Litter inquiry: terms of reference

• Inquiry: Litter
• Communities and Local Government Committee

Litter remains an issue of local public concern, with levels of littering and fly-tipping failing to reduce substantially, despite campaigns and publicity aimed at changing public behaviour, and despite a suite of powers and responsibilities for local councils and other bodies enshrined in legislation. The costs of managing litter and fly-tipping are significant – Keep Britain Tidy puts a £1 billion plus annual price tag on managing litter and its knock-on impacts nationally.

Terms of Reference

The Committee invites submissions on how significant a problem littering and fly-tipping is, and whether current government policies are adequate and give local authorities enough autonomy to tackle the problem in local communities.

Written submissions are invited from interested parties on:

• What problems do litter and fly-tipping create for local communities-is the situation improving or deteriorating?
• How effective are the actions of those responsible for managing waste in the local environment? What more should local councils, the Environment Agency, and Government funded bodies such as WRAP do?
• Does the current statute, regulation and guidance set an effective framework to minimise litter and fly-tipping. What, if any, further changes are required?
• What roles do and should the private citizen and campaign and action groups have in tackling litter?

The Committee particularly welcomes any evidence from local authority scrutiny committees.

Photographs

The Committee welcomes photographs illustrating problems with litter and fly-tipping and also before and after photographs where areas have been successfully cleaned up. Please tweet your photographs to @commonsclg, using the hashtag #litterpix

Deadline

The Committee asks for written submissions in accordance with the guidelines below by 2.00pm on Thursday, 16 October 2014. As a guideline submissions should be no longer than 3,000 words.
Submissions should be uploaded onto the website in word format no later than the deadline.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select Committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch Committees