Localism Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 16, I must declare two interests. The first, I hope, is shared by many on all Benches of your Lordships’ House, which is to campaign to do something to reduce the amount of litter that disfigures—indeed, I would say disgraces—our country. The second is to remind noble Lords that back in the 1990s, I was for five years chair of the CPRE, which has supported this amendment. I do not apologise for repeating this amendment 21 days after we last debated it. At that time, the Government’s reply to the debate was, I suppose I could say, sad. My amendment is simple and necessary. We have to do something about litter. I believe in the old political cliché of action and not words. I am not seeking to create a new offence; it has been an offence for 11 years to drop litter from vehicles under Section 87 of the Environment Protection Act 1990. The problem is that it is very seldom that anything can be done about it because it applies only to the person dropping the litter and at the moment there is no way of knowing who dropped the litter. My amendment would simply make the keeper of the vehicle responsible, as is already the case for parking and for speeding. It is a simple amendment. To put it mildly, I am afraid that my noble friend Lord Shutt did not welcome it. He read out a brief that did not produce a single decent argument. Perhaps I may remind him of what he said on 10 October. He said that, "““extending the scope of the littering offence … raises issues of fairness and proportionality ... It may not always be a ready solution for the registered keeper to avoid prosecution by identifying who was the actual offender””.—[Official Report, 10/10/11; col. 1370.]" That is what he was asked to say, and he said it. That is his job, I suppose, in one sense. However, the only Whitehall bazooka that he forgot to fire was that the Government, I suppose, feel that they can never risk being taken to the European Court of Human Rights. No doubt his officials said to him, ““Yes, Minister, it is always safer to do nothing””, and that is what happened. What is the essential merit of my amendment? To probe the Government’s mind a bit further, I put down a Parliamentary Question and received, from my noble friend Lord Attlee, an Answer that was genuinely helpful in making my case. In fact, it puts it all so well that I feel that I must quote it. My Question was: "““To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the rationale for liability for parking fines resting on the registered keeper of the vehicle whether or not they were present when the parking offence was committed; and liability for fines, under Section 87 of the Environment Protection Act 1990, for throwing litter from a vehicle on to public land””." My noble friend replied: "““The rationale for liability for civil parking penalty charges resting on the registered keeper is that it is not always possible for the enforcement authority to identify the driver of the vehicle who has contravened parking rules. Requiring the enforcement authority to identify the individual who parked the vehicle could make it impossible to enforce parking restrictions, especially if the registered keeper were to deny responsibility and refuse to provide details of the driver. While with a parking transgression use of the vehicle is central to contravention of the rules, the littering offence (as set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990) applies to the individual personally responsible in any circumstance wherever litter is dropped””.—[Official Report, 24/10/11; cols. WA 119-20.]" That is precisely my point, and I am most grateful to my noble friend for making my case so perfectly and so helpfully. The real point is that that section of the 1990 Act was not well drafted. All I am trying to do is to make it possible for the Act to operate in the way that Parliament intended, which is to do something rather than merely talk. In that context, I will quote my noble friend Lord Shutt’s other tit-bit that he offered me to persuade me to withdraw the amendment. The action that he proposed is as follows: "““The Defra Secretary of State is calling together later this year representatives of vehicle hirers, motoring associations, manufacturers, service stations et cetera with a view to agreeing a voluntary commitment to tackle littering from vehicles””.—[Official Report, 10/10/11; col. 1371.]" I wonder how many of us feel that that will make the slightest difference. In order not to detain your Lordships too long, on that I rest my case.