Waste Industry: Criminality and Regulation

Debate between Lord Beamish and Jo Churchill

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) on securing this debate and on the determined way in which he has championed this issue in the House. Indeed, all the neighbouring Stoke MPs have really got to grips with waste in their area.

As soon as I became a Minister, it was clear to me that Newcastle-under-Lyme was top of the list of places I should visit. I thank my hon. Friend and members of his community, including Dr Salt and others, for welcoming me and talking so frankly about the impact that Walleys has had on their lives. They were also constructive about how we move forward to reduce landfill and ensure that people can live their lives in the areas that they choose to be in, without being blighted by its effects.

My hon. Friend has always taken care to articulate the views of his residents. The Environment Agency continues to bring about the work needed for a long-term solution at Walleys Quarry, and both he and I will watch the situation closely. The hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) referred to the large number of issues reported last year, and we have seen a spike on one of the monitors up to those sorts of levels again recently. I reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents that I get those weekly reports and examine them in detail, because it is important that we are rigorous in ensuring that where we need to challenge, we have the right data. That goes to the points made by all hon. Members, including my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), about ensuring that we have the correct data so that people can proceed to enforcement and so on, because they can challenge on the basis of accuracy.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I do not disagree with that, but does the Minister not find it remarkable that in 26 years of the landfill tax, HMRC has not had a single successful prosecution in connection with it? The only initiative that I am aware of is Operation Nosedive, where HMRC spent six years looking at it and £3.5 million of public money, and got nowhere. This is not about new regulations; it is about using the tools we have already got.

[Jo Churchill]

This is indeed about using tools. The right hon. Gentleman refers to an operation by HMRC. Obviously, I am not the Minister responsible for that, but I am sure he can take Operation Nosedive up with them. [Interruption.] Indeed, but he makes a cogent point. As several Members have said, this issue has been described as being akin to the narcotics industry. It is that insidious. It blights people’s lives and, as we have heard, raises considerable sums of money illegally in so doing. I therefore agree with everybody that we need firmer action, and I will continue to ensure that we look at that.

I am aware that the Environment Agency recently launched an investigation into the allegations of criminal activity at Walleys Quarry. I welcome any investigation where allegations of waste crime have been made, and I am sure the Environment Agency will investigate this thoroughly, knowing that we are all watching. I appreciate the importance of the investigation to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and his constituents. I am sure that he will appreciate that I would not want to inadvertently say something that would jeopardise it in any way, but my door is always open to him, as he knows.

The Government are determined to tackle waste crime, because it makes life a misery for all our constituents. Whether it is fly-tipping on country lanes—as my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson) alluded to—litter in our towns or pollution from waste sites, waste crime and poor-performing waste sites undermine legitimate businesses, deprive the public purse of tax income, harm the environment and communities, and in the worst cases directly threaten health. Councils are now spending £1 billion of taxpayers’ money cleaning up after this, so it affects all of us.

We have already taken action to introduce new powers to stop illegal waste sites posing a risk, which include the ability to lock up sites and force rogue operators to clean up their waste. More widely, we have given the EA an extra £60 million to tackle waste crime since 2014, on top of the wider grant-in-aid funding that it receives from DEFRA. I would just like to offer a correction: at orals last week I said on the Floor of the House that this funding was given to the EA “in 2019—I think”. In fact, it was given in 2014, and I am happy to correct the record.

We have also set up the joint unit for waste crime to disrupt serious and organised waste crime and reduce its impact. The unit involves the National Crime Agency, HMRC, the EA and the police. We set it up about six months ago, and there were more than 30 arrests in the first 24 days, so action is being taken. The landmark Environment Act 2021 does even more, giving agencies enhanced powers to gain evidence and enter sites. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said that they are using the powers they have to seize cars and vehicles, because life needs to be made difficult for these people. Powers are there; they need to be used. We need to encourage our councils, and to that end we are bringing out best practice for councils so that they know how best to gather evidence and so on, so that prosecutions are likely to be more successful.

We will go further. The two consultations mentioned earlier outline the next steps to tackle waste crime and to support people and businesses to manage waste correctly. Electronic waste tracking ends the old-fashioned paper-based approach and gives us a modern, connected future. We will be able to track waste movements, understanding exactly who moves waste and to where. That will give us powerful new abilities to audit waste movements and to ensure that waste is disposed of correctly.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Jo Churchill]

I see the right hon. Gentleman shaking his head. Why does he not come and have a chat with me? He can tell me everything.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Along with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), I am sick of talking to Governments that have, over the past 10 years, trotted out the same nonsense every time. We need action. I can tell the Minister a lot of ways to get around electronic tracking. These people are very sophisticated, and if we do not have an enforcement attitude at HMRC and other agencies, we are frankly wasting our time.

[Jo Churchill]

We will have digital tracking, extended producer responsibility, consistent collection and a carriers, brokers and dealers licensing regime to regulate the people involved in waste. That goes to the comments that have been made about appropriate people running these companies. In 2019, the Government expanded the list of convictions to be taken into account when assessing permit applications to include offences relating to organised crime and violent or threatening behaviour, as well as offences relating to fraud and tax. That was only in 2019, which I believe was after the matters mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. We need those measures, and through the new consultations we hope to build a regulatory framework that is more powerful and can hold people to account.

In Darlington, more can be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud noted that there are also good firms out there. It is important that the regulations help those good firms to carry on and deliver for us. We are bearing down on firms that act illegally, and we are doing more to crack down on this crime. We will continue to apply increased pressure. We hope that the waste carrier reforms and digital tracking will be in place by 2023-24, as long as the IT development and transition needs of businesses have been met.

It is important that people understand that the whole suite of measures, such as extended producer responsibility, will help to address issues such as mattress mountains. It also takes the will of us all, whether businesses or individuals, to check who is taking our waste away; it takes councils using the measures that we are giving them to enforce further; and it takes me ensuring that I am listening and that we are working towards more rigorous enforcement.

By tackling waste crime and poor performance in the waste industry, not only do we prevent harm and the blight on people’s lives and the environment, but we ensure that resources are properly recycled or recovered and fed back into the economy. In the long term, the Government are committed to minimising the impact of environmental waste by reducing the amount of waste created and managing it safely. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for her offer to work together on this. I take the issue as seriously as every Member here does, and I will work with all hon. Members to continue to address it.