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Mr. Peter Atkinson: My hon. Friend does not represent a rural seat. Is she saying that people who live in the countryside should no longer be able to keep cockerels, a tradition going back many centuries? Country people often find that people from, for example, Sutton and Cheam, move to the countryside and then kick up a fuss about rural traditions.
Lady Olga Maitland: I understand my hon. Friend's comments about cockerels in a rural environment. However, he must remember that the noise of cockerels in a urban area, where there is a concentrated population, cannot be absorbed and is therefore much more intense. Other problems include dogs barking in gardens and car doors slamming. Those are not strictly neighbour nuisances, but they are close to that.
We are talking about how we can improve the Bill. I have a few reservations about it. It is an empowering Bill. It does not make it obligatory for local authorities to set up noise patrols. Local authorities are mixed in the degree of seriousness that they attach to noise. About 65 per cent. of local authorities in England and Wales do not provide a 24-hour service. About 86 run some form of service, and about 19 run a weekend service.
Let us consider the experience of my constituency. Sutton is a Liberal Democrat-controlled council which claims to be strong on the environment and on environmental pollution. However, it employs just two people, once a week, to investigate noise nuisance complaints. In the past year, it has received about 1,200 complaints. Two people working once a week will not get very far when there are so many frustrated residents.
What worries me is how to put pressure on local authorities to take the issue seriously. Obviously I want to encourage all council tax payers to press the matter loudly, firmly and persistently. If they do not like what their local authorities are doing, for heaven's sake they should vote them out. The Liberal Democrats in Sutton do not deserve to retain their so-called green label when they are manifestly not taking action against environmental polluters.
I welcome the Bill. It is important that, at long last, people will have a swift remedy. There will be clearly defined standards of what is acceptable when mediation fails. A sharp rap on the knuckles or in the pocket with a noise ticket will focus minds. Perhaps the level of fine, which is set at £40, should be raised, or perhaps it should be flexible. I agree with hon. Members that £40 is not a real deterrent.
Mr. Richard Alexander (Newark):
It is a privilege to speak in this debate, which has attracted wide interest both within and outside the House. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), who is in his place, and I welcome his Bill.
Apart from physical violence, probably nothing other than noise causes so much distress, offence and misery, and results in such a lowering of the quality of life of innocent people. People should have the right to enjoy their homes in peace and quiet, and the selfishness of noise makers should have the attention of the law.The Bill will enable that.
Hon. Members have given examples of constituents complaining about excessive noise which councils feel unable to do much about. They require detailed evidence, collated over quite a long period, detailed records, and so on. The net result of council inquiries is continuing misery for the person suffering from the noise until something is done and often, as my hon. Friends have said, unpleasant retaliation from the people causing the nuisance and their friends in the meantime.
The law is clearly unsatisfactory, and statistics show how ineffective it is. In 1993-94, there were roughly 111,000 complaints of neighbour or domestic noise to local authorities. Of those 111,000, statutory nuisance was confirmed in only 40,000, and only 3,600 abatement notices were served. As a result of those notices, only247 prosecutions took place and 220 convictions were obtained. That shows that the law is deeply unsatisfactory.
Those 111,000 complainants cannot all have been completely mischievous and without merit. They took the trouble to do something about the misery that noise was creating in their lives. The law is also unsatisfactory because local authorities are uncertain about the extent of their powers. That may account for the minimal number of prosecutions that are undertaken. I understand--it has not been contradicted--that local authorities will welcome a specific power to act such as that in the Bill.
I am afraid that, in daily life these days, I find people more and more selfish. Music--if one can call it that--is one of the worst examples of noise nuisance. Barking dogs also come very near the top of the list. Such selfish acts cause sleep deprivation and damage to health. Often, violence results, and it is sad that, when it does, both parties are brought before the magistrates court and both are bound over as though they were equally at fault. It is a useless remedy and gives no satisfaction at all to the person suffering from the noise. When both parties are bound over, the perpetrator continues his or her activity, often to a greater extent, while taunting the other person that they can do nothing about it. Moreover, the person who complains is made to feel equally to blame.That must be unsatisfactory.
To make noise above a certain level should be a criminal offence, both during the night and during the day. I believe that the Bill does not go far enough. The matter should not just be left to local byelaws or local interpretation. Making noise above a certain level needs to be a criminal offence per se, just as not wearing a seat belt is. It should be a law like the others that we all have to abide by. Life should be made just as unpleasant for the perpetrator as he or she makes it for the victim.
I tell my hon. Friend the Minister that the Bill could go further. It still relies on warning notices, it still relies on local authority action, and it does not provide the instant
action or instant prosecution that many of us would like. By instant action, I mean an immediate summons to the magistrates court, as applies when one is caught speeding or driving with excess alcohol in the body.
On 30 October 1994, the then Minister of State,my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble(Mr. Atkins), announced that he was setting up a working party to identify quicker and simpler remedies to the problem of neighbour noise. The Bill is the result, but I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State that it could go further. The person suffering from noise in the middle of the night who complains about all the nuisances that we have been discussing will not get any more sleep that night, the next night or any subsequent night until the local authority has gone through its procedures.
I grant that the procedures under the Bill are better than those available previously, but I seek from the Bill the instant remedy that I thought the Government sought to provide. Such an instant remedy was one of the proposals contained in the package of measures announced by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on 12 December last. He said that action was to be undertaken as soon as possible, and an instant remedy should have been included in the Bill.
So long as making noise above a certain level is only a civil offence, people will continue to have to take the law into their own hands, and complaints about noise and disturbance from neighbours will increase. Controls on neighbour noise must be strengthened. The Bill is a start, but it is only a start. I draw the Under-Secretary of State's attention to his press release on 12 December last. He said that the Government wanted to create a new offence dealing with excessive noise from domestic premises during the night-time period. He added that that would
The Bill gives my hon. Friend that opportunity, and I hope that he will table suitable amendments in Committee to achieve just that.
I have a further concern, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) alluded. It relates to timing. There are two completely opposite problems. The first concerns when night time is proposed to start. A perfectly lawful activity that is a little noisier than one might wish could still be going on between 11 pm and midnight. To cut off that noise at 11 pm might be a little inappropriate, especially if a conviction resulted. I suggest that midnight might be a more appropriate time.
There is, however, a totally contrary concern, which may be thought to conflict with what I have just said. Noise is also offensive during the day, and 11 o'clock may not be early enough. Many people are shift workers or work at night, such as those who run our hospitals and transport services. Their sleep patterns are different from the norm, but they are as susceptible as the rest of us to excessive noise. That is the other side of the coin, and I hope that that, too, can be considered in Committee.
"require new legislative powers and we will look for an early opportunity to introduce these".
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