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Miss McIntosh: I hate to break up the cosy partnership that the Minister seeks to establish. However, I shall start in a helpful way by explaining to him where we are coming from. We have not sought at this stage to draft an amendment, but we will table an amendment on Report, if the Minister is not minded to agree with what we propose.
We propose to strike clause 27 from the Bill. I shall elaborate on why I believe that the Minister seeks to impose responsibilities on councils which it is beyond their wildest expectations that they could meet. However, I will say, in a constructive way, that there are three, if not four, ways in which we could proceed as an alternative to clause 27. The Liberal Democrats referred both to a purchase tax and to producer responsibility. Neither the Minister, nor the spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Guildford, referred to the other large company in the industry besides Wrigley. That company is Cadbury Schweppes, which produces Hollywood, Trident and Dentyne, and imports chewing gum such as Stimorol.
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Alun Michael: May I make it clear that I referred in general to manufacturers and suppliers. However, Wrigley has about 95 per cent. of the product market; that is why I referred specifically to it. Given its segment of the market, it has a responsibility, which I believe that it accepts.
Miss McIntosh: I accept what the Minister says. There is the element of producer responsibility. Cadbury Schweppes and Wrigley both take a responsible position. I chew gum, and I hope that I always dispose of it in a socially responsible and environmentally friendly manner.
With regard to the element of producer responsibility, I pay tribute to the work that Wrigley and Cadbury Schweppes have undertaken, particularly through the investment that they have made and their participation in the chewing gum action group. There is also the element of educating consumers, particularly the young who are perhaps keener to chew gum, including bubble gum.
There is an element of individual responsibility. The Minister must accept that if each and every one of us cannot desist from dropping all forms of litter, the Bill will have failed in its aims. There is also the option of a purchase tax. As a representative of the low-tax party, I can understand why the representatives of the two other parties would favour a purchase tax, but that would be our least-favoured option.
Sue Doughty: If the hon. Lady had been listening she would know that we are not proposing a purchase tax, but it is an option to consider at some stage and we listed it among a range of other proposals. We are not endorsing such a tax, and I would like that on the record.
Miss McIntosh: I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for that.
Alun Michael: One could get used to misrepresentation of different sorts, but I point out that on Second Reading the Conservative party seemed to think that the answer to the problem of chewing gum was precisely that of producer responsibility.
Miss McIntosh: Yes, but not a purchase tax.
The Chairman: Order. There is a danger that the discussion is drifting somewhat. I remind the Committee that we are discussing clause 27, which is very narrow and focused, and also the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Guildford, which refers to producer responsibility. However, I am not sure that we want the discussion to go further than that.
Miss McIntosh: There is another reason why chewing gum should not be described as litter. We have heard of the poop and scoop system to deal with dog poo, but I do not know whether the Committee is familiar with the gum pouch, which retails at £1.35, or the gum ashtray pouch, which motorists can purchase for 95p. There is an alternative way to dispose of gum, to which the Minister may like to allude.
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We have great difficulty with the clause, which is why we do not wish to accept it as this stage. In the Minister's response to my questions on existing legislation on 17 November, he stated:
''Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, local authorities and police community support officers already have the power to issue fixed penalty notices to those who drop chewing gum. The current level of fixed penalty is £50.''—[Official Report, 17 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 1472W.]
I point out to the Minister that in a debate held in Westminster Hall attended by the Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment it was made clear that certain councils, such as Westminster city council, are already applying that penalty.
Alun Michael: I made it clear that the immediate response when this subject was raised in consultation was that extra legislation was not necessary because it is clear that chewing gum is litter and that therefore the provisions of existing legislation apply. Only as a result of some people saying during the consultation that there might be an argument about chewing gum, did we accede to representations and explicitly refer to it in this legislation. It is as simple as that. There is no mystery that what I have said in the past applies under existing legislation because nothing changes as a result of this clause, which explicitly clarifies what is already the case.
Miss McIntosh: My point is that clause 27 is nothing more than discretionary; it does not impose an obligation on councils.
Alun Michael: Of course it does not, because all the clause does is to confirm our, and the vast majority of people's, understanding of what the law is. It merely puts the definition beyond doubt.
Miss McIntosh: The point is that when councils fail to clear litter, no penalty is imposed.
Alun Michael: Local authorities not using their powers is a different matter to the definition of litter. All that the clause deals with is the definition of litter. It is clarifying something that is already very clear in law and removing any doubt—should people feel that there is any doubt whatever. That is all that it does.
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Miss McIntosh: The Minister says that that is the purpose. However, I was staggered when, in a further reply to a parliamentary question on 17 November, he confirmed that the chewing gum segmentation study commissioned by the chewing gum action group had cost £60,170. That is an extraordinary amount to spend when all the study did was look at the different ways in which people disposed of chewing gum, without coming up with any conclusions.
Alun Michael: That is not what it did. It looked at people's motivation, their explanations and their description of their own behaviour. If the hon. Lady fails to take the sensible steps that we have taken to understand the problem before trying to tackle it, she will continue doing what she is doing today—tying herself in knots.
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Miss McIntosh: With respect, it is the Minister who is tying himself in knots. In his answer on 17 November, he said that the chewing gum action group report
''will assist by informing campaigns to change behaviour.''—[Official Report, House of Commons, 17 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 1472W.]
In answer to a question on 16 November, he said:
''We will launch a public awareness campaign in the coming year with the aim of delivering the behavioural change needed to prevent gum being dropped in the first place.''—[Official Report, House of Commons, 16 November 2004: Vol. 426, c. 1243W.]
Will he confirm that that has happened? As Wrigley and Cadbury Schweppes have said, there will be no change in behaviour whatever without that campaign.
Alun Michael: Yes, absolutely. It may have escaped the hon. Lady's notice, but the coming year has so far reached only 20 January; there is a considerable amount of the year to go, but a good deal of work is being done on designing the campaign. She referred to industry's involvement, and the group's work has not necessarily been easy, because the industry side obviously does not want the negatives of its product to be brought out. As was clear on the issue of dog fouling, there is a need for a challenging campaign if we are to see effective change in public behaviour, and that is precisely what we are working on.
Miss McIntosh: I think that it would have been helpful if such things had been in place when the Bill was introduced.
May I turn the Minister's attention to the costs involved? The hon. Member for Guildford elaborated on them, but I want to go into greater detail. Westminster city council has spoken of its concerns and sent a full response to the Minister and his Department. It said that it was particularly concerned that the proposed redefinition of gum and gum staining as litter in relation to section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 would place a duty on local authorities to keep streets clean of gum at all times. It was certain that such standards could not be met without a massive and disproportionate increase in street cleansing costs. The Minister said that the clause was not imposing a duty, but simply widening the definition, so can Westminster city council be more relaxed about this?
Alun Michael: I do wish that the hon. Lady would listen to what is said in answer to some of her comments. The clause does not place a new duty on anybody or change the definition; it clarifies the definition to make it clear that it means what local authorities and government generally believed it to mean. It merely puts the matter beyond doubt.
Miss McIntosh: But local authority representatives—not members of the Committee—are the very people whom the Minister is asking to apply the provisions, and, in their view, there are already adequate grounds for defining gum and smoking-related materials dropped on the public highway as litter.
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Westminster city council says that there are 420 miles of pavement in Westminster. Let us assume that 50 per cent. of those—mainly in residential areas—have little gum and rarely need cleaning, 25 per cent. require the cleaning of gum once a year, 15 per cent. require it twice a year and 10 per cent. require it four times a year. Given that gum clean-up cost £24,000 a mile in 2001 in Oxford street alone, the annual costs of gum clearance for this one council, which takes its responsibility seriously, are more than £9 million.
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