The Deregulation Bill, which is currently on its way through Parliament, proposes that the maximum amount councils should be allowed to charge residents in fixed penalties should be lowered to £60, from its current level of up to £1,000.
The Bill also covers a wide range of areas of legislation including social services and licensing.
Clause 43 of the Bill seeks to ‘de-criminalise’ some household waste offences so that in future they would only be considered as ‘civil’ offences. By doing this, the Bill would reduce the maximum punishment that councils can impose on householders. Previously the Environmental Protection Act had allowed councils to impose some criminal sanctions on householders.
London Councils, the body representing the capital’s local authorities, has claimed that the lower penalty would no longer act as a barrier to anti-social behaviour. Plans to amend the legislation have also been backed by the Local Government Association.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, London Councils’ head of environment and transport Katharina Winbeck, said: “I think it is quite important, but it is only ever a last resort. Local authority officers will do all of the things that they can do before they will go down the route of issuing a notice. It is a last resort but knowing that local authorities can do it affects people’s behaviour.”
Ms Winbeck added that although councils in London do not typically issue a significant number of fixed penalty notices – with London Councils estimating that just over 100 have been issued in recent years –the measure does act as an effective deterrent.
“It will become a lot more difficult to get people to do what you need them to do,” she added.
Administration
According to London Councils, proposals contained within the Bill to amend the London Local Authorities Act will also add a number of administrative steps to the process of issuing penalties.
In a briefing note on the issue, London Councils stated: “Decriminalising the waste enforcement regime is sensible, and in many ways is copying the innovative work done by London Councils in the LLAA 2007. However, the system that is proposed in the Bill’s provisions is over-complex, time and cost-consuming for boroughs to operate and, in London halves the penalty for this anti-social and unhygienic behaviour.”
The Bill is currently at the committee stage in the House of Lords, where Peers debate whether the laws should be amended.
Amendments
Councils have backed a bid to amend the clause, with the Local Government Association also supporting a delete clause put forward by the Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Tope, which would removal the proposals from the legislation.
Speaking on the subject in the Lords last month, Lord Tope said: “Any councillor, particularly any councillor who has served for any time, would tell you: never mess with refuse collection within a year of an election, yet here we have a clause in which the government are seeking fundamentally to interfere with refuse collection within a few months of a general election.”
He added: “The effect of this clause will remove the power of local authorities to prescribe their refuse collection arrangements. It will reduce the fine for an offence from the current £1,000, which is a penalty few wish to incur, to a civil penalty of £60.”
“This measure is in a Deregulation Bill. It does not deregulate: it removes a system that seems to be working reasonably well – I have not seen the evidence that is not working reasonably well – and substitutes that for a far more difficult and complex situation that nobody is going to understand.”
A date for further examination of the Bill is yet to be scheduled, and it is now expected to be debated again by Lords in the New Year. London Councils has said it remains optimistic that its concerns will be listened to.
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