Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard and Earl Russell

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.