Sorry, I thought the noble Lord was gearing up to make further comments.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling the amendments. I agree with him and everybody else who has spoken that fly-tipping, littering and dog fouling are not victimless crimes; they blight our communities. I find it very annoying to see not just dog mess in bushes but stuff thrown out of car windows and stuff left on trains that is not picked up. An important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, is that some of this is also about improving behavioural change and encouraging people not to tolerate this. Never mind fines or responsibilities, it is about not tolerating this as a society.

Having said that, the amendments themselves are unnecessary in this case, and I will try to explain why. Local authorities can already issue fixed-penalty notices for littering of up to £500, which is greater than the proposed penalties in the Amendment. In addition, local authorities already have the power to issue public space protection orders to tackle persistent anti-social behaviour, including dog fouling. As we have debated, Clause 4 raises the maximum penalty for the breach of PSPOs from £100 to £500, so there is already an upward target in terms of the amount of potential fine. This is not meant as a snide point, but I say to the noble Lord that the Dog (Fouling of Land) Act 1996 has been repealed and replaced; I cannot amend it because it does not exist any more.

The argument I put to the House is that local authorities are best placed to set the level of these penalties in their area, taking into account the characteristics of the community, which might even include ability to pay. Outside of issuing a fixed-penalty notice, those prosecuted for littering can also face, on conviction, a fine of up to £2,500. I do not believe that increasing the fine available to someone who fails to give their name and address to an enforcement officer issuing them a fine is appropriate, with a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale—currently £1,000—being the appropriate level in these circumstances.

Amendment 38 makes a very important point about littering on public transport becoming a specific offence. I pay tribute to the people whom the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, mentioned: the people who go up and down trains, collecting rubbish on behalf of the company. They are also the people who helped protect us last week in the LNER attack. They fulfil a very important function as a whole.

However, the British Transport Police and the railway operators already have the power to enforce the railway by-Laws and prevent unacceptable behaviour on both heavy and light railway. That includes fines of up to £1,000. On the noble Lord’s late-night train back, in theory, a £1,000 fine for littering could be issued. By-laws are controlled by each individual devolved area, which will have its own by-laws around littering and enforcement.

That takes me to the other point—I do not mean to be cocky in the way I say this—that the amendments, as proposed, seek to amend the law in Scotland and Wales as well as for England, and they deal with matters that are devolved to Scotland and to the Senedd in Wales. As such, it would not be appropriate to include such measures in the Bill without the consent of the legislatures, which at the moment we do not have and have not sought.

Finally, I think it is of benefit to noble Lords if I briefly outline the steps the Government are taking to reduce littering among our communities. There is a Pride in Place Strategy, which sets out how Government will support local action—the very point that the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, mentioned—by bringing forward statutory enforcement guidance on littering, modernising the code of practice that outlines the cleaning standards expected of local authorities and refreshing best practice guidance on powers available to local councils to force land and building owners to clean up their premises.

Having had the opportunity to debate all these issues, I think that the amendments make an extremely important point, and I am not trying to downgrade the points that have been made by noble Lords. Litter is an extremely important issue, but the approach taken in these amendments is not one that I can support—but not because I am not interested in the issue itself. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment and not to move the other amendments, but we can still discuss it further at some point, no doubt on Report.