Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Earl Russell

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

No.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, for setting out the case for these amendments. I am also grateful for the comments made in support from the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Elliott, among others. I will refer to other colleagues in a moment.

I think that we can all agree that fly-tipping blights communities, adds to the burdens on local authorities and there is a need to take action on this. I welcome the fact that my colleague, Mary Creagh MP, in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as referenced by a number of noble Lords, has this very day issued a press release urging councils to crush more fly-tipping vehicles. She also issued new guidance for local authorities to crackdown on waste crime and ensured that we have our first overview for councils, offering clear instructions on the identifying, seizing and disposing of vehicles and strengthening deterrents. She also gave guidance for maximising public awareness and ensuring that the Environment Agency has new technology and boosted funding to put more waste crime officers on the ground. By happy coincidence, that happened this very morning, ahead of our debate here today. The statutory guidance in Clause 9 will help in that regard.

I will now comment on the amendments before the House, starting with Amendment 13. I note the technical issue mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. I would have referred to it had he not done so. I endorse that. I also note the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on the issue in Amendment 13.

I recognise the financial burden that clearing fly-tipped waste places on landowners. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that, currently, where there is sufficient evidence, as per the point made by the noble Earl, fly-tippers can be prosecuted. On conviction, a cost order can be made by the court so that a landowner’s costs can be recovered from the perpetrator. If sufficient evidence is not available for a successful prosecution—this is, again, a point mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell—there will not be sufficient evidence to force a fly-tipper to take responsibility for the clean-up either. If there is a prosecution, the clean-up can, in effect, be added to the sentence. It is therefore unclear how Amendment 13, by addressing this in statutory guidance, would help, when a criminal prosecution is already the best route for the desired outcome.

I note that Amendment 21, which was moved in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and had the support of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, seeks in effect to place a duty on waste authorities to clear up waste left by fly-tippers. Again, I fully understand and share the sentiment behind the amendment. It is legitimate to ask why a farmer, landowner or occupier of any land should be liable for clean-up costs. As I have said to the House, where there is a conviction, the courts currently have the necessary powers to make the offender meet the clean-up costs. We encourage local authorities to investigate all incidents of fly-tipping, and the guidance today is clear evidence of the Government’s willingness—

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment. As he explained, it would allow the Secretary of State to include serious and organised waste crime as a strategic priority for the National Crime Agency. We have all agreed that waste crime blights local communities, that it damages the environment and that serious organised crime—which is on the rise—is a factor in that. The Environment Agency is now regularly alerted to new illegal waste sites.

As evidence for the noble Earl that the Government take this matter seriously, the Environment Agency’s additional waste crime enforcement budget for 2025-26 has been increased by more than 50% to £15.6 million, a £5.6 million increase on the previous year. That is because we recognise that there is a potential area of concern here. It has allowed the Environment Agency to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource by 43 full-time staff in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams, as well as bringing additional staff for enforcement duties under our major waste reforms.

The Environment Agency works closely, as the noble Earl mentioned, with the National Crime Agency and the Joint Unit on Waste Crime. There are multi-agency prevention and disruption tactics taking place, as well as investigatory activities to impact successfully on criminals. Between the organisations, they have developed enhanced intelligence-sharing and an enhanced approach to targeting organised criminal gangs. We are looking, with other law enforcement bodies, at recommending and introducing new technical capabilities to look at how we can, through an agreed strategy, target waste crime.

Therefore, there is a role for the National Crime Agency but, as the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Pannick, alluded to, the National Crime Agency is not the lead agency for tackling waste crime. That is the Environment Agency. Under the Crime and Courts Act 2013, the strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency need to reflect changing threat levels in respect of different crime types. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, here, who would have been lead Minister on the 2013 Act that established the National Crime Agency. I served as a shadow Minister at the time, when dealing with that Bill. Section 3 of that Act is deliberately silent on types of organised crime because it does not want to fetter the National Crime Agency—the very point the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made in relation to the Home Secretary’s discretion to skew the National Crime Agency’s priorities. Therefore, to insert a crime type, however well-meaning or needed, would be to undermine the principles of Section 3 of the 2013 Act.

In short, the Government fully agree with the sentiment underpinning the amendment. We take waste crime extremely seriously; the increase in the budget is evidence of that, as is the co-operation between the NCA and the Environment Agency. I hope that with those comments, the noble Earl will agree that his approach of tying the National Crime Agency to specific targets would not be as helpful as he had hoped and that he can withdraw his amendment.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and thank everyone else who has spoken in this debate. This might be an unusual move but the truth is that waste crime is out of control. It is interlinked and intertwined with all these other serious forms of crime. Under the 2013 Act, it may be under the Home Secretary’s priority to deem waste crime as coming under the National Crime Agency. If the Minister had said to me that the Home Secretary will do that, I would absolutely have withdrawn the amendment. The truth is that that is not the case. The problem continues to grow and is out of control.

I very much welcome everything that is being done in this space. I recognise the work that the Environment Agency is doing. I am thankful to its staff who are working to clear up Kidlington and other sites. I also welcome the extra budget and new technology. I know the Government announced just last week that drones will be used, but frankly, they should have been used all along. If waste crime were dealt with as a serious organised crime issue, these matters would be intertwined and done already. I therefore have no choice but to test the opinion of the House on this matter because waste crime is a serious issue. It is not being addressed and is not part of the responsibility of the National Crime Agency.

Police Reform White Paper

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Earl Russell

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Starting with the question of royal protection, if the noble Lord will forgive me, I will not comment on that, because we do not normally comment on those issues in a public way. At some point, we will obviously make some further statements on it, but I do not wish to open that discussion now. On his comments on rural funding, we are as part of this proposal looking at reviewing the formula that currently exists within police funding. The police settlement that we announced a couple of weeks ago put significant additional resources into policing, but we recognise the need to modernise the funding formula, so part of the review that we are undertaking now will be on how we do that very task.

At a local level, there will still be somebody accountable politically for policing, but what I am trying to do, and what we are trying to do in the Home Office, is address the fact that at the moment we have police and crime commissioners, which is a patchwork model because of the advent of mayors. We have another pile of mayors coming on stream very shortly. We have some areas where there will not be a mayor, but nor will there be a police and crime commissioner in future, so we are still going to review those organisational models. At the end of this process, there will still be somebody who is accountable for policing, but not in the directly elected way, solely on police and crime issues, as the police and crime commissioner currently is.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Serious organised waste crime is a national disgrace that is costing the UK economy over £1 billion a year. The Environment Agency, as a regulatory body, appears to be ill-equipped and fundamentally unable to control it. These police reforms offer a co-ordinated approach to serious organised crime, yet I can find no mention at all of waste crime in the plans, so can the Minister confirm whether it is the Government’s intention to give the new national police service responsibility for tackling organised waste crime?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Environment Agency currently has a role in managing waste crime, but I think it is important that we put some focus on the fact that it has become increasingly clear, and this is a relatively new phenomenon, that serious organised crime is behind many of the large illegal waste dumps around the country at the moment. Our effort to improve performance will involve regional and national police forces, regional organised crime units, serious crime, nationally, and the National Crime Agency, over time, to look at how better we can tackle serious organised crime on a UK-wide basis, with support from the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Serious organised crime now manifests itself in illegal waste tips and could manifest itself in drug importation, weapons importation or a range of other things. The key thing is that we have some national co-ordination of regional crime units and national units to look at serious organised crime.