Large-scale Waste Crime

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

We are happy to look at all options for how to move forward, because the situation is unacceptable. On the Environment Agency’s role in waste crime enforcement, the total budget has increased by more than 50%—that is a £5.6 million increase from the previous year—which has allowed the EA to double the size of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, so we are investing financially to tackle this. It means that the EA has increased its overall front-line criminal enforcement resource in the JUWC and we have brought in more staff—I think the number is 43. We are investing significantly in how we are operating, but we also need to consider how we can make changes to improve the situation.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the Lib Dems next, then from my noble friend.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee which produced the report on waste crime. On 16 December, the Environment Agency wrote to the committee stating that 749 new illegal waste sites had been found in 2024-25, compared to 427 in the previous year. Clearly, the system is broken, not just failing. Two of the most devastating sites are in Kidlington and in Bickershaw, Wigan. Has work started to clear the Kidlington site? If so, at what cost to the taxpayer? Why is the same priority not applied to the Wigan site, given that it is near houses and a primary school and burned for nine days last July?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The Environment Agency’s exceptional decision to progress works to entirely clear the site at Kidlington of waste followed new information and advice from the fire and rescue services that indicated that there was an increased possibility of a fire at the site, which is why it moved in to do it. It was the scale of that fire risk that set it apart from other illegal waste dumps in England. That is why it became an overriding public imperative. Regarding the other site, investigations and work are going on there, so it is difficult for me to comment specifically, but I am happy to look at what I am able to share with the noble Baroness and put it out in writing.