Fly-tipping

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a series of extremely good points. By the very nature of fly-tipping, as he rightly points out, it is extremely difficult to be in the right place at the right time when someone is doing it. I completely accept that there are limitations around this. However, the Government have introduced a number of new initiatives, such as the use of cameras, to help councils on this issue. It is very difficult to deal with it. To be honest, my personal view is that it is an education issue rather than an enforcement issue, but we are probably getting a little off topic.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has outlined some of the initiatives that the Government are bringing in to help combat this, which is clearly welcome, but recent figures show the number of fixed-penalty notices issued decreased by 19% and the number of court fines decreased by 17%. There is no point in bringing in new initiatives and increasing penalties if they are not used. Is the Minister satisfied that sufficient resources are supplied to local authorities and the police to ensure that fly-tippers are caught and properly punished?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises the issue that the previous noble Lord also raised. It is extremely difficult, by the very nature of the activity, to police it 100%. In his Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, the Prime Minister made it clear that councils should take a tougher approach to enforcement and make greater use of the fixed penalties available to them. We have also taken steps to encourage councils to issue more of these penalties by increasing transparency on their use, through the publication of annual enforcement league tables. Councils must also now invest the income from this in enforcement activity and clean-up.