Rural Crime

Chris Bloore Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) on securing this vital debate. He gave such a comprehensive overview of the many challenges facing our rural communities that I will perhaps make my speech slightly shorter than planned.

Although my constituency is named simply Redditch, some Members will have noticed that I often refer to it as Redditch and the villages. That is because although the Boundary Commission for England has found it fit to change the layout of my constituency on many occasions, it has yet to update its title. In addition to the town of Redditch, my constituency is vast and contains many beautiful rural communities and villages. Tomorrow I will be walking with local councillors in Dodderhill parish, and I know the issue of rural crime will feature heavily in those important conversations when we speak face to face with constituents.

Fly-tipping remains one of the biggest concerns of my residents, local businesses and farmers, with many selflessly cleaning up after the thoughtless actions of others and the organised dumping of waste by nefarious actors. As the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) mentioned, the 2023 Countryside Alliance rural crime survey showed that fly-tipping was the most reported rural crime in our communities, and 73% of respondents said it was on the increase.

A 2024 National Farmers Union survey found that more than half of respondents had experienced small-scale fly-tipping on their farm, and more than a quarter had experienced large-scale fly-tipping. Fly-tipping on private land is often under-reported because the responsibility for dealing with it rests with the private landowner and is not subject to mandatory data reporting. Will the Government reconsider that situation, so that we can understand the true scale of fly-tipping on private land across the country?

I welcome the Government’s decision to introduce in 2026 mandatory digital waste tracking to prevent bad actors from getting away with fly-tipping in our communities. Currently, there is no comprehensive method for tracking the waste produced in the United Kingdom. Existing systems are fragmented across the country and utilise a mix of digital and paper storage. The Government’s initiative will enhance the regulation of waste management by transforming how environmental regulators monitor compliance and prioritise their regulatory activities. It aims to help to prevent waste-related crimes such as fly-tipping. Hopefully, if we know where waste is coming from, we will be able to take punitive actions against the organised crime networks that are exploiting our rural communities and costing my local businesses millions of pounds.

Of course, many other rural crime issues will come up on the doorstep tomorrow, from car theft and tool theft, which has already been mentioned, to burglaries, farm machinery being stolen—often made easier by our proximity to the motorway network—and the continued incidents of antisocial crime that continue to worry my residents. That is why I welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to ensure that rural communities will see the benefits of the Government’s promise to enhance our neighbourhood policing teams.

I finish by thanking our existing policing teams and Harvington, Norton and Dodderhill parish councils for their hard work in combating rural crime and ensuring that our beautiful villages remain great places to live.