Waste Industry: Criminality and Regulation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
David Davis
Main Page: David Davis (Conservative - Goole and Pocklington)Department Debates - View all David Davis's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Waste Industry: Criminality and Regulation
David Davis Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has made half the case, from my point of view.
In my constituency, over 10 years ago, a company called City Plant took over an existing site. It broke the rules time and time again throughout the first five years, and eventually ended up in the court. It got a slap on the wrist, and broke the rules time and time again thereafter. It still seems that City Plant is up to its old tricks. Residents today report a mix of materials being brought on to the site, which is not what has been agreed and is a repeat of other examples. They report noxious odours across the entire area and the destruction of their enjoyment of life, because of the pursuit of illegal profits.
As the right hon. Member said, the people benefitting from the weakness of the Environment Agency are not small-time crooks. They are hardened criminals at the heart of the criminal underworld. He mentioned Niramax, which we have already heard about. The majority shareholder he referred to, Neil Elliott, is serving 15 years for murder. An associate, Shaun Morfitt, previously a part-owner of Niramax, is currently serving 18 years for drug trafficking offences and, prior to that, served over six years for a vicious machete attack. These are the sort of people we are dealing with.
Tax evasion in this industry is enormously costly. The right hon. Member gave the figure of £78 million, but I think the expected bill went up to £158 million. Some 14 individuals were arrested, yet the outcome was nothing but a few thousand pounds paid over. We need to know why this has happened, and why the state has no teeth in the protection of the lives of ordinary people and the collection of proper taxes from these criminals in these unpleasant industries.