Environment Agency: East of England

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the performance of the Environment Agency in the East of England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I have secured this debate to highlight concerns about the operational performance of the Environment Agency in the east of England. This reflects both my time as the Secretary of State overseeing the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the run-up to the general election and numerous interactions with it in my capacity as a constituency MP.

As we are meeting the week before a comprehensive spending review, it is perhaps prudent to start with the usual excuse given by organisations for poor operational performance: a lack of people or funding. According to the Environment Agency’s own annual outcomes, its full-time equivalent staff increased in the last Parliament by 21% from 10,791 in 2019-2020, at the start of the Parliament, to more than 13,000 in 2023-24. Over the same period, its expenditure has gone up from £1.4 billion to £2.2 billion, so it has significantly more people and funding, while at the same time showing a remarkable lack of transparency or accountability to Ministers or Members of Parliament, and a remarkable lack of willingness to take enforcement action against those causing the worst levels of environmental damage.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman. It is an absolute scandal: the Environment Agency seems happy to pursue farmers and landowners with a zest and enthusiasm, yet big businesses and other people seem to be left to the side. Is it not time that the Environment Agency supported farmers and helped them when they need it, rather than chasing them and not others?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point, and he is correct. It seems that the Environment Agency is very happy to go after what it may perceive to be easier and more law-abiding targets, but as the most serious environmental harm is caused by serious criminal gangs, there is often a reluctance to take on those organisations in the way that it does an individual farmer. That is why this also points to a need for a much more fundamental reform of the Department’s relationship with its arm’s length bodies, as well as its accountability to Ministers, regardless of which Government is in office.

This debate is focused specifically on the east of England, and I want to give three examples of where that operational performance really illustrates concerns across the boards with environmental damage being caused. Before doing so, given that I have been the Secretary of State, I thought it relevant to touch on a national example to show that this is not simply a constituency or local issue. With that in mind, let me inform the House about Hoad’s wood, which is a site of special scientific interest and an area of outstanding natural beauty that has been covered—as you probably know, Sir Roger—in more than 35,000 tonnes of illegal waste.

We might have thought that a SSSI would be a priority case for the Environment Agency, and one where it would be most certain to take action. However, so concerned was I as a Minister that I had to take the very unusual step of issuing a ministerial direction. No ministerial direction had been issued in the Department in the preceding seven years before I arrived as Secretary of State, so this was an unusual but necessary step to compel the EA to take action on a SSSI. Again, I think that speaks to some of the issues. Even so, the situation has dragged on, with contractors not appointed until November last year, work not beginning until March and completion not expected until at least 2026. That points to some of the issues with the most valuable sites, never mind more routine sites.