John Hemming MP

5.56.14pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 28th Sep 2005

John Hemming MP revealed the early results from the "State of the Nation's Public Toilets" survey by the British Toilet Association at the World Toilet Summit in Belfast.

"An early cut of the survey shows that, since the year 2000 (when the Audit Commission stopped collecting information) around 20% of public toilets have been closed. So far 113 of the survey forms have been analysed which is around 24% of the total of 468 authorities. This shows that the government's reduction of the priority of public sanitation is having a real impact."

"In the year 1999/2000 the Audit Commission decided it was not important to know whether or not the country has public toilets. With all the other pressures on local authorities to tick bureaucratic boxes, this ends up as pressure to close public toilets. There are no 'toilet targets' whilst there lots of targets for other things."

"The Far East considers public sanitation to be far more important than the West. The Malaysian Housing minister and the Mayor of Singapore have been sent to this summit whereas there is no interest from the British Government. People from 41 nations have come together to put this issue properly onto the public agenda."

"Tony Blair should not be surprised if people urinate in the streets when it is his government that has been putting pressure on councils to provide services other than public toilets."

"There are many people whose lives are affected by the lack of such faciliites. One in three gentlemen over the age of 60 have prostate problems and cannot just wait. Those people who take water tablets and those people who have Krohn's disease have to plan their lives on the basis of the availability of toilets. "

"The Summit has endorsed the 'Belfast Protocol' this is all about recognising the need for public sanitation. People like making jokes about toilets because it is a taboo subject, but it is not a subject that should not be talked about. Six thousand children in the developing world die a day as a result of a low level of sanitation. Diseases such as MRSA develop in the West because of a reliance on anti-biotics rather than good hygiene. This generates anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria which we then have difficulty curing. Good sanitation would reduce the numbers of people infected in the first instance. "

"Belfast City Council has been awarded the "2005 Loo of the year" prize for their efforts in public hygiene. Over 100 years ago there was no question as to the importance of public sanitation in improving public health. This is not something we should forget today and I complement Jack Sim, from Singapore, and the World Toilet Association and Richard Chisholm and the British Toilet Assocation for their efforts to make sure that this issue does not fall below the political radar."

ENDS

Note for Picture Editors

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17358094@N00/47420616/

Is a publicly available picture of John Hemming MP speaking at the World Toilet Summit.

www.2005worldtoiletsummit.org