Waste Management Carriers: Regulation

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a really important point. I have met organisations such as Coca-Cola, which I know feels that the money that it has invested should be taken into account when we look at how these things are tackled. Producer responsibility is, again, something that the Government have been looking at. My colleague, Mary Creagh, who has responsibility for these areas, is taking this matter very seriously and, I am sure, will continue to talk to producers about what they need to be doing.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, these new powers for the EA have been described by the Government as “police-style powers”. Given that this is about enforcing the law and the EA has failed to do so, has the Minister considered that the police themselves would be more effective in enforcement if they were given that responsibility?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The key thing, as I mentioned earlier, is that the EA has made some arrests—since September last year, 22 arrests have been linked to waste crime. However, it is important to note that arrests have to be made by the police—the noble Lord made that point quite clearly—and that is done working very closely with the Environment Agency. One way to increase this is to make sure that the agencies work very well together. One issue is that police arrests are not tracked centrally, and we are continuing to work with the Home Office on how we can improve that joint working.