HC Deb 23 June 1952 vol 502 cc1997-2006

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Butcher.]

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Russell (Wembley, South)

The subject which I want to raise on the Adjournment tonight follows not too inappropriately the debate we have just been discussing. It is the litter, by which I mean paper, cigarette packets, tins, bottles, orange peel and other objects which are all too frequently scattered about in public places, in the streets, in the countryside, parks and everywhere else. It follows not inappropriately because, unfortunately, newsprint is one of the main ingredients of the litter which is scattered about.

I first raised this subject about two years ago, when I asked about the Royal Parks; and the then Minister of Works replied. What has prompted me to raise it again tonight are some representations which have been made by the Rotary Club of Wembley to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus) and myself. I think I am right in saying that the matter concerns several Government Departments, but the reason I chose the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is because that Department is responsible for local government and I believe that any action taken falls on local authorities more than on anybody else; and may I add that I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for his presence tonight.

First of all, I would refer to the Royal Parks. Two years ago, according to the answer given by the then Minister of Works, after the Whitsun holidays, 1950, 45 tons of litter were swept up from the Royal parks in the centre of London; and the following week-end, no less than 72 tons were swept up. This year, from an answer on the subject by my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Works, the position is a little better, for only 11 tons were collected after Whitsun, of which 6¾ were in litter baskets; and, of course, there I have no complaint. But the remaining 4¼ tons were on the ground.

The total rubbish swept up after public holidays in 1951 from the Royal parks was 53 tons, and this year, up to date, 32½ tons. I am not sure whether the figure for this year is quite comparable with 1950, but, if it is, then there is a slight, but welcome improvement. In 1950, the then Minister of Works said that the cost of sweeping up this litter was no less than £8,500 a year; and that is a rather shocking figure.

From that, may I pass on to the L.C.C. parks, which include not only enclosed spaces like Dulwich Park, but unenclosed areas such as Clapham Common and Hampstead Heath. I am told by the Chief Officer of the Council's Parks' Department that about 25 tons a week are picked up from the whole of the L.C.C. parks, and that, during fine weather, and particularly at holiday times, large quantities of litter are left lying about, especially on the unenclosed open spaces. He told me that records were not kept, but that the weekly total was about what I have stated, and he could not give the cost of clearing this away because the work was carried out by staffs in the course of their normal duties. But, it will be readily appreciated that a considerable amount of time must, therefore, be spent on this work which could be given to more useful employment.

A short time ago, I looked round St. Pancras and King's Cross stations. It was just after Whitsun, and I found litter not only outside the stations, and especially where newspaper vendors had been at work, but also in the stations and the forecourts, and on the tracks themselves, where I imagine, some of it had been swept when the platforms were cleared. Many places in the provinces seem to be collectors of litter; some hon. Members will know Town Moor, New-castle-on-Tyne, which is an appalling sight after any public holiday. Other hon. Members could cite equivalent places.

I cannot help looking at the floor of this Chamber, if it is not out of order to mention it. It perhaps does not look so bad at this moment as it did after the all-night Sitting last week. I made some inquiries of an attendant I found cleaning it up after that all-night Sitting and I was told that it took two men about an hour to clean up the Chamber. That, of course, included not only the sweeping up of the litter, but vacuuming and other necessary things. Nevertheless, a man with a stick had to go through the receptacles among the benches in order to scrape out the papers torn up and squashed into them. I often wish that we could set a rather better example in this Chamber than we do.

I will not say anything about the countryside. That is another subject in itself. I would mention that in looking round the Stationery Office the other day for quite another purpose I found an excellent book called "Country Code," which gives a page on the danger of leaving litter in the countryside—a danger which might not be obvious to those of us who live in towns—of leaving not only paper, which is unsightly, but also things like tins and bottles hidden in ditches or drains where they interfere with the drainage of the land.

What is the remedy? I think that it needs a national campaign. As a slogan there is an excellent example in "Country Code," namely, "Leave no litter." I suggest that it would be an appropriate time to launch a campaign of this kind, particularly in view of the number of overseas visitors we can expect here next year for the Coronation. It rests largely on local authorities under the inspiration of the Government to carry it out.

Incidentally, in one of his answers to a supplementary question by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir E. Keeling), two years ago, the then Minister of Works said: I am at present in course of organising an anti-litter campaign."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd October, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 2478.] I take it he meant in the Royal parks, which I think is all he is responsible for, but, unfortunately, not much of a campaign seems to have materialised.

The second thing that is needed is more litter baskets. I was looking in the roadway outside King's Cross and St. Pancras on the occasion I referred to earlier, and I found only two litter baskets. More could be provided, and I suggest that the cost could be met from advertisements which could be fixed on them, as they were on the two I saw. I understand that there are no fewer than 20,000 litter baskets in New York City, which is a comparatively small area.

I got this information in a letter from the Commissioner of the Department of Sanitation of New York City, who says: We have found that the employment of some 20,000 wire litter baskets has greatly aided our efforts towards cleaner streets. In heavily trafficked areas such receptacles are placed on both sides of the street. There is one at the end of each block, and flanking containers mid-way in each block, thus pedestrians with newspaper wrappers or similar litter to dispose of have a convenient repository. Studies indicate that each of such baskets can collect between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds of litter annually. Without them much litter would find its way into the street where it would be an added problem for our sweepers. I hope that our local authorities will take an example from New York.

The third thing I would suggest, drastic though it may sound, is prosecutions. In answer to a Question in October, 1950, the then Minister of Works did say that between July and October of that year there had been one prosecution of a person depositing litter in the Royal parks. The present Minister of Works told me not long ago that there had been no prosecution in recent months. I believe that more prosecutions, coupled with the measures which I have suggested, might have some effect on this appalling problem.

May I just stress the main points? I think that the cost of sweeping up litter all over the country for a year must be enormous. I know it is not possible to calculate it; but if £8,500 was the cost of sweeping it up merely in the Royal parks in central London in 1950, the cost must be gigantic when all the streets and open spaces of the country are considered. There must be an appalling waste of labour in dealing with the problem, particularly when so many industries and occupations are still short of labour.

My third point is the general untidiness and unsightliness caused in town and country by people who leave litter all over the place. For these reasons I hope that something can be done to remedy the present state of affairs.

11.31 p.m.

Wing Commander Eric Bullus (Wembley, North)

I am glad to have the opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) in the useful debate which he has inaugurated. As he pointed out, the Wembley Rotary Club wrote to both of us expressing concern at the way people throw down litter in the streets, in parks, and in the countryside, and at the cost borne by local authorities in the collection of this refuse.

I confess that I was shocked by some of the confirmatory evidence which I had a fortnight ago. I was listening to a broadcast of the Test Match commentary from Leeds, and in the late Saturday afternoon I was astonished to hear the commentator refer to the disgraceful amount of litter which held up play and threatened prematurely to end cricket for the day. I checked this with reports in Yorkshire newspapers, and a sporting journalist, in the "Yorkshire Post," began a sentence with this picturesque description: Close to the day's end, when cricket threatened to be capsized in heavy seas of litter sweeping across the green… Such befouling of the nest is not confined to Leeds. It is too common at many sporting arenas, in the parks and at places of entertainment. At Wembley Stadium, although deposited litter is not above the average for stadia throughout the country, rarely are the litter receptacles filled, and the refuse appears to differ according to the type of sporting event. Song sheets and newspapers form the bulk of as many as 150 sacks of litter taken after a football match, while speedway and greyhound racing events seem to induce ice cream cartons and bottles.

I was greatly surprised when, one evening, I had occasion to return to a local cinema in search of lost gloves, at the astounding amount of litter accumulated on the floor and laid naked by the upturned seats and the ceiling lights. There is, perhaps, excuse there, because as far as I know receptacles are not provided. Therein they are like this Chamber, although in this Chamber I think we have the excuse of a tradition which shows that we have at least attempted to do a day's work. Lest the House should infer that Wembley is a town of much litter, I hasten to point out that the local Director of Public Cleansing is satisfied that the 80 litter receptacles—which number, I fear, compares unfavourably with the number for New York, which my hon. Friend quoted—placed in the highways are well used. Bus stops attract ticket litter and kiosks and refreshment houses are centres for any litter to be found in the parks.

In Wembley we have had a local bye-law, dating from 1947, which makes a litter offender liable on summary conviction to a fine of £5, but there is no evidence of any recent prosecution. The problem is a national one. We should have a national campaign for a tidier country and national organisations such as Rotary itself, the Boy Scouts, and so on could be used to help in it. If we did have such a campaign this year promoted, or at least encouraged, by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, we might have a tidier and more attractive country for Coronation year, when countless visitors will be in our midst.

11.35 p.m.

Sir Edward Keeling (Twickenham)

My hon. Friend who initiated this useful debate was unable to make any estimate of the amount of litter thrown down and the cost of clearing it up. Before the war the Association of Directors of Public Cleansing made an estimate that not less than 100,000 tons of paper alone was thrown down in the towns of this country and not less than £1 million was spent in picking it up. The expenditure today must be at least double that and the figure of quantity cannot be less.

In the country, too, it is quite a serious matter. The National Trust owns many of our finest open spaces and spends many thousands of pounds a year, especially after Sunday or a Bank Holiday, in clearing up the mess. We all know this is, or was, a free country, but we pay too high a price for the freedom to make a mess.

11.36 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples)

The House will be grateful to the three Members who have spoken on this quite important subject. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell), who said that he was keeping me up late. In fact, it is much earlier than I am normally kept up in this House and elsewhere. On his observations about the amount of litter in this House being somewhat great, I would point out that there are no receptacles for litter and that most of the litter is on the Opposition benches.

My hon. Friend suggested that New York City is a model that this country might emulate. On my frequent visits to New York in the last four or five years, my feeling was that I would not like London to look like that, especially not like the side streets. New York's main streets are very well lit and to some extent reasonably clean, but the narrow streets in between are certainly not well lit and contain a great deal of litter.

Let me turn to the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus). I was at the Cup Final this year at Wembley, when Newcastle United came from the North-East and beat the 10 men from London. There was an amount of litter there that did not do credit to the visitors to my hon. Friend's constituency. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to the Test match in Yorkshire. I agree with him, it was not right to have all that litter there. I come from Lancashire and I always feel that the second best county in England ought to take an example from Lancashire, where there is hardly any litter after a Test match or a match between Lancashire and Yorkshire. Of course, there are not many runs scored either.

May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir E. Keeling), that we all realise the valuable work he has done in connection with litter in the country? On Saturday last, I spoke to the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, at Sheffield, and the message I gave them was that if they wanted to do this country a service the best thing they could do was to inculcate into their members a sense of responsibility and declare that they themselves would not leave litter about and that neither would they allow anyone else to do so.

One of the difficulties between town and country is the farmers' continual complaint that the town dweller goes into the country, leaves litter about and gates open. It is up to the people who visit the country to respect the rights of the farmers and leave no litter about. If I may come to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South, I would say that litter is primarily the problem for the local authority, although the Ministry of Works has a responsibility in the Royal parks and the sites of ancient monuments. Local authorities have the power under the Public Health Act, 1936, to provide receptacles for refuse in streets and public places. The cleaning of streets is carried out by local authorities.

The main difficulty in prosecuting people is that it is extremely hard to spot who is responsible for leaving litter about. It is one thing to say litter is left about. It is another thing to identify the particular person responsible for leaving it. Even when the byelaw, which has a maximum penalty of £5 and has been widely adopted by the county and borough councils throughout England and Wales, has been adopted, magistrates tend to impose a light fine, when a prosecution is brought. It is disheartening when magistrates inflict a light fine and it is no deterrent to the leaving of litter in the streets.

With regard to the National Parks, which are the particular concern of the hon. Member for Twickenham, the Act of 1948 enables planning authorities—that is, the county and county borough councils—to make byelaws about behaviour on land in the parks which they own. No byelaws have yet been made as the whole National Park scheme is not far advanced But the National Parks Commission, which has a duty to prepare and publish a code of conduct for people's guidance, has issued the "Country Code," of which I have a copy here. This was on sale at the meeting of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, at Sheffield, on Saturday last. It formulates the rules of good conduct in the country, one of which is to leave no litter. I hope that hon. Members will press the sale of that excellent pamphlet in their own constituencies.

My hon and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North suggested that the Government should start a campaign. A vigorous campaign has been going on for over a year, but it may not be vigorous in relation to the other startling facts which face us, such as the balance of payments, the housing drive, and so on. It started in April, 1951, for the benefit of Festival year and has continued ever since. I agree that there cannot be too much publicity about litter and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South, has done a valuable service in raising this matter tonight.

Twenty or 30 years ago, when I was much younger than I am now, and I used to indulge in my walking activities in the country, the problem of litter was very much worse than it is now. The education which has gone on this last 20 or 30 years has undoubtedly borne some fruit. It has not been as fast and effective as I and my hon. Friends would like, but, nevertheless, it has made some progress. People are more "litter conscious" and public-spirited, and despite what seem to be deplorable cases, particularly after public holidays, it is probably true to say that things are improved and improving. It is most difficult to compare one year with another, because so much depends on the weather. If it is a wet day, very few go into the parks, and if it is fine a large number do so.

During the last year the London Transport Executive and the Railway Executive played a big part in displaying posters. So did the R.A.C., the A.A., and the C.T.C., as well as various business organisations. The women's organisations also gave assistance, and more than £1,000 was spent on official display material. The Ministry of Works gave 2,000 special plastic symbols for use in the Royal Parks and on the South Bank site the anti-litter arrangements were extremely successful. Nine hundred litter bins were used altogether, and the greatest success was obtained in Battersea Park, where the bins were illuminated to attract the public eye and almost impelled people to hurl their litter into the receptacles.

Films issued by Universal and Gaumont British News were shown in 2,000 cinemas. The B.B.C. joined in the campaign and reference has been made in the programme, "We Beg To Differ," in which the people concerned are all females, with the exception of one controversial male. Local authorities were asked to help in two ways, first by displaying printed publicity material and, secondly, by drawing public attention to the problem. But they could help more effectively. I am not always sure that our posters are as effective as photographs. There is nothing more effective than a photograph of Hampstead Heath or one of the beauty spots in the Lake District, or some of the spots in the North-East, after a public holiday.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)

Even including race week at Newcastle?

Mr. Marples

Yes, I hope that this debate, and the stimulating presence of the hon. Gentleman, will have the effect of ensuring there is no litter at Newcastle this week.

The real difficulty, however, is that a small minority of people can create a deplorable effect. It only needs a few people to make a distressing mess on the ground. There are many posters, some of which can never appear in HANSARD, but which are very attractive. I cannot display them for my hon. Friend, but I would like to give him a copy afterwards. The slogan of them is "Keep Britain Tidy." I am asking my right hon. Friend to consult with local authorities to ensure that they should make a tremendous drive, especially during Coronation Year, to see that this country can set an example to the world in keeping its streets, its open spaces and particularly its countryside, free from litter during that great year.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour,Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Eleven Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.