Fly-tipping

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Efford, for your chairmanship this afternoon. This is my first Westminster Hall debate, and I am very pleased to be able to use it to congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) on securing such an important debate on an issue that blights so many communities, including mine in the sunniest town in the UK, Eastbourne. With a million incidents a year that, according to Keep Britain Tidy, cost local authorities and private landowners more than £200 million a year to clear up, the scale of this waste crime epidemic demands debate in this mother of all Parliaments. I thank the hon. Lady for securing it. Although the debate has been devoted to talking trash about trash itself, the quality of the contributions from hon. and right hon. Members has been more reminiscent of treasure—treasure that makes me proud to be a new Member of this House.

Pride has been mentioned a number of times and, fundamentally, it is what the issue of fly-tipping comes down to. Whether the intention is nefarious or not, to fly-tip is to dishonour the pride represented in so many of our communities, such as by Plastic Free Eastbourne or Mucky Mermaids in my patch, who do lots of voluntary work to clean up community spaces. To fly-tip commercially is to dishonour the pride of local waste-collection businesses. We have a number who jump through all the hoops to do things the right way and to earn an honest living, but they are undercut by those cowboy waste-collection companies that are the perpetrators of some of the worst fly-tipping. To fly-tip is also to dishonour the pride of our waste-disposal workers in their jobs, and in keeping our streets clean—people such as Sean Towey, Martin Hobbs, Karen Cavie and Richard Westgate in Eastbourne, whom I met recently. They are proud to keep our streets clean, but their work is blighted by fly-tipping.

To fly-tip is to dishonour pride in our environment, the beauty of which is destroyed by wrongly dumped waste, with wildlife put at risk by often hazardous materials. Only last week, we had a case of asbestos being dumped on Paradise Drive in Eastbourne. To fly-tip is to dishonour the pride of our farmers, who have been mentioned in the debate, and 85% of them report that it is a problem on their land. On average, each removal costs about £1,000. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) mentioned that in his speech as well.

All those things and more make fly-tipping an inherently antisocial practice, and one that the law is right to sanction. The problem is, however, that at the moment such sanction feels like an offer that is not properly taken up. If we look at the figures from the Office for National Statistics, we find that of the 1 million fly-tipping incidents that happen a year, only 2,000 led to a prosecution last year—that is 0.018%. More than that, last year only about 1,800 fines were issued by courts for fly-tipping incidents, with a total value of £837,000, which equates to just 77p per incident. It is not working, and local council resources have been gutted by the previous Government, which means that their capacity to enforce fixed penalty notices has been gutted as well. That is tantamount to legalising littering, and we need a clear change.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for court fines to be increased substantially and for the proceeds to be pumped into a fly-tipping fighting fund to invest in local authorities’ capacity to crack down on waste crime on the ground as part of a national effort to get to grips with it, as the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan) discussed. From my career tackling youth crime and antisocial behaviour before I entered this place, I can say that enforcement is only part of the story. In the first instance, prevention is just as critical.

We can check out amazing initiatives such as Newham council’s social impact stencils, mentioned by the hon. Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser). That initiative involves painting short, bold and stark messages to educate people about the social, environmental and financial impact of fly-tipping, spray painted on the very spots where it happens most. In one of the pilots in Stratford, a 67% reduction was observed. Beautification is an effective tool as well, making areas particularly beautiful. That was done in in Dover, clearing space—but we can do lots more. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing Southall for securing the debate—

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Robbie Moore.