Crime and Policing Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of these amendments. In particular, as a landowner and someone who has had fly-tipping on their property, I can say that it is extremely dangerous, even with small amounts of fly-tipping, whereby you have the fridges and the small amounts of wood or timber, particularly where you have livestock and machinery and where you have children. It brings disease and all sorts of trouble. So, there is that small level of fly-tipping, but then we also have the larger waste crimes, which are carried out by criminal gangs.

I know that, in Northern Ireland, we had a huge site at Mobuoy, outside of Londonderry. Two criminals have been prosecuted and jailed: one got 21 months and one got one year. Between them, however, their criminal gangs and their businesses are believed to have benefited to in the region of £33 million from that dumping and that waste disposal on to individual people’s land. It is absolutely criminal and we need to do more to clamp down on this, otherwise it is going to expand. Obviously, in Northern Ireland we suffer as well from cross-border fly-tipping and people coming across the border to tip their rubbish in Northern Ireland. But in general, it is something that really needs to be clamped down on, simply because there are not enough convictions and there are not enough people being caught.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to respond from our Bench to this group of amendments. Fly-tipping is anything from the illegal disposal of rubbish from the back of a car boot to the more serious organised dumping of rubbish. There is no doubt that it is a growing problem that is out of control and harming our communities, damaging our environment and having a disproportionate impact on our rural communities. All too often, it is farmers and innocent landowners who end up paying the cost for other people’s criminality; the criminals all too often go undetected and unpunished.

The Government’s own statistics show that around 20% of all our waste generated ends up being illegally managed. Government figures released just this morning show that, for the year 2024-25, local authorities in England dealt with 1.26 million incidents—an increase of 9% from the 1.15 million incidents reported in 2023-24. This highlights the absolute scale of the problem, which is relentless and is only growing worse. While profits can range up to £2,500 per lorry load, this is low risk and high reward.

We have a lot of sympathy and general support for the amendments, but we do not feel that any of them, in and of themselves, offer the appropriate solutions. Amendment 13 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Cameron, seeks to ensure that the state’s guidance on fly-tipping makes the person who is responsible, rather than a landowner or the community, liable for the cost of clearing up the mess. We entirely understand and share the concerns that this amendment seeks to address, but this is not a workable answer. The blight of fly-tipping and illegal waste dumping causes immense frustration for communities —especially innocent landowners who find themselves facing significant costs through no fault of their own. It is wholly right that those responsible for such environmental harm bear the financial burden for their actions. We fundamentally support the “polluter pays” principle.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

The argument could be summarised as letting perfect be the enemy of good. I am trying to suggest that seizing vehicles, making the polluter pay, if you can catch them, and putting points on their licence are steps towards solving the problem. They are not the silver bullet—there is not one. This will need a range of measures, including the issues around waste tips.

This would also give an incentive to the victims to actually collect evidence, sometimes at great personal risk. If you know that you can provide evidence and that there is a route for the police to prosecute these people and recover costs, it is an incentive to do something about it. At the moment, in rural areas, there is simply a belief that nothing is going to happen, so you might as well clear it up yourself or just leave it there. With these large waste dumps, you have no choice but to leave it there. I ask the noble Earl to consider that these are small steps that should be encouraged.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

To be clear, I do not disagree with the noble Lord—they are small steps and welcome. I am not against them as small steps; they will help. There is a bigger, broader problem out there that also needs tackling.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Does that mean that the noble Earl will support the amendment in the Lobby?

[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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Moved by

[Earl Russell]

18: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Waste crime: NCA priorityIn section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 (Strategic Priorities), after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) When determining the strategic priorities of the NCA under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must determine that serious and organised waste crime is a strategic priority for the NCA, or any successor body, and ensure that it is included as a strategic priority for the agency when it issues its annual reports.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State, when setting strategic priorities for the National Crime Agency under section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, to include serious and organised waste crime as one of those priorities.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in opening this group on waste crime, I thank my noble friend Lady Doocey for her support. Serious and organised waste crime is now a multi-billion-pound scourge on our economy, countryside, environment and communities. It is out of control, and it is only getting worse. Figures released this very morning show an 11% rise in large-scale fly-tipping: some 52,000 tipper lorry load incidents in 2024-25, up from 47,000 incidents in 2023-24. Defra estimates that this alone will cost local authorities £19.3 million. From Hoad’s Wood to Kidlington to Wigan, serious organised criminal networks are leaving a trail of environmental and economic damage across our country. The Government’s own data suggests that up to a fifth of all waste may be passing through criminal hands.

The national cost in lost revenue, redemption and enforcement runs between £1 billion and £4 billion each year. One site alone, Hoad’s Wood, cost £15 million to clear. That single clear-up equalled the Environment Agency’s entire annual waste crime budget, draining funds intended for flood defences from the Environment Agency.

New illegal sites continue to emerge almost daily. Since the Environment and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, published its report last October, more large-scale waste dumps have been discovered than the agency itself had previously known existed. That should worry and alarm this House in equal measure.

Our systems are broken, and broken systems are creating broken outcomes. The fear of uncovering the true scale, or of bearing the financial consequences, has allowed the crisis to fester and to grow, to the organised criminals’ advantage. My amendment responds by proposing to make serious organised waste crime a statutory priority for the National Crime Agency. It would require the Secretary of State, when setting the National Crime Agency’s priorities under Section 3 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, to include the threat and to ensure that it features in the National Crime Agency’s annual reporting.

That simple amendment would move waste crime from operational consideration to unequivocal accountability. I came across the issue through Hoad’s Wood, an ancient woodland and SSSI, where a vast illegal dump was allowed to accumulate, prompting a ministerial direction and a clear-up. That episode revealed a much wider criminal enterprise: sophisticated networks, often linked to drugs, firearms, and modern slavery, exploiting waste crime because it offers high-profit and low-risk reward.

Our enforcement architecture is simply not fit for purpose. Intelligence still vanishes in what has been described as a Bermuda triangle between various agencies. Local councils face clean-up bills that they cannot meet; communities endure polluted landscapes, falling property values and long-term health risks. Most sites are never cleared; prosecutions are rare, and often overly lenient when handed out; and proceeds of crime are seldom, if ever, recovered.

The Environment Agency, as a regulator, cannot fight these criminal cartels alone. Its dual role, licensing legitimate operators while tackling organised gangs, leaves it underresourced and overstretched. A mere handful of staff in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime cannot match adversaries with the capacity to purchase land, create fake companies and launder millions of pounds through waste crime.

Elevating waste crime to the National Crime Agency’s strategic priorities would change all of that in an instant. It would bring forensic accounting, integrated threat assessments, and co-ordinated operations linking the National Crime Agency, the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, the Environment Agency, HMRC, the police, and Border Force agencies. We have seen this model work against trafficking and cyber crime, with combined intelligence, freezing assets, and dismantling networks.

That would also strengthen parliamentary oversight. Ministers would be accountable for performance and resourcing, as they are for the National Crime Agency priorities. Waste crime would no longer be seen as an environmental issue on the margins but recognised as part of our national security infrastructure. The Government’s forthcoming White Paper and the new national police service provide a perfect and timely opportunity to rewrite this fight against the waste criminals to make it fit for the 21st-century threats we face.

Waste crime fits that description: national, organised, profitable and currently evading fragmented local resources. By hardwiring it into the National Crime Agency priorities now, through the Crime and Policing Bill, we can ensure that it receives the strategic response it demands.

Serious organised waste crime demands a serious organised response. This amendment is precise, proportionate and necessary. It would ensure that, when national priorities are set, serious and organised waste crime cannot be ignored. I urge Ministers to seize this opportunity for systematic reform. I beg to move.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, serious and organised waste crime—fly-tipping on an industrial scale—is poisoning our soil and waterways and, at least until fairly recently, was a largely hidden scandal costing billions of pounds in environmental and clean-up costs. Desecration of the land is not a local nuisance; it is now a significant part of the organised crime playbook, along with drugs and trafficking. The scale of this problem means that the Government need to show leadership now and act without delay. The new guidance that the Government propose in this Bill is welcome, but it falls dangerously short of what is needed. Reminding councils of the powers that they already have is simply not good enough. Minds need to be focused; communities up and down the country are crying out for real enforcement. I urge the House to support Amendment 18.

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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.

Crime and Policing Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Lab)]

My Lords, I seek to make a brief contribution to the discussion on this amendment. Noble Lords might ask themselves why somebody whose political experience was predominantly in a metropolitan area would seek to speak on rural issues, but I grew up in Weardale, in County Durham, and my mother still lives in the dale. From growing up there and from contemporary experiences, I know that the issue of rural crime is felt very keenly by communities in rural areas and can damage the fabric of those communities in a way that makes them feel further under threat.

To the list of examples of crime given by the noble Baroness who spoke just a few moments ago I can add the stealing of oil from fuel tanks, the stealing of logs from log stores, and drink-driving, which we know is more prevalent in rural areas than it is in urban areas. That is why I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment to reviewing and reducing the drink-driving limits for the whole country.

In the context of this amendment, we need to reflect on why some of these issues occur in rural areas and what the root causes of the lack of response may be. Many rural communities have a greater sense of trust and of community spirit, but that can have a downside, in that it can make people more susceptible to fraud and more liable to be scammed, particularly online. Alongside the amendments under consideration, I welcome the measures to introduce stronger investigatory powers and a stronger national approach to such crimes. Although crime can affect people anywhere, for those living in rural or isolated areas without support around it can be quite devastating.

There is a challenge around the whole-scale withdrawal of police stations and a police presence from many of our rural communities. That has resulted in one particular case that I am aware of, because it affected my mother. She was subject to the theft of some logs from land that she owns. The police response in that area was, “We suggest you go out and buy some cameras from Amazon to see if you can record this”. I do not think that that is sufficient, appropriate or suitable in the circumstances. It implies that a small-scale crime such as that is of no grand consequence, but to somebody like my mother, it has a very real consequence, because it has affected her fuel supply over the winter period.

There is an issue about the particular nature of crimes that are more prevalent in rural areas. As we come to Report, I hope we can look more fully at ways in which the Government can work alongside police and crime commissioners, while they are still in existence, and whatever their successor bodies are, to ensure that rural areas do not feel second best when it comes to crime prevention and community safety.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Miller, to which I have added my name. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, for his support, and those who have spoken already.

The amendment addresses an issue that has for too long been treated as peripheral: the growing crisis of rural crime. For those who live and work in our countryside, there is the reality of financial loss, fear, and a deep sense of vulnerability and isolation. After rising to around £52.8 million in 2023, the estimated cost of rural crime stood at around £44 million in 2024. Despite some improvements, the resources devoted to addressing this remain inadequate. Freedom of information requests from my party submitted last April uncovered the shocking fact that only 0.4% of the police workforce across England and Wales is dedicated to rural crime teams. In Norfolk, for example, there are just two dedicated full-time officers, and some forces have no rural crime forces at all.

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Moved by

[Earl Russell]

484: After Clause 196, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels (1) A water or water and sewerage company (“C”) commits an offence where C has—(a) failed to meet its pollution performance commitment level for three consecutive years, or(b) experienced an increase in serious pollution levels for three consecutive years. (2) For the purposes of this section—(a) “water or water and sewerage company” means companies which are responsible for the provision of water, or water and sewerage, services and which are regulated by Ofwat and the Environment Agency,(b) “pollution performance commitment level” means the level of performance on pollution that the company has committed to deliver, and which is reported against by Ofwat in its annual water company performance report, and(c) “total pollution incidents per 10,000km2” and “serious pollution incidents” mean the relevant figures under those headings reported by the Environment Agency in its annual environmental performance report.(3) If guilty of an offence under this section, C is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to a fine;(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause creates an offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 484 on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell, who is unable to be here, I shall also speak to Amendment 485 in this group on pollution. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her support for both. The amendments address the critical, environmental and public trust issue of the persistent and systematic failure of water companies to stem the flow of pollution into our rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The amendments are designed to work in tandem as a linked pair of provisions specifically targeting persistent and sustained underperformance. They are not designed to punish one-off incidents. They are a measured response to prolonged and sustained regulatory failures that, in the public’s eye, have become a matter of criminal neglect.

Amendment 484 would insert a new clause into the regulatory framework, creating a clear corporate criminal offence for a water or sewage company. That offence would be triggered when a company already regulated by Ofwat or the Environment Agency either fails to meet its pollution performance commitment level for three consecutive years or experiences an increase in serious pollution levels for three consecutive years. The pollution performance commitment level used is the exact target that companies commit to under the existing regulatory framework, which Ofwat reports on annually. The data regarding serious pollution incidents is similarly drawn directly from the Environment Agency’s annual environmental performance data.

A three-year threshold is a deliberate and calibrated response. We recognise that water companies can face individual problems from climate change, weather events, rapid population growth and other unforeseen circumstances. However, when failures persist year after year, are reported in black and white in regulatory reports but nothing is done, that is a different matter. By setting this three-year window, we would offer companies ample opportunity to correct their course. If they failed to do so, as a result of this amendment it could result in the matters being criminal.

Amendment 485 would build directly upon this foundation by creating personal criminal liability for senior managers. Liability would arise where a corporate offence under Amendment 484 was committed and the individual had failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. We have adopted a functional or a robust definition of senior manager, mirroring successful legal models in health and safety and economic crime already in legislation. It would apply to anyone who plays a significant role in making decisions about how the company’s relevant activities are managed or organised. This ensures that no one could evade their responsibility through misleading job titles or a corporate web of complex structures.

Critically, this amendment includes built-in protections to ensure fairness. The core requirement is to “take all reasonable steps”. A manager who could demonstrate that they have done this would have a clear path to acquittal. This structure would pierce the corporate veil without being reckless. Decisions regarding budgets and infrastructure carry personal weight for those who operate at the top.

Although there has been change, there is a lot that still needs to be done. Bill payers are facing a 26% increase in their bills and, in 2025 alone, supply interruptions across England and Wales rose by 8%. Even more concerning is the 60% increase in serious category 1 and category 2 incidents, which climbed to 75 in 2024. I recognise that we have had the Water (Special Measures) Act, the Cunliffe review and the recent White Paper and that there is more legislation to come. We welcome a lot of the measures, particularly those in the White Paper. Regulators have also imposed record fines, some as high as £90 million, but we must confront the reality that we may have reached the limits of a solely fines-based model.

When penalties are too modest, they just become the cost of doing business; when they are too punitive, they risk bringing down the very water companies that we are trying to sanction. Despite these fines, executives continue to draw substantial bonuses. Shareholders continue to receive massive dividends, while the environment bears the scars. The public is being asked to fund a staggering £104 billion in the promised AMP8 investment, and much of it is publicly underwritten through government schemes. We must have a statutory mechanism that ensures that this money delivers verifiable environmental gains rather than just being siphoned into higher gearing and profits.

Some critics may argue that these amendments will deter talent and overburden regulators. I disagree. These provisions are carefully calibrated to protect those who work in this industry, and they could do exactly the opposite. They could attract into the industry those people we need who are motivated to make change. Having that protection of the “reasonable steps” defence could help to attract the very talent we need. These measures are in line with requirements of the Environment Act that the polluter must pay. For too long this has not happened, and individual poor performance has been allowed to pass unchallenged.

These amendments provide the precise tools needed to bridge the gap between reporting failure and enforced change. Persistent pollution is not a technical glitch or an oversight; it is a substantial betrayal of public trust and an environmental duty. These issues need more thought than I have seen to date from the Government, despite the legislation coming forward.

The new water regulator, when established, must have the necessary tools to hold individual companies and individual corporate members within them to account personally for any serious and persistent failings; otherwise, it will not succeed, just as other regulators have not. I hope that the Government will view these amendments as a timely enhancement to their own thinking and plans for further reform. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I love these amendments and wish I had tabled them myself. They are excellent. Water companies dumping sewage into rivers has been illegal for years: it is just this and the previous Government’s refusal to act that has let it continue without serious consequences.

The legislation allows Ministers to set a bar of what is acceptable behaviour and, so far, every politician in charge has refused to say what is and is not a major failure. The result of this political cowardice is that water companies continue to make a profit out of polluting our waterways and beaches, and the people in charge continue to collect their big pay cheques and bonuses.

Regulators such as Ofwat have been in bed with the water industry bosses, and the Environment Agency has lost staff and legitimacy. Labour are wedded to private ownership of water and refuse to consider public ownership, even though it would be the most popular legislation they could enact this Parliament. I keep making suggestions about how Labour can get some voters back, but it is not listening.

These companies are fleecing bill payers with the excuse that they need to carry out the investment they have failed to do for decades. They have taken the public’s money and given it directly to shareholders. They have run up debts to pay even higher dividends and the bill payers are now paying for those debts. What is going to stop them doing this all again?

These amendments take a direct route to stopping pollution by making this personal to the people at the top. If they do not spend the money to invest and reduce pollution, then that is a crime. They are taking the public’s money and failing to improve. My own preference would be to put them on long-term community service cleaning up the sewage from our beaches, waterways and riverbanks. I would probably put them in special uniforms so that everybody passing by would know exactly who they are. I would also put a complete ban on dividend and bonus payments.

I am happy—she says, through gritted teeth—to support this more moderate suggestion, as being something the Minister might accept. I would not give them three years to turn it around either, but setting some sort of firm deadline would be preferable to the inaction of this, and the last, Government.

Finally, the best way of stopping the crime of water companies dumping sewage in our rivers is to take them into public ownership. Reduce bills by reducing the money wasted on debt repayments and replace the current set of overpaid bosses with people who can do the job and care about our environment.

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[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has spoken. That was a more interesting group of amendments than I expected it to be. I apologise—at the start I should have declared my interest as a board member and director of the Water Retail Company.

This has been an interesting debate. My amendment was not really about the ownership or privatisation of water—my party has a middle way on that—but about ensuring that the Government have the tools to change the behaviour and direction of water company executives. I take the Minister’s point about the £140 billion, but a lot of that is underwritten. We need that to be invested to get the change. I recognise the issues of climate change and the problems that we face, but this amendment is carefully crafted and is about adding this extra tool to the toolbox.

Fundamentally, my worry is that when we create the new regulator, which I welcome, it needs to be set up to succeed and to deliver—when, frankly, no other regulator has to date delivered in this space. My worry is that fines alone may not be enough to change corporate behaviour. I do not want to come back in another five or 10 years, when the climate has moved on and the problems we face are worse, and see that more money has gone in but the systems have not changed. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, and I thank all those who have spoken.

Amendment 484 withdrawn.

Police Reform White Paper

Earl Russell Excerpts

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.

Crime and Policing Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, and I apologise for arriving a little late to the scene. The intermediate amendment before this one seemed to disappear suddenly and caught me sprinting down the corridors, so I crave your Lordships’ indulgence. I will cut most of what I was going to say, mainly because it has been so well introduced by the noble Baroness.

This is an important amendment, and I support it. These are two-way supply chains of information, and they are as important to us—perhaps more so—as any other supply chain for our national security, our economy and the basic functioning of our society. Those who wish us harm are aware of this, are experimenting with ways of disrupting and damaging these cables and are finding ways to attack even the deepest of them. The Commons debate on the report to which the noble Baroness referred pointed out that deliberate damage can be denied or made to look accidental, and that undersea cables governance falls between eight departments, seven agencies and numerous private sector actors. The need for co-ordinated updating of the legislation is clear. The Government response basically agreed with this.

To conclude, these are perilous times of escalating insecurity, and they highlight how vital yet vulnerable these cables clearly are. Wider legislation may be required in due course—although goodness knows when—but in the meantime, we should act now as legislators in this Bill to update, clarify, and deter interference with, and attack on, this vital infrastructure. I thank your Lordships again for your tolerance.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. It offers a small change to an historic Act of Parliament, but it relates to the very lifeblood of modern society: the data on which we all depend. The UK is a crucial junction box, with 64 submarine cables; 75% of transatlantic capacity goes through just two cables, landing in Cornwall.

Clearly, this Act was designed for a very different time, and the penalties are not a deterrent and have not been fully updated, despite the Act having been updated in other ways. We have no hesitation in recognising the seriousness of undersea cable sabotage, as has been spoken to already. These incidents are increasing in the grey zone conflicts, and they can have serious consequences for our everyday ways of life.

The deterrents are not in place; this Act needs to be updated. This amendment addresses a real problem. The maximum term for wilfully damaging undersea cables would be up to 15 years, coupled with “to a fine at level 5”. That would send a stronger signal. It would align more clearly with legislation that is in place to govern other critical infrastructure—national infrastructure—including undersea energy and other critical things that we depend on.

We see this amendment as serving two purposes. The first is as a sensible tidying-up measure—an interim step, I guess—to remove an obvious anachronism from a still-operating statute. Secondly, it would serve notice that we await the more comprehensive regime that is also clearly required. We see this as an interim measure and an encouragement to the Government to bring forward a more comprehensive framework to deal with this problem.

I have more of my speech but, considering the time, I will leave it at that. We feel that this is just and proportionate. There are some issues about extraterritoriality and scope, but I will leave those for another time. Generally, the Government should accept this and view it as a stepping stone towards clarifying this area of law and making sure that we have the proper penalties and security for our vital infrastructure.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for tabling this amendment and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I also express my thanks for the diligent work of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Its report into the vulnerabilities of our undersea cables is a brilliant piece of work and makes for sobering reading.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, these are perilous times and there never has been a more important time to consider the measure proposed, given that cables are the invisible backbone of much of our economy, security and everyday life. As we have heard, they carry the vast majority of international data traffic, underpin financial transactions, connect critical services and link the UK to our international partners.

The committee’s report underlined that while the UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for what it phrased as “business-as-usual breakages”, there are distinct vulnerabilities particularly where multiple cables cluster, or connect to key landing stations, and in the links servicing our outlying islands. I represented the Highlands and Islands region in the Scottish Parliament for eight years or so, and that last point is very real to me on a personal level because these are not abstract concerns. They are very real. Damage to a cable connecting the Shetland Islands in 2022 disrupted mobile, landline and payment services for days.

As we have heard, despite these vulnerabilities, the legal framework has not kept pace with the security environment. The principal instrument remains the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885. The deterrent effect of criminal sanctions matters. As the committee observed, the UK cannot simply assume that hostile actors would refrain from targeting these cables in a future crisis, and the Government have to be prepared for the reality that hostile states or proxy actors may exploit these vulnerabilities deliberately.

In conclusion, I add that increasing penalties is certainly not the only measure the Government should be taking. The threats we face are far more wide ranging than simple criminality. There is a need for a whole of government approach to protecting critical infrastructure such as submarine telecommunications—that would involve the MoD, DBT, DESNZ and the Home Office. But this amendment is a start, and I hope that the Minister will listen and take action.

Crime and Policing Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly support my noble friend. He has done the Committee a great service by bringing forward these amendments. The Bill is indeed very broad, and the question of fly-tipping falls very squarely within its auspices.

This is a very serious issue indeed, and it is undertaken by a range of criminals, from small one-man bands to large, organised gangs, and everything in between. The fact is that we still have a really serious problem, which is not taken sufficiently seriously by law enforcement. Therefore, we have to bring forward measures that the criminals will be frightened of and will not just consider as a cost of business of being in that field. They must be concerned about the potential loss of their vehicles and the potential removal of—or, at least, adding of points to—their driving licenses. I could not agree with my noble friend any more; he has absolutely hit the nail on the head.

There is another very important measure, on which we will hear from my noble friends on the Official Opposition Front Bench in a few moments, around equity. It is inequitable that the person who is the victim of this crime must be responsible for clearing it up—that is just completely wrong. I have never understood why that should be the case.

I declare an interest of some description in that I have a small farm in Devon. I really feel for landowners and those who have responsibility for land. They go into their fields to tend their stock and then see massive piles of waste that could contain everything from biowaste to asbestos, to building products, and so forth, and then somehow it becomes their problem to find the means to clear it up. This is wrong, so we ought to use the Bill, in a very positive way, to remove that burden on the victims of crime and put it on the perpetrators, with support from local authorities.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will respond briefly to this group of amendments. Fly-tipping is out of control and a very serious problem. As we have heard, farmers and innocent landowners often end up paying the cost for other people’s criminality. The Government’s own statistics show that around 20% of all waste generated ends up being illegally managed. These figures highlight the absolute scale of the problem. With profits being up to £2,500 per lorry, if you start driving 30 lorries a day, the profits soon add up. So this is no longer a small matter of rural dumping but a major criminal enterprise—it certainly spreads into major criminal enterprises—which damages our ecosystems, undermines legitimate businesses and leaves legitimate legal landowners with responsibilities.

We on these Benches start from the position that prevention is better than cure and call on the Government to make rapid reforms and approaches to these issues through a lens of fairness, proportionality and effective enforcement. We stand firmly behind innocent landowners and want to see progress made on these matters. The law needs fundamental and major reform. We would like to see that happen.

Amendment 40 concerns the forfeiture of vehicles under the Environmental Protection Act. We can see the logic in removing Section 33C(7), strengthening the ability to confiscate vehicles used for fly-tipping offences. Its removal concerns the offenders’ need to use the vehicle for lawful purposes—well, they should have thought about that before they started using it for illegal ones. However, enforcement agencies must ensure that these powers are used proportionately if the Government agree to them.

Amendments 41 and 42 relate to landowners and the bills that they are facing from others’ criminality. We support the principle that the polluter should pay and that those who dump waste should be caught and prosecuted. However, we have some concerns about these amendments. This is a complicated matter and the truth is that most of these criminals are not caught. Convictions are often far too lenient. Often, when people are caught, the authorities lack the financial capability to track down sufficient funds to meet clean-up costs. This can all take considerable time, during which there is ongoing environmental damage.

Amendment 42 comes as a package deal with Amendment 41. It states categorically:

“Any guidance issued under this section must state that the costs of removal of illegally tipped refuse will not fall on the landowner on whose property the refuse was dumped”.


The trouble is that it does not say who does pick up the cost. It raises a lot of questions without providing enough answers. In some cases, we are seeing criminals even buying land specifically for the purposes of dumping waste—it is so profitable to do so. I am worried about the nuance of the law in this. I fully recognise that the law needs full reform. I have every sympathy with what the noble Lords are trying to do. I am just not certain that, as drafted, these amendments would do what the noble Lords intend.

Amendment 46 seeks to add a penalty point to driving licences of those convicted of fly-tipping. This is about creating a potentially powerful deterrent. This policy was a hangover from the last Conservative Government which was not legislated for. Fly-tippers depend on their vehicles to carry out their criminal activities. This is an amendment that we generally welcome and support. I would be interested in the Government’s response to it.

Amendment 47 goes further by seeking to amend the Police Reform Act to allow vehicles used in fly-tipping to be seized. Local authorities already have a lot of these powers to seize vehicles. This amendment would take it further. I am interested in the Minister’s response to this amendment. Separate to these amendments, I ask the Government to go further and consider giving local authorities greater powers to stop vehicles that are suspected of taking part in fly-tipping and to create greater co-operation and intelligence sharing between local authorities and the police.

Some of the answers to these questions revolve around our policy of a national fund to support innocent landowners who fall victim to this, rather than this approach and these amendments. We call for that fund to be enacted from levies on waste carriers and for that money to help innocent landowners who find themselves the victims of others’ crime.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Earl Russell]

43: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Serious and organised waste crime: national action plan(1) The Secretary of State must regard serious and organised waste crime as a strategic priority threat.(2) In furtherance of the strategic priority in subsection (1), the Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) must follow an approach based on reducing serious and organised waste crime.(3) The JUWC must establish a national action plan to further the priorities of—(a) reducing the impact of waste criminality where it takes place,(b) preventing people from engaging in serious and organised waste crime,(c) protecting the UK’s critical infrastructure, environment, and communities, and(d) prosecuting and disrupting people engaged in serious and organised waste criminality.(4) JUWC partners must use all their relevant specialist skills, experience and investigative and intelligence in furtherance of the priorities in subsection (3).(5) A relevant person must, so far as appropriate and reasonably practical, cooperate with the JUWC to further the priorities in subsection (3), including by— (a) sharing intelligence on waste crime, (b) reporting incidents of waste crime, and(c) sharing connections between waste crime and other forms of serious and organised crime.(6) The national action plan may include a single point for receiving and disseminating reports of waste crime.(7) In this section—(a) “JUWC partners” means—(i) Environment Agency;(ii) National Resources Wales;(iii) Scottish Environmental Protection Agency;(iv) Northern Ireland Environment Agency;(v) His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs;(vi) Police;(vii) National Fire Chiefs Council;(viii) British Transport Police;(ix) National Crime Agency;(x) Revenue Scotland;(xi) Welsh Revenue Authority;(xii) Environmental Services Association;(xiii) Chartered Institute for Waste management.(b) a “relevant person” means—(i) regional organised crime units,(ii) local police forces in England and Wales, and(iii) local authorities.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment takes forward recommendations of House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee. It requires the Secretary of State to designate serious and organised waste crime as a strategic priority threat. It also requires the Joint Unit on Waste Crime to establish a national action plan and places a duty on relevant persons to cooperate with the JUWC in furtherance of the plan’s priorities.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 43, I shall speak also to Amendments 44 and 45, all on serious and organised waste crime. By chance, I found myself involved in this since those from the save Hoads Woods campaign came to me. That resulted in a ministerial direction and resulted in the clean-up of Hoads Wood at a cost of £15 million to the taxpayer, equivalent to the Environment Agency’s annual budget for fighting waste crime. It also led to the Environment and Climate Change Committee conducting a short inquiry into these matters, which has reported in the last couple of weeks. My amendments deal with some of the key findings from that report.

I do not wish to jump the gun, but some of these matters are clear cut; they are urgent, and I want to keep up the pressure. The Bill represents a vital opportunity to make progress, and it is progress that I do not want to be missed. I know that the Government have inherited broken systems and are committed to making reforms, particularly on the broker and dealer regulations, which I welcome and thank them for doing. The work done by the committee clearly shows that all parties recognise that this is a problem and is out of control. The findings paint a picture of fundamentally broken systems, where criminality is endemic in our waste sector. The key is to treat it as an organised crime problem and provide the right tools with which to fight it. We need to fight fire with fire.

While we sit with bits of paper that are easily forged, criminal networks buy land under false ID, using the dark web and secret apps to communicate with each other. I have no wish to blame individuals, but broken systems are creating broken results. This is a £1 billion a year problem. These criminal organised gangs are also involved in drugs, firearms, money laundering and modern slavery. There is the sheer scale: 38 million tonnes—enough to fill Wembley stadium 30 times over—is believed to be illegally managed every year.

We need look no further than the devastating environmental catastrophe that is unfolding in real time in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which came to light just this weekend. My heart sank when I saw this, because this dump—150 metres long and 6 metres high—threatens to become an environmental disaster, with toxic leachate running into the River Cherwell, which is only metres away. It feels like Hoads Wood has been allowed to happen all over again. I do not understand how, for months and months, lorries were allowed to dump this stuff and nothing has been done. I ask the Minister seriously to consider meeting the costs and to work with local residents and the council to ensure that that clear-up takes place. That is extremely important.

Without swift and decisive action, we will continue to draw ever more sophisticated criminal networks into the UK waste sector. The National Crime Agency warns that this is now a strategic threat. Beyond financial losses, this is not a victimless crime; there are damaging consequences for public health and the natural environment, and we, the taxpayer, are left to pick up the bill.

We welcome the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, but it has only 12 individuals and has no statutory footing or clear strategic direction. There needs to be better co-operation between partners. The committee heard witnesses say that this is the Bermuda triangle of intelligence—information is simply lost between partners and falls between the cracks. Amendment 43 would require the Secretary of State to take serious and organised waste crime as a strategic priority threat and to mandate the Joint Unit for Waste Crime to establish a comprehensive national action plan. That would focus on prevention, protection and prosecution, underpinned by effective intelligence sharing. It would place a duty of co-operation on all relative public bodies and enforcement agencies, ensuring that intelligence and expertise flow across the system. The national action plan would create a single point for receiving and disseminating waste crime reports.

Members of the public report this and get rightly frustrated when nothing happens. The need is clear: these issues are falling between organisations and jurisdictions, and all the while it is the criminals who are benefiting. Amendment 44 calls for greater transparency and accountability. Openness and accountability are key to understanding the causes and the scale of organised waste crime. A lack of transparency benefits only the criminal networks.

When the Environment Agency was asked by the Environment and Climate Change Committee how many sites of a similar size to Hoads Wood existed, the answer given was six. However, since then Sky News has reported a site in Wigan and, as we have heard, there is the site in Kidlington which was publicised in the press at the weekend. It is not clear whether those two sites are additional, but time will tell, and we need to know the true scale. We cannot effectively fight that which we do not know. More than numbers, it would require location, sizes, types of waste and what action is being taken to clear up these tremendous, huge waste piles. This amendment is also essential; these matters need to be legislated for as otherwise they will not be properly reported.

Amendment 45 is the linchpin of the committee’s recommendations. It would establish a root-and-branch review of serious and organised waste crime which would be independent of Defra, the Environment Agency and HMRC. The committee found multiple failures by the Environment Agency and criticised the regulators for being slow to respond. Despite receiving over 24,000 reports of waste crime in three years to March 2025, the EA opened only 320 criminal investigations. HMRC has achieved zero criminal convictions for landfill tax fraud, despite the tax gap being estimated at £150 million annually. The independent review scrutinised the egregious events at Hoads Wood, the fact that they were reported for years and that it took until January 2024 for the EA to obtain a restriction order. Clearing up the six sites that are already known about could cost close to £1 billion if the cost is similar to that of clearing Hoads Wood.

These are very important issues. Critically, we want to see a change in the financial rules set by the Treasury that prevent the Environment Agency diverting income derived from environmental permits on legitimate businesses towards dealing with criminal activity. Additional funding provided to the Environment Agency for 2025-26 should be maintained.

To conclude, I recognise that the Minister has not had long to consider the committee’s report, and that a formal response is not due until the start of December. My hope is that there is time for a formal response to the committee’s report prior to the Bill’s Report stage. I hope that the Government are minded at least to take an initial look at the amendments. If it is helpful, I am fully prepared to work and co-operate with the Government in any way I can. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

May God and my noble friends forgive me, but I think our Lib Dem Peers have a good point, particularly with regard to the new clause proposed in Amendment 43. I will not repeat what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, but the letter from our chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee is absolutely spot on. The crime is massive—costing the country £1 billion per annum—and the environmental damage is enormous. I was not aware that our committee had carried out a short investigation, and I had not focused on Amendments 43, 44 and 45 until I saw the horrendous photos and videos last Friday and Saturday of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of tonnes dumped on that back lane in Kidlington, just six yards from the River Cherwell. The local MP and others have called it an environmental catastrophe, and that is no exaggeration.

This criminality is happening all across the country. I was on the board of Natural England when our SSSI at Hoads Wood was destroyed by 30,000 tonnes of illegal waste, dumped over a period of many months before the Environment Agency was aware of it. The agency then issued a notice barring further access to the site and is now spending £15 million to clean it up. The cost of cleaning up the Kidlington dump is estimated to be greater than the local authority budget.

Many have criticised the Environment Agency but I will not slag it off—at least, not too hard. Its main response is to issue a notice stopping further dumping, but inevitably that is weeks or months too late and the criminal gangs will have found new sites by then. This level of mega organised crime is way beyond its capability. It is a licensing organisation. It can do criminal investigations, but not of this complexity. It is easy for it to investigate a leak into a river from a factory, or prosecute a farmer who illegally dredged the River Lugg, but this level of organised crime is way beyond its capacity to investigate.

Conclusion 2 in the letter to the Defra Secretary of State from the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, is so right. She says:

“What we do know, however, is that criminality is endemic in the waste sector. It is widely acknowledged that there is little chance of criminals being brought to justice for committing waste offences—the record of successful prosecutions and other penalties is woeful. Organised crime groups, including those involved in drugs, firearms, money laundering and modern slavery, are well-established in the sector. They are attracted to the low-risk opportunity to make large sums of money and commit crimes from coordinated fly-tipping to illegal exports and landfill tax fraud”.


When I was on the board of the Food Standards Agency until 12 months ago, I had responsibility for the National Food Crime Unit. We found that the gangs involved in recirculating condemned food back into the food chain, usually to the catering sector, were also involved in moving stolen high-value cars, JCBs, drugs, mobile phones, et cetera. They were simply movers and distributors of all high-value stolen property or illegal items. If you have the network to move stolen vehicles then you have the network to dump thousands of tonnes of rubbish also.

How much money do these organised crime teams make from illegal dumping? The cost of legally disposing of mixed waste is up to £150 per tonne, and up to £200 per tonne for hazardous waste. A legal company would have to charge that fee, which includes the landfill tax of £94 per tonne. All these crooks have to do is put in a bid slightly below £150 and they would probably get the contract, including from possibly legitimate companies that did not know that they were dealing with crooks—it is possibly more likely that they would know, but they take the cheaper option and deny responsibility. The crooks who dumped at Hoads Wood probably made away with about £4 million: 30,000 tonnes at a profit of £130 per tonne. At Kidlington, let us say that they dumped 10 loads of 30 tonnes each day for 30 days. That is 900 tonnes, or £120,000 pure profit—dirty profit, to be more exact.

Although Amendments 44 and 45 are okay, they are not the important ones in this group. Of course there is no harm in more data, but we already know how serious the problem is, as our Lords inquiry has shown. Conducting a review to report by 2027 sounds a bit like that wonderful line from Sir Humphrey Appleby in the “Yes Minister” episode “Doing the Honours”, when he said,

“I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference, so that at the end of the day, we’ll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions”—

to which Hacker says: “You mean ‘no’?”

However, the new clause in Amendment 45 has one good gem in it—namely, proposed new subsection (2), which says that the review must consider

“the extent and effectiveness of integrated working between the Environment Agency, HMRC, the National Crime Agency, local police forces in England and Wales, and local authorities”.

That leads me on to the noble Earl’s Amendment 43, which has a very sensible key suggestion: beefing up the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, whom we all respect, said in answer to an Oral Question in this Chamber on 15 October that Defra had increased the budget for the EA to use on the joint unit by 50% and that the number of staff had doubled. I have no real criticism of Defra, but that will still not work because the Environment Agency is the wrong organisation to lead it.

We are talking about massive, organised crime of £1 billion. There is only one organisation capable of leading a multiagency task force on that, and that is the National Crime Agency. I urge the Minister to take this back to the Home Office, discuss it with Defra, the EA and the NCA, and, without changing everything, give the National Crime Agency the lead in tackling this. As I and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, have pointed out, these same criminals are involved in high-value stolen goods such as mobiles, construction equipment, drugs—all stuff way out of the league of the EA but bang in the bailiwick of the NCA. If the noble Earl, Lord Russell, can come back with a simpler amendment on Report on something like that, then I would be minded to support him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, for that point. I appreciate what he is saying. I am not aware of the events that led up to the time it took to issue this enforcement action, and it would be wrong for me to speculate. I am afraid I have not yet had the time to review the Hansard report of the Urgent Question, but I suspect we may have some of the answers to that question if we review the Commons Hansard report of the Urgent Question that Calum Miller asked of the Government today.

I understand the point the noble Viscount is making, and in the future should I be in the position to report back, I will offer more information. All I will say is that one would hope—I am not speaking out of turn, I simply do not know the facts—that there would be community action and community reporting of this in strength. The Environment Agency only has so much resource; it cannot be all-seeing and so it cannot take enforcement when it does not know the action there. I am not suggesting that that was the case in this situation in Kidlington, but it is important for us to take wider societal responsibility to address these issues.

I am fortunate that the London Borough of Camden, my home borough, has an app through which I can always report fly-tipping, which is nowhere near on the scale of Kidlington. I am an avid user, and therefore I take responsibility. My kids hate me stopping to take pictures of rubbish when I am walking along with them, but I use it because that means that the offence is noted and recorded, and then action is taken. In tribute to Camden, it is usually taken quickly.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank all those who have spoken in this group and the Minister for his response to my amendments. I recognise that the Government have inherited this problem, and I recognise that they are putting more resources into it through the plans for brokers and dealers and through digital waste tracking, which I hope are brought forward as soon as possible. That will start to make some concrete changes to these issues.

That said, however, this problem is out of the Government’s control and more needs to be done. It is not acceptable that these serious organised criminal gangs are exploiting loopholes in the system, destroying our countryside and leaving a mess behind them. Therefore, I want to see action on that.

I fully recognise that the Select Committee report came out only two weeks ago and that the Government are not due to respond until 9 December, as the Minister said. I am sure that the Minister also recognises that, if I did not raise these points in Committee, I cannot bring them back at Report. I think there is a commonality here on the need to address these issues, and I hope that between now and Report we can have further conversations and co-operate on these issues.

Returning to Kidlington, I know there was an Urgent Question. I had an opportunity to have a word with my honourable friend on that prior to the Statement. It is important that this site is cleared up and that the Government help meet the costs for that. I encourage the Minister to consider using a ministerial direction, if needed, to make sure that that happens. That said, I hope that, when the response to the committee’s report comes, the Government recognise that it is a serious job of work and that it takes a unique and forward-thinking perspective on genuinely trying to find ways to address and resolve these problems. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 43 withdrawn.

Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack

Earl Russell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I share with noble Lords that in the UK ransomware is considered the greatest of all serious and organised cybercrime threats and is deemed a risk to the UK’s national security by the National Crime Agency. In January 2025, the Home Office launched a consultation on a package of proposals to reduce the threat that ransomware poses to the UK economy. Alongside this consultation, significant stakeholder engagement also took place. Three proposals were consulted on: first, whether there should be a targeted ban on ransom payments to owners; secondly, a ransom payment prevention regime; and, thirdly, whether there should be a mandatory incident and reporting regime. The Home Office is progressing a new package of measures to protect UK businesses, and we will update the House accordingly.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, today is the last day of free support for Windows 10. It is estimated that 39% of our home computers will be impacted, as well as UK businesses, industry and our very national security. Why we are not requiring extended security updates for Windows 10, as are now required across the EEA?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Earl makes an interesting point that I mentioned earlier. Companies using outdated systems should consider whether that is still appropriate. To do so, I urge all companies to conduct Cyber Essentials certification. Once they have the certification, they can ensure that their customers and whoever they do business with are protected against cyberattacks.

UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Earl Russell Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, since we got into government 11 months ago, we have secured £100 billion of inward investment in this country. People are coming to invest in this country because they have confidence in the Government. We have set out the infrastructure strategy, the industrial strategy, the trade strategy and will, hopefully very soon, set out the small business strategy. This Government are getting on with growing the economy, and we will attract more and more investment.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches very much welcome this the first industrial strategy since 2017. We particularly welcome the concentration on our energy resilience and energy security. It is absolutely right that clean energy is included as one of the eight sectors. The green economy grew by 10.3% last year, so we must work to strengthen it in its broadest sense. On the plans to reduce the cost of energy to business, we welcome the reduction of levies in this area. But I reiterate my noble friend’s point about why this cannot be done before 2027. What more can be done to help our hospitality and leisure sectors specifically? Do the Government also recognise the need to remove levies from domestic energy bills too?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for that and for his support for the energy schemes. We recognise that high electricity costs are a key challenge for the United Kingdom’s businesses, and we as a Government want to provide the support necessary for energy-intensive industries to improve their competitiveness. We hear this from businesses every day. That is why we have announced, as the noble Earl mentioned, the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which will slash industrial electricity prices by somewhere between 20% and 25%.

We will conduct a consultation to find out about some of these high-intensity businesses. Some 7,000 manufacturing businesses, including car makers and defence manufacturers, employ some 300,000 skilled people. This is where we need to support. In addition to that, we have the network charging compensation scheme, under which some businesses will get an uplift from 60% to 90%. We are putting in place support for high-intensity electricity users to help them manage their business more effectively and more competitively.

Policing of Marches and Demonstrations

Earl Russell Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, a quick surf of the internet this morning would suggest that the noble Baroness is wrong. I suggest that trying to conflate the activities of the violent thugs who tried to invade the Cenotaph and those of the marchers, some of whom were indeed peaceful, is also wrong. The fact is that 15 officers were injured at the Cenotaph, two of whom required hospital treatment, and my best wishes go to those officers. I think the police behaved entirely appropriately in dealing with the violence, and I seriously hope that they also deal with those marchers who were doing precisely the things that the noble Baroness has alleged they were not.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in light of the unplanned departure of the previous Home Secretary and the extraordinary and deeply concerning violent events witnessed on the streets of London this weekend, can the Minister confirm whether the new Home Secretary will use more restrained language, to ease tensions on our streets, and refrain from interfering in the operational independence of the Metropolitan Police?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

On the second part of the question, the previous Home Secretary did not interfere with the operational independence of the Metropolitan Police. On the first part, I have not yet spoken to the new Home Secretary, but I wish him very well in his new role.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2023

Earl Russell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, but on this side of the Room we are disappointed with these proposals and feel that they will do little to prevent harm. We feel they will make matters worse, not better, as we believe in a health-first and reduction approach to drug control.

This order will categorise nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, as a class C drug and make it illegal by the end of the year. As a result, those found in unlawful possession of the drug could face up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine, with up to 14 years for supply or production. The Government already have powers to tackle suppliers of the drug under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which made it an offence to supply nitrous oxide if a person knows it will be used for its psychoactive effects. The Government now seem intent on using the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to deal with what is mainly a small-scale anti-social behaviour and littering problem. This seems inappropriate. It is the legislative equivalent of taking a knife to a spoon fight.

The Government’s own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs does not agree with their approach. It said:

“Based on this harms assessment, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 remains the appropriate drug legislation to tackle supply of nitrous oxide for non-legitimate use. There is, however, a need for enforcement of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 to be supported by additional interventions designed to reduce health and social harms”.


Based on this harms assessment, their own advisory council does not support the reclassification.

We believe that these proposals are ill thought out and unsupported by the evidence. They have not been properly consulted on and will have negative impacts, pointlessly criminalising many young children. The Government’s impact assessment states that

“nitrous oxide has a large proportion of users aged 17 and under who consume it”,

as the Minister recognised in his speech. For the offence of possession of a class C drug, its high estimate is 16,400 children a year, resulting in 2,000 children being charged, 1,600 receiving cautions and 7,500 being subject to community resolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am very happy to reassure the noble Lord on that point because I asked him the same question. He said, “Yes, absolutely, of course it will be. There is no point in shoving something through their letterbox”. I agree with him; we need to find alternative letterboxes, I suppose.

As I was saying to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the damage to children’s life chances is certainly not as lasting as the neurological damage that they may suffer.

In answer to my noble friend Lord Hayward, I do not believe that the ban will provide criminal gangs with an opportunity to profiteer from supply; it will only shrink the space for them to do so. Nitrous oxide is already being supplied illegally for misuse by lone dealers and criminal gangs. These measures will give the police and enforcement agencies greater powers to stop illegal supply.

My noble friend also asked me about a possible review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. There are no plans to conduct a review of that that I am aware of. However, in July 2022, the Home Office launched a consultative White Paper—Swift, Certain, Tough: New Consequences for Drug Possession—which proposed new policies to reform the way the criminal justice system deals with adult drug possession offences, particularly tackling so-called recreational drug use. That consultation closed in October 2022. An analysis of the responses is under way.

The outcome of this analysis and the responses provided will obviously help to inform future policy direction in dealing with low-level position offences. A government response to the consultation will be published in due course. Of course, the Government keep drug legislation under review and will reconsider the status of particular substances where it is appropriate to do so, obviously while continuing to take into account advice from the ACMD.

All three noble Lords asked me about the expected costs of the policy, in particular its effect on prison places. As has been noted, the central estimate for custodial sentences is 200 per year. We are confident that there will be capacity for this potential increase given that prison occupation is already at 99% capacity. When we estimated the impact on prison places, we also looked at the average custodial sentence length and considered that alongside the volume of custodial sentences estimated per year. It results in an annualised estimate of 26 prison places across the UK. We are taking action to reduce the pressure felt on the prison estate, including expanding capacity by an additional 2,400 places beyond the 20,000-place build programme since September 2022, so we will always have the capacity to serve the needs of the courts.

Noble Lords asked about the increasing cost of the policy. I cannot really go into detail on that because there are so many variables in working out impact assessments of this type, as will be obvious. However, there are record numbers of police officers operating in this country now—more than there have ever been before—and I certainly believe that they have the capacity to deal with this.

In closing, I hope that I have answered all the relevant questions. I once again offer my thanks to all who participated. I am grateful for the insights and the challenge that has been brought to bear on this debate. This is an issue that must be confronted and dealt with before it gets worse. Public health and public safety are vital, as is the effort to tackle anti-social behaviour.

Before I commend this order to the Committee, I have just remembered that I have forgotten to say one thing, which is about an ongoing review. On 16 June, we committed to a post-implementation review of the control of nitrous oxide under the 1971 Act, as outlined in the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire’s response to recommendations 2 to 7 of the ACMD’s updated harms assessment. That was published on GOV.UK. I am quite sure that noble Lords will remind me if that is not forthcoming but, for now, I commend the order to the Committee.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Will the Minister say a quick word about what else the Government are doing to regulate and stop the sale of these things, particularly to young people? He commented on the number of people who are using this drug. We are now criminalising them. What more are the Government doing to make sure that these things are not sold to children in the first place?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think I have already answered that question with regard to criminal gangs. At the moment, of course, it is freely available through a number of perfectly legitimate channels. Obviously, guidance will be incredibly important. People who are selling it at the moment, particularly to children, need to understand their new responsibilities and the fact that they will be committing a criminal act. The fact is that the penalties for this are quite severe so I suggest that they would do well to pay attention to what they are doing and not fall foul of this law.

Motion agreed.

Asylum Applications Backlog

Earl Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Earl Russell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the growing backlog of asylum applications and to ensure new cases are processed in an efficient manner.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

We committed to increase our headcount to 2,500 decision-makers. As of 1 September, we have met that commitment. We have taken immediate action to speed up asylum processing while maintaining the integrity of the system. The streamlined asylum process plays an important role in achieving that. We are on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023. It is presently down by more than 30,000 cases.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the Minister, but the asylum backlog had risen to a high of more than 175,000 waiting for an initial decision as of the end of June, up 44% from last year. There was a service standard that set a target of 98% of straightforward cases receiving an initial decision within six months. That was withdrawn in 2019. Can the Minister confirm that this Government are still committed to the efficient processing of asylum claims? If so, when will a new service standard be put in place?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Earl that we are very much committed to the efficient dispatch of the consideration of asylum claims. There were 78,768 asylum applications in the year ending June 2023, which is higher than at any time since the European migration crisis. The asylum backlog is high because there are so many applications. We entirely appreciate the point the noble Earl makes—that we need efficient dispatch of these applications—and that is why we have made the reforms and the headway with the backlog that we have.