That is why, had we reached the clause that the hon. Lady mentioned, I would have explained why it was unnecessary.

Secondly, the authority's duty to deal with stray dogs is clearly set out in the 1990 Act. When the Bill comes into force, local authorities will be solely responsible—a decision greatly welcomed by the police. As I have already explained, commencement of this part of the Bill will be dependent on agreement over the transfer of resources, which will enable the local authority to undertake those duties. The duty is not restricted to daylight hours, so local authorities will need to have suitable arrangements in place to deal with stray dogs on a 24-hour basis. It does not necessarily involve kennels; arrangements with the local vet could be utilised, as already happens in some rural areas. These are all practical issues and I have to point out that they were debated in Committee.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The Minister confirms the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup and I have consistently made: either there was sufficient consultation and the Bill has been well thought out in a consistent and comprehensive manner, or the Bill has been rushed through—[Interruption.] It goes to the core of the matter. If the Minister wants the Bill to succeed, there must surely be a mechanism for approving the transfer of resources. Very helpfully from the point of view of Conservative Members, the Minister has highlighted the fact that there is no guarantee of the transfer of resources, as it is currently up for discussion. I raised that matter in Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup raised it on Second Reading. It should not have been necessary to delay implementation of this part of the Bill.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The hon. Lady is wrong yet again. It was the Kennel Club and the Dogs Trust that raised the matter directly with me and I undertook to take their concerns seriously, as I made clear in Committee. I then tabled an amendment to ensure that commencement of this part of the Bill can happen only once the transfer of resources has been agreed. It is all very straightforward.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

It was so straightforward that the Minister did not consult or seek the views of the Kennel Club, the Dogs Trust or the National Dog Wardens Association. What confidence can we and the great British public have in a Bill that has been so shoddily thought through and so poorly consulted on that we are where we are now?

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

I must tell the House that I do not know how my hon. Friend has managed to stay so calm. The Minister intervened to say that it would all have been covered in earlier consideration had we got to it. We did not get to it and my hon. Friend could not move her amendment because of the guillotine imposed on the House by the Minister. The fact that we have not properly considered the details has nothing to do with my hon. Friend: it has happened because the Minister has managed to whip through a curtailment of our debate. She is absolutely right to put the Minister on the spot, which is supposed to be the point of a Standing Committee and of our remaining stages. I hope that those in the other place will read our deliberations and press the Minister taking the Bill through the upper House. I have read what this Minister said in Committee and it is not the same as what he is saying to the House now.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Indeed, and it is important to place on the record the fact that consultations and meetings were not sought. It is unacceptable to be at the final stages of the Bill's passage through this House without having received a firm and clear commitment from the Minister that a transfer of resources will take place. Is it good enough at this stage to say that the transfers are still being discussed? We have been left with two hours to debate the issues and we were not able to put these matters to a vote earlier.

Liz Blackman (Labour, Erewash)

Will the hon. Lady clarify for the House whether she is voting for or against the Bill this evening?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I want to make some progress and it will not be long before the hon. Lady finds out.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I feel as though I am watching a dog chewing an old bone, because the hon. Lady keeps coming back to issues that have been dealt with time and again. I have made it absolutely clear—we have amended the Bill—that there will be no commencement of the requirement that places responsibility solely in the hands of local authorities until there is agreement on resources. That matter has been dealt with. It is not just a question of an assurance from the Dispatch Box, because we have amended the Bill to deal with the matter following an approach from the Dogs Trust and the Kennel Club, and my discussions with them.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

We can move on, because we agree to disagree.

I turn to other matters that we were unable to discuss earlier. They include amendments covering graffiti and the huge expense that it causes, as well as the problem not just of fly-posting, but of over-posting. I am delighted that, on this occasion if no other, we have the support of the Liberal Democrats. That is most welcome and we look forward to going into the Division Lobby together.

I said earlier that all fly-tipped waste should be removed and I referred to amendment No. 11, about dogs. An interesting situation occurred on light pollution. The Minister told us categorically that there was no issue concerning light pollution, particularly from sports pitches and playing fields. Subsequently, Sir Trevor Brooking went to see him; perhaps that was another consultation that did not happen with due diligence and in time for the Committee stage. Two or three weeks ago, we tabled a series of amendments that appear on the amendment paper today. We wanted the opportunity of perhaps pressing them to a Division, but we did not reach them because the guillotines fell inappropriately, too frequently and allowed too little scrutiny of the Bill. Those matters were not discussed sufficiently or were not discussed at all.

I dwelt at length on costs. The figures collated by the Government and their advisers, ENCAMS, demonstrate that local authorities will be unable to afford to implement the Bill. It is clear that receipts from fixed penalties will contribute only a fraction of the costs involved. Unless the Government are prepared to force local authorities dramatically to increase council tax bills or to offer alternative funding, many of the measures in the Bill will be unenforceable. They are discretionary for the most part, which shows that the Bill has been badly thought out. Its purpose is to grab headlines—it is another of the Government's eye-catching initiatives. Its flaws could not be corrected during the few Committee sittings or the little time available this afternoon and this evening. The Government have failed to listen or to amend the Bill to accommodate any of the concerns and representations raised with Conservative Members. The Bill is in need of further examination. We will not oppose it further in this place, but we hope that the other place will have the scope and time for more in-depth and fuller scrutiny than has been possible today.

Colin Burgon (Labour, Elmet)

I thank the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) for her contribution. It looks as if someone has been fly-tipping on the Dispatch Box in front of her.

The Government have had a good record since 1997 on tackling antisocial behaviour and improving the local environment. Those two themes make a valuable contribution to the quality of people's lives. Labour Members recognise that a good quality environment reduces antisocial behaviour and the fear of crime. A theory developed in New York was the "broken windows" argument—that the degradation of a place leads to higher levels of crime and disorder. If an area is increasingly neglected, either through lack of individual or community control or neglect by a local authority, people begin to lose confidence about the regulation of their community space and a downward spiral of neglect and disorder is inevitable.

Underpinning the Bill is the attempt to make a cultural shift in our society, whereby values of respect and responsibility for personal and shared property lead to a decrease in antisocial activity. Most MPs realise from our work in our local communities the central importance of those values for our constituents. We are often told that we should talk more about relevant issues. Few issues are more relevant than those we are discussing today, so I welcome the philosophy behind the Bill as well as some of the specific points that it covers. I am conscious of the time and of the fact that other people want to speak so I shall try to be as brief as possible.

Central to the Bill is ensuring that crime and disorder reduction partnerships will take into account low level antisocial behaviour and environmental crimes such as littering and graffiti. That sends the important message to people that disfiguring and degrading our local environment is a crime and will be treated as such. We need to get that message across. I welcome the greater powers that will be given to local councils to deal with alleyways affected by antisocial behaviour. I hope that such powers will be used to restrict public access to alleyways that are used to facilitate crime and vandalism. In an experiment in North Whinmoor, in my constituency, the local community, aided by Councillor Pauleen Grahame, has done a great job constructing an alley gate in the area, which has proved a great success.

Graffiti and fly-posting are other important issues tackled in the Bill. Both contribute to poor environmental quality and neighbourhood decline. I have to admit that I struggle to appreciate the artistic merit in some of the works of graffiti that I see in our public spaces—be they parks, community buildings or the sides of railway routes. I note that local councils will be able to vary the fixed penalty amounts for graffiti offences, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will exert pressure to ensure that the fines levied are meaningful and not a laughable amount that leads graffiti artists to think that they can carry on their work unhindered.

I warmly welcome the provisions on fly-posting and advertisements. Councils will be able to recover the costs of removing illegally displayed posters or placards. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the Government will do everything possible to ensure that those powers are vigorously enforced? Increasingly, as we drive along motorways and major routes, we see mobile advertisement boards sprouting up on the sides of old lorries and so on. They blight our local environments and communities.

I am also concerned about fly-tipping. As my right hon. Friend has a fantastic grasp of geography he will know of the example that I am about to give: Leeds lane in my constituency, which links Wakefield road with Swillington lane—[Interruption.] Yes, that is the one and it is the bane of my life. It is a rural lane overlooking Garforth and I drive along it almost every day that I am in my constituency, and I think that somebody is deliberately trying to psyche me out. Almost every week, household materials are dumped at the side of the footpath. It may be a tribute to the way that Labour is running the economy that baths, fridges, cookers, gas canisters and various bits of furniture are thrown out. Perhaps that just shows how rich our society is. What irritates me is that we never see who is throwing those things away. Should not we invest in a mini CCTV system, which could be hidden in trees or camouflaged in various ways, so that we can track down the people who are responsible? I realise that the police cannot wait at that spot for hours on end, nor can neighbourhood wardens, so let us think creatively and use some money to develop the technology that will catch people who dump rubbish. I offer Leeds lane as a prime site for the Government to make that grand experiment. They will have my full support.

I welcome the new powers in the Bill, especially those that enable councils and the Environment Agency to recover their investigation and clear-up costs when tackling the problem of fly-posting. I note that local councils will be able to issue fixed penalty notices and keep the receipts from such penalties. I am pleased that the Bill introduces a more effective system to stop, search and seize the vehicles used in illegal waste disposal and gives the courts the power to require the confiscation of the vehicles used in that crime. I hope that we can detect them on Leeds lane.

I ask the Minister to urge councils to set up a hotline, staffed by someone who is aware of how big a concern this issue is to people. My constituents have often rung the local supposed hotline, which is actually a lukewarm line, to be treated by the person at the other end to a long inquiry, boring questions and so on, when people want action to be taken.

The Bill covers a wide range of issues, including the problem of dog fouling—an issue that came to my attention in Great Preston, when I spent some time with a ground worker last Friday. This may sound like the ultimate pub quiz question, but I am indebted to the Library for telling me that UK dogs produce 1,000 tonnes of dog mess every day, which is equivalent—the Minister will not believe this—to the total weight of beef imports into the European Union. I have no idea why the Library draws that parallel.

There are other interesting facts in relation to litter. As I said earlier, I noticed the litter on top of the Opposition Dispatch Box. It is interesting to note that 120 tonnes of cigarette-related litter is discarded on our streets daily and that cigarette litter generates about 40 per cent. of all street litter.

I also note that the Bill will give councils greater flexibility in dealing with noise nuisance from things such as burglar alarms, which have been mentioned, and from licensed premises that ignore warnings to reduce excessive noise levels. Light pollution is also addressed, particularly with respect to badly positioned security lighting and the glare of unshielded bright lights that cover car parks.

In contradiction to what the Conservatives have said, this is a good Bill. It follows, from my reading around it, widespread consultation with people. Legislation is important. The Minister talked about joint working with other Departments, but one of the key Departments that may have lost out is the Department for Education and Skills. I honestly believe that there is a place in schools for teaching about the local environment and that that should be part of the school curriculum. "Think globally, act locally" is the slogan, and I wish that we would take that up; but, obviously, what has the greatest role in education is what our parents tell us. I am one of those who was brought up to believe that if we generate rubbish—sweet papers and so on—we should not just drop it on the floor but take it home with us. That may be a homely view of things, but I wish that we could return to that in some respects.

I will not go on too long, but I wish to note that the Bill aims to create cleaner, safer, greener communities. In my view, that means stronger communities, which is what people like me think that politics is all about. This is a good Bill, and I hope that the Minister will explain, if he makes some further comments in closing the debate, how the £500 million cut in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs proposed by the Conservative party would damage some of the proposals that we have been discussing tonight.

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

This is an interesting and important Bill, but in some ways we are disappointed because we could have done more to deal with a lot of the issues. The Bill does not go far enough. Nevertheless, stronger fines and longer sentences for those who pollute and measures to seize vehicles that are used to pollute are all absolutely essential. We need not only to fine fly-tippers at a level that would make a real difference to the viability of their business—that is what it is all about— but to make it clear that such actions are environmental crimes and that environmental crimes really matter. They damage our environment; they damage the planet; and they are the sort of thing that should have no place in the modern world. Ours is an overcrowded planet and the harm that we do now not only to the land but to communities in a densely packed island like ours makes a difference, so we need to deal with the people who cause those problems.

We have some reservations about the Bill, but we are being practical by considering what it needs to do. We need to take a serious look at some other issues. One issue on which we did not table amendments is the problem of train horns. A number of Members get constituents constantly coming to them saying that nuisance is created not only by noise from premises but by things such as train horns which have got so much noisier. The Rail Safety and Standards Board has not taken on board the fact that there are alternative ways of raising alarms that are not so disruptive.

We had debates on Second Reading and in Committee about light pollution. I still feel uncomfortable with the fact that large organisations, such as ports, airports and harbours, have failed to recognise that, although some lighting is necessary for their effective and safe operation, they must do much more to deal with excess light. It often creates misery for the people living close by. Although some organisations take a good look at what they can do to minimise light pollution, not enough is happening. We certainly heard on Second Reading about the people who could see the light from a port—even though it was below the horizon, it still caused a glare.

We also have concerns about the provisions for fly-tipping. If it occurs on council land, it will be cleaned up. However, if it takes place on private land that belongs to farmers, the National Trust or other large landowning bodies, the landowners will have to pay for the clean-up even though they have done as much as they can to prevent fly-tipping by having proper gates, fencing and padlocks in place. We have not got very far on that. We also wonder how the Environment Agency will pay for the extra duties involved. Nowhere does it say who will pay for the work that the agency does.

As I said in Committee, I attended a parish council meeting in Worplesden that discussed whether to erect CCTV cameras to identify fly-tippers on the common. Although the council, the police and representatives from the parish were at the meeting, no one from the Environment Agency attended because it was thought that its staff were already overstretched and could do no more to help. In other words, no more work was going to be placed on the agency even though it had responsibility and could play a strong role in this issue. I am on record as saying that I am a strong fan of the agency, but I am not an uncritical fan. It needs resources and good calibre staff if it is going to do its work and if the Bill is to be successful. It lays further responsibilities on the agency.

Another of our big concerns is conviction and detection, and the agency often has to do the detection work that leads to conviction. The Bill contains strong penalties to deal with fly-tippers, but someone has to be convicted before they are imposed. That means that they must be detected first and if we do not do that, we will not be able to deal with the repeat fly-tipper who runs a business based on fly-tipping and knows that he will get away with that. We shall not even be able to deal with the curious cases in which someone fly-tips opposite a Travellers' site, because he thinks that the Travellers will be blamed and he will get away with it.

As we know, in 2003, the Environment Agency dealt with 5,399 incidents of fly-tipping, but there were only 254 prosecutions. That is not good enough. We need to get real deterrents in place, but that percentage of prosecutions is totally inadequate in sending the message that the polluter will and must pay. Much more needs to be done.

Although we agree with the Conservatives about some aspects of the Bill, I am worried about their attitude to it. They opposed it in the first place, so it seems that if they cannot have it their way, they are not keen on it at all. Liberal Democrats are not entirely happy with it, but we must support it because there is no way that we can walk away from a Bill that will get hard with polluters. I serve on the Environmental Audit Committee, which has investigated environmental crime and the courts, fly-tipping and graffiti. The Bill addresses many such problems. One of our reports said that more resources were needed, and although that needs to be considered in another place, we must support such a Bill because pollution has an impact on communities.

The Conservatives called for the Environment Agency to have the power of arrest, but the agency does not want that because it thinks that it would be inappropriate. Indeed, there is quite a bit of evidence to back that up. The Environment Agency rightly wants uniformed police to make arrests because the people involved in such activities are often deeply unpleasant and vicious individuals. We are also worried about who will clean up land.

The chairman of the Environment Agency wrote a letter that was published in The Times on 1 February in which he commented on the Conservative party's James report, and I have listened carefully to the Conservatives to find out how they would pay for their proposals. The letter said:

"The James report for the Conservative Party on the savings to be made from bureaucracy proposes cutting government grants to the Environment Agency by £47 million, which it describes as cuts in 'intrusive enforcement by the Environment Agency' . . . As the Environment Agency actually spends £19 million on enforcement—acting on breaches of the law by the regulated sector as well as tracking down criminals acting outside the system altogether—my board would dearly like to understand what else is for the chop.

Without further enlightenment, which is not available in the report itself, we are forced to conclude that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Opposition to significantly cut the policing of criminal dumping of waste and to reduce monitoring of the environment to safeguard public health, the maintenance of our natural habitats and upkeep of locks and weirs on rivers."

The letter went on to say:

"In the circumstances we can hardly fail to conclude that Mr James's recommendations have no basis in even the most rudimentary understanding of our business."

I am sorry that such letters must be written, because whether we are Government or Opposition Members, we are all are trying to find better ways of running government. We all want to get best value for the taxpayer, but the Conservatives cannot say on the one hand that they want more enforcement and powers of arrest, but say on the other that they would take away the money that would allow that to happen. We have heard nothing from the Conservatives about how they intend to pay for their proposals.

I am pleased about aspects of the Bill because they represent progress. I am glad that stronger action will be taken on abandoned vehicles. A lady who lives close to my constituency office, which is in a residential area that is not at the best end of town, takes it upon herself to record the numbers of abandoned vehicles and to feed them through the system, and she lets me know how she is doing. Such people need encouragement and to know that councils will act. Vehicles for sale on the streets cause a nuisance and the situation has been allowed to continue for far too long. That practice has started to be thought of as a fact of life because councils do not do much about it, so anything that makes the law to deal with the problem stronger is desperately important.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Lady and reading "A Better Environment, A Better Life: Liberal Democrat Policies for the Environment". If she is so committed to the Bill, why does it not feature in the Liberal Democrats' environmental policies?

Sue Doughty (Liberal Democrat, Guildford)

I am interested in the hon. Lady's intervention, especially if she wants to discuss our entire policy manifesto, but we are debating a Government Bill. We have not listed all their Bills in our manifesto because we are the Liberal Democrats. I am sure that the Conservatives have taken it on themselves to support the occasional Bill and that that has not appeared in their manifesto. She will have heard that I support other aspects of waste management that are also becoming Labour party policy, in particular measures to deal with plastic bags.

We need to make progress. More needs to be done. The problem of chewing gum has not been satisfactorily resolved. With a little time, I hope that in the other place the Government will introduce stronger proposals on chewing gum, given the breadth of debate on the issue. We are all concerned about it, and we want some action.

I thank the Minister for his letter on insects. We had an interesting debate about insects, but more needs to be said about the infestation of insects from premises. I am sure that that will be raised in another place, because we need more clarification of what he suggested in his letter.

The Bill has our support. It is desperately important that we get a clear message out about how polluters must pay for what they do. I look forward to it being improved in another place.

Liz Blackman (Labour, Erewash)

I shall be brief, because other hon. Members wish to speak and many points have been made several times over. Not surprisingly, I welcome the Bill. Time and time again, we have heard about the link between antisocial behaviour and poor, neglected and abused environments. It is right that the Bill focuses on breaking that link. Environmental vandalism exists in all our constituencies, in small and large areas.

The consultation was crucial in introducing the measures. As far as I can tell, it was extensive and rigorous. The outcome is that the Bill complements earlier legislation, including the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, with which I was pleased to be involved. One of the Bill's aspects is to strengthen existing partnerships by requiring responsible authorities to ensure that tackling such behaviour is at the heart of their strategies. It also extends powers to partners, including parishes, extends and toughens penalties, and simplifies processes and procedures, which is important because it makes them easier to implement.

I welcome in particular, as I am sure do my constituents, the wider use of fixed penalty notices, improvements to gating, which is especially relevant in Erewash, and tougher measures on fly-tipping, because Erewash has urban fringes that suffer from that crime, from graffiti, from nuisance vehicles and from dumped cars and litter. I recently conducted a large survey on issues that concern my constituents, and litter was at the top of the pile. In fact, it has risen to the top of the pile over the past couple of years.

Among the range of penalties and measures that the Bill provides to tackle litter specifically, one gem is the ability for responsible authorities to impose litter cleaning notices on private households. Interspersed between the well kept houses with beautiful gardens that people have taken an awful lot of time and trouble to nurture—the real homes—it is demoralising to see front gardens that look like the local refuse tip, or worse. For the first time, the Bill gives powers to require those people to clean up their act. I am delighted with that measure.

There is more to do on environmental crime, but for me the centrality of the Bill is whether the measures in it will be implemented by those that have been given the responsibilities. I want to give some examples of episodes in my constituency over the past year or so which have led us to pause with concern.

West Hallam community centre in the village of West Hallam belongs to the Conservative parish council of West Hallam. The playgroup that rents the centre asked me to write to the management committee of the building to ask it to remove graffiti, and this is what I got back:

"We recognise graffiti is a problem and have on several previous occasions had it removed. In our experience, however, unlike the suggestion in your letter, we have found the removal of the graffiti gives the green light for it to appear again."

I am not speechless on many occasions, but that letter took my breath away. We are talking about transferring powers to such groups. I am not for one minute saying that all parish councils in Erewash hold that attitude—I am sure that they do not—but we must accept that there are still pockets of ignorance in our communities and we need to challenge them.

The other episode that I would like to mention concerns one of my leisure centres that has a big recycling park, which was covered in dumped rubbish a year ago at Christmas and new year. One of my constituents flagged up the problem, so I challenged the local Conservative council to do something about it. A year ago, I received a letter saying that the council had put in extra resources and would monitor the situation and make further resources available the following year.

I went to the leisure centre for a swim on 2 January this year, and what I saw took my breath away. The area was stacked with plastic bags full of Christmas refuse and children were playing in it. I again wrote a very strong letter to the council, and got this reply:

"We deliberately stepped up our efforts to keep our main recycling sites tidy during the Christmas period following the problems experienced in previous years . . . Whilst this extra activity was successful, the real problem is residents using the recycling points to dump residual waste. This is in fact fly-tipping; a criminal offence carrying a maximum fine of £2,500. Whilst the Council plans to provide similar enhanced collection services next Christmas, we will be playing a much stronger enforcement role and persons caught fly-tipping will be prosecuted."

The letter finally told me that both the tip and the recycling processing plant were closed at that time.

Local councils must get their act together. My council knew that there was a problem. It should have supplied more refuse collection facilities. It should also have challenged the behaviour of those fly-tipping, and should have ensured that the local tip was open. This is not just about enforcing the law but about ensuring that there is the capacity for people who want to dump their refuse legitimately.

Two years down the line, the council is putting a much better structure in place. It has made a significant investment in a warden system, which is about to come on stream, and more money is being invested in refuse collection and street cleaning. However, those measures must be implemented thoroughly and speedily, and the council must be transparent about its activities and schedules and make clear what people can expect from its services both on a regular basis and when a problem occurs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon) has said, a hotline should be introduced so that people can report fly-tipping and littering, and feedback should be obtained on how services are working.

The Bill is good and the measures will work if all responsible bodies, and the public, understand that environmental crime can be tackled, but that we all have a role to play. It provides an excellent opportunity to do more to clean up the environment.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

It seems almost an eternity, Mr. Speaker, since I raised with you the question of whether we would get an opportunity to discuss a particular part of the Bill, about which I have driven the Minister to boredom and distraction because of my insistence on trying to flesh out some of the details of the legislation dealing with dogs. I do not apologise for my interest in the matter. I have served on several Standing Committees with the Minister and I know how he likes to operate—if he can cross the street for a punch-up, he always will. I have no doubt that when he replies to my observations, which I hope will be brief, he will give me a kicking.

Conservative Members have made it plain that our opposition to parts of the Bill, which contains many good clauses, is not tooth and nail, and I do not have a great deal of difficulty with the Minister's proposals on the control of dogs and handling stray dogs. However, he should not have taken umbrage at a number of interventions—in particular, my interventions—because it is his job to explain the reasoning behind his proposals and it is our job to press him. I hope that he will not take undue offence at our pressing him, although we agree with much of what he is trying to do, because that is what he is paid for.

Sadly, I missed the seventh sitting of the Standing Committee on 27 January, because I was next door chairing the Committee on the Identity Cards Bill, which was equally riveting. The Minister was obviously having a good time that morning, because everybody was getting a good beating, and he mentioned that he had discussed the Bill with the Kennel Club, the Dogs Trust and a vet. When I spoke briefly on Second Reading, however, those organisations had not been consulted.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The meeting took place after Second Reading, when those organisations approached me with their concerns. We examined those concerns and amended the Bill, as I said earlier. We originally hoped that the discussions on the transfer of resources would be ready so that the Bill could be implemented as originally drafted three months after Royal Assent, but to put the question beyond all doubt, we amended it to ensure that that part of the Bill will be commenced after the discussion on resources.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, and commend him on listening to those worthy organisations, which are experienced in such matters, and on amending the Bill, which is to his credit—I am sure that those organisations are grateful. However, he must accept that hon. Members are astonished that a Minister could introduce a Bill to change the legislation on handling dogs, which has existed for more than 100 years, without consulting the biggest animal welfare charities that deal with dogs in the UK—the Dogs Trust, which used to be the National Canine Defence League, the Kennel Club and Battersea dogs home—it should properly be called the dogs home, Battersea—which is not a million miles from this place. Battersea dogs home says that more than 51 per cent. of the stray dogs that it is asked to take in arrive on a Monday after the weekend, so there is a problem with what goes on out of hours.

In the light of the Minister's long experience, and my briefer experience, in government, I find it difficult to believe that a Department would have the effrontery to put before the House a Bill that will place a difficult burden on animal welfare charities—including the National Dog Warden Association, whose representatives the Minister did not meet at all—without consulting them beforehand. Those are the people who are doing the job. We can talk about it here, but they are the ones cleaning up the mess that we humans leave when we do not treat our animals properly.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am not crossing the road to beat up the hon. Gentleman, but I want to correct his assertions. The only outstanding issue is that of the transfer of resources necessary to make one organisation—the local authority—responsible for dealing with strays, which, as far as I can make out, everybody supports. That was the only reasonable point that was made—all the others were misapprehensions about what the Bill would do, and I was able to correct them. Often, the problem is not a lack of consultation but a misunderstanding about what a piece of legislation does, which needs to be corrected by additions long after the consultation has been completed.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

The Minister utters honeyed words, and I am tempted to believe them, because I know that he has the best of intentions. However, even when he did eventually deign to meet the biggest animal welfare charities that are doing the work that his Department is dealing with in the Bill, their conclusions—I think that they were circulated to him—were negative. The Dogs Trust, which he met, stated in a briefing:

"Insufficient evidence has been taken as to the problems that will be created."

It continues:

"Adequate funding must be made available."

We wait to hear, because nobody yet knows, what this will cost or where the money will come from. The Minister is plucking figures out of the air. One would think that the House of Commons had some kind of fiscal responsibility concerning the government of our country, and would be entitled to know whether we are talking about millions, or hundreds of thousands, of pounds. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) gave some figures earlier, but the Minister is the man who is being paid to do that.

The briefing continues:

"There are no proposals to enlighten the general public about what to do when finding a stray dog."

Whether we like it or not, when the Bill becomes law there will be confusion about who cares for the dog.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I entirely support my hon. Friend. Is he even more shocked and alarmed that the National Dog Warden Association says in its conclusions:

"We have not proposed any amendments as we believe that the legislative proposals are wrong because they have no prospect of being financed properly"?

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I find it incredible that the Minister has not met the NDWA. He talks about local authorities, but it is not the chief executive or the clerk of some town council who rounds up dogs, but the people with the vans.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The hon. Gentleman is making a meal of half a biscuit. I remind him that dog wardens are employed by local authorities, which have been fully consulted and engaged all along with the transfer of responsibilities. At no time—I underline this—has the NDWA sought a meeting, at ministerial or official level, with DEFRA. All the proposals have been in the public domain for a very long time. The hon. Gentleman is making a tremendous effort to find something to criticise, but if this is the worst he can do, we have done pretty well.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

The trouble is that when the Minister moves on to greater things, or whatever he does, it will be NDWA members who are rounding up the dogs. They, not he or any of the rest of us who take part in these debates, are the men and women out there in the cold trying to sort out society's problems when abandoned animals run off.

It is all very well for the Minister to be caustic about the NDWA and to write it off in the rather high-handed way that anyone who has had dealings with this Government has come to expect, but it will not wash. The other place will not unreasonably conclude not only that the time that this House has had for scrutiny was wholly inadequate—not because of you, Mr. Speaker, but because of the Government motions that have been forced upon us—but that it is incredible that the very bodies that will be involved in clearing up the mess left behind were not even remotely consulted, until the Minister was pressed on Second Reading to find out what they had to say.

I appreciate that other hon. Members have sat throughout our long debate and now wish to take part, so I shall conclude shortly. Although the Minister has made it clear that the responsibility is moving from the police to the local authorities, the chief executives of which he tells me he has consulted, he said, as is recorded in column 253 of the Official Report of the Committee's proceedings on 27 January, that the police could get hold of dogs and would retain some responsibilities. Some confusion therefore exists. The explanatory notes do not say that at all. Page 30 conveys a confused message about responsibilities when the Bill is enacted.

None of us claims that what the Minister is trying to do is bad. He is not a bad man and we do not say that the Bill is a bad measure. That is probably why the House will not divide on it. However, although the intentions are good, we are worried, especially from an animal welfare perspective, about whether the practicalities of some of the measure will be effected. I believe that local authorities will be confronted with a much higher bill than they or the Minister anticipate, and that the dog wardens who do the job and the animal welfare charities that try to rehome the dogs or care for those that local authorities do not put to sleep, made a reasonable point. However, they had to make it to the Minister in a grudging form because he and his officials did not see them before the Bill was introduced.

The Minister is trying to do something without thinking about it seriously, and I predict that, sadly, hon. Members will have to revert to the matter—doubtless when he has moved on to greater things.

Andy Burnham (Labour/Co-operative, Leigh)

It is a pleasure to make what I believe will be the last contribution on the Bill in this place. It is an excellent measure and my right hon. Friend the Minister deserves congratulations on piloting it through our proceedings. It shows that the Government are on the side of residents in my constituency—and others like it throughout the country—who play by the rules and want to live in a decent community. It is squarely in touch with their concerns. That contrasts sharply with the 40-minute whinge that we heard from Conservative Front Benchers, from which it was not even clear whether the Conservative party would support the Bill.

The measure will be directly relevant to all my constituents. It will deliver more for them and their lives than another high profile Bill with which the Minister has been involved. It addresses a subject that other hon. Members have mentioned: a growing anxiety about what people perceive as a decline in standards of respect and the culture of consideration for others. We all feel that there has been a trend in the past 15 or 20 years towards greater disrespect for others, antisocial behaviour and standards of behaviour that fall below what would have been acceptable 15, 20, 25 and 30 years ago.

In my constituency, people casually break bus shelters, drop litter and scrawl graffiti. I trace that to parenting and the importance of accepting parental responsibility—I hope that the Government will revert to those issues in their manifesto.

Colin Burgon (Labour, Elmet)

Thatcherism.

Andy Burnham (Labour/Co-operative, Leigh)

My hon. Friend is right to mention Thatcherism, which meant that communities such as mine were cut adrift. The infrastructure was abandoned and neglected and people were left to fend for themselves. Today, we are picking up the pieces of the mantra of, "There is no such thing as society." It will take a generation to eradicate that culture, which the Conservative party bequeathed to the country.

The roots of the behaviour are complex but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon) said in his excellent contribution, we must prevent it from becoming self-perpetuating. Communities witness the decline—the broken windows and the litter on the streets—and people decide that there is no point in getting involved and acting because things will not get better.

The Bill tries to tackle that defeatist culture, which can take hold of a community, whereby more and more properties go downhill and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman) said, the decent residents who look after their front gardens are in the minority and private landlords allow their properties to go to rack and ruin and do not care as long as the cheque comes in at the end of every month.

Only last Friday, I met a group of residents from Glebe street in the heart of my constituency. More than anything else, they want the encouragement to fight back. They want to know that if they are going to make the effort to improve their community, they will have the power to do so and that they will get the encouragement to take positive, practical steps to clean up their community. They do not want to feel that the authorities are not on their side or that they are wasting their time. The Bill gives direct backing to those groups of residents who want to transform their communities, which is one of its key strengths.

I want to talk briefly about the provisions in clause 2 that deal with gating orders. The borough of Wigan has made a great effort to look into alley-gating schemes. It probably has among the highest number of back-to-back terraced properties in the country, both in the main towns of Wigan and Leigh and in the outlying towns of Golborne, Atherton and Hindley. One of the peculiarities of our borough is that, on the Wigan side, the backs—the alleys behind the terraced houses—are unadopted, so the council has been able to proceed with alley-gating schemes without any legal hindrance. The backs can be closed off without recourse to the courts. In my constituency, however, most of the backs are adopted highways, and the council has therefore had great difficulty in introducing orders to enable them to be gated for the benefit of the residents.

I can tell the Minister that those backs are the focal point for crime and antisocial behaviour. Only a few months ago, a young toddler in my constituency stepped on a discarded syringe in the backs behind his house. It is common for syringes to be discarded there, and he had the misfortune to step on one. His mother was beside herself with worry about him, as the Minister can imagine. This flags up the general problem that these places are used by people for drinking and drug taking, and they create an appallingly unsafe environment that causes great concern to the residents.

We have been trying to introduce alley-gating schemes in my constituency, but, as I have said, the alleyways there are adopted. At the moment, the council is bringing a test case under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, citing severe antisocial behaviour and public safety as reasons to have the public highway permanently gated. The case has been pioneered by my constituent, Deborah Murphy, who is the chair of the Wigan road residents association and neighbourhood watch. She has doggedly pursued efforts to gate the backs behind her house. Gates were erected, but they had to be taken down again because of legal difficulties relating to gating an adopted highway.

I hope that the Minister will dwell on this point as the Bill continues its passage through another place. The provisions in clause 2 relating to gating orders state that the Government may require

"a council to hold a public inquiry"

in regard to the gating of a particular area or community. My concern is that too much bureaucracy and red tape will be put in the way of residents such as Deborah Murphy, who are trying to do something to improve their community.

Alun Michael (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth)

It is appropriate that there should be a permissive ability to hold public inquiries, because in some circumstances damage to others could be created as a result of closing off access to an alleyway. We are moving from an automatic requirement for a public inquiry, precisely to address the issue that my hon. Friend raises. In some circumstances, it is manifest to everyone that alley-gating is the best thing that could happen, and that it happen with a minimum of bureaucracy. I can assure him that our aspirations—and the way in which these provisions are set out in the Bill—will address the issues that he is raising.

Andy Burnham (Labour/Co-operative, Leigh)

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification; it will greatly reassure those of my constituents who are considering these schemes. My point is that if the procedure became excessively bureaucratic, people would lose heart. If they were faced with too much bureaucracy when trying to take positive action to change their community, they would quickly be put off. We must not allow that to happen. People who are trying to get actively engaged in their community should not feel the walls of bureaucracy rising up around them. However, I take the Minister's point.

Wigan council's director of engineering, Peter Taylor, has asked the Minister to consider whether the process should be akin to that for traffic regulation orders, which would make it much easier for the authority to take things forward. We are still bringing the order through under the 2000 Act as an interim measure, but I very much hope that the use of public inquiries will be the exception, not the norm, and that residents will be actively encouraged to take forward initiatives to have their alleyways gated when they believe that that could make a substantial difference.

Following those few remarks, I want to congratulate the Minister on introducing this legislation, which will directly benefit my constituents. I know it will be warmly welcomed and I very much hope that the Bill is not the beginning of the end of rebuilding a culture of respect and higher standards in our communities, but part of a long process in which the Government are engaged.

We must carry on getting tougher on antisocial behaviour until we can genuinely say that the streets of towns such as Leigh, and others represented by hon. Members who are present, are safe and decent places where the law-abiding majority are in the ascendancy, and that the culture is one in which people show respect and consideration for others.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.