1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the use of fixed-penalty notices by local authorities in Wales? OAQ(5)0148(FLG)

I thank the Member for the question. Llywydd, it is for each local authority to determine its own policy and approach to the use of fixed-penalty notices. The Welsh Government supports their use when deployed as a response to genuine problems, issued sensibly, and enforced even-handedly.

Thank you for that reply, Cabinet Secretary. Last year, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council issued only two fixed-penalty notices, and Torfaen County Borough Council 13. However, Newport City Council issued 840 notices, compared to under 300 in previous years. Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council issued over 1,400 notices last year. What reason can the Cabinet Secretary give for the wide inconsistency in the number of fixed-penalty notices issued by local authorities in south-east Wales? And what assurances can he give that they are not being used as a means of increasing revenue only?

Well, Llywydd, the Member is quite right to point to the variation in the way that different local authorities deploy fixed-penalty notices, but that is because there is a repertoire of actions that local authorities can take, including court action, and some local authorities use a different mix of responses to others. And I don’t think it is for the Welsh Government to decide how local authorities should deploy the different responses available to them, and the combination of those responses, in their own localities. I agree with the point the Member made at the end of his question, that local authorities must use fixed-penalty notices as a proper response to genuine problems, and that the revenue that they raise is there to address those problems and not as a revenue-raising measure in its own right.

Public Health England is arguing that parents who leave their cars idling outside schools should be fined, because of the air pollution problem. And I’m wondering, given that the City of Cardiff Council has very effectively used fixed penalties, using cameras on the back of buses, to prevent cars going into bus lanes, what powers Cardiff council might have to tackle a similar problem outside school gates in Cardiff?

Well, I thank Jenny Rathbone for that question. I saw the advice that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, with Public Health England, had published last week, with guidelines calling for clean air zones to be set up outside schools, hospitals and care homes, for example. They don’t, I think, in that document, refer directly to a fixed-penalty regime; they talk about the possible use of bye-laws and other actions to support no-vehicle-idling areas. Given what we know about the pressure on air quality, this seems to me a very valuable report, and I know that colleagues in the Welsh Government will be looking at it, to see whether there are any actions from it that we should think of taking in Wales, including making powers available to local authorities, if that is thought to be the best way of enforcing such a regime.

As a former councillor, I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government will intimately empathise with the plethora of demands that low-level environmental crime places on the caseload of local councillors. And outside of the portfolio of local authority responses that the Cabinet Secretary has already mentioned, including court action, the use of fixed-penalty notices can be an effective tool in helping to tackle low-level environmental crime, which includes dropped litter, dog fouling, and debilitating noise from dwellings and licensed premises. Cabinet Secretary, how does the Welsh Government view the value of local authorities using fixed-term penalty notices as one measure amongst others to deliver a better community for the people they serve? And how can best practice be disseminated?

Well, I agree with the Member that this is one measure amongst others. Fixed-penalty notices are a very familiar part of the repertoire available to local authorities. They were first introduced as long ago as the 1950s. And while I understand some of the concerns that are sometimes raised about them being used as a revenue-raising tool, it’s important to note that, right across Wales, £1 million was raised by local authorities through fixed-penalty notices in dealing with low-level environmental problems of the sort that Rhianon Passmore has referred to, while the environmental cost of cleaning up litter to Welsh local authorities last year was £70 million. So, it is a relatively small contribution to dealing with the problem, and I don’t think it’s an unfair point for me to make to individuals who sometimes complain about the way that local authorities deploy fixed-penalty notices in relation to litter, dog fouling and so on, that the answer is mostly in their own hands, ‘Don’t drop litter and there’ll be no fixed-penalty notice to worry about.’