Environmental Protection

Julie Minns Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her opening remarks. This is an overdue and welcome attempt to curb a problem blighting a number of communities. I acknowledge the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett). I worry slightly that we are at risk of entering into some sort of terrible British waste tip competition, but I definitely challenge him, as the one that I am experiencing in my constituency of Carlisle would probably rival the one that he described.

No one relishes living next to a landfill site. However, my constituents in the village of Rockcliffe, a couple of miles to the north of Carlisle, have done so largely without issue for decades. I am particularly glad that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), is in his place. He will be able to testify to the fact—having been the Member who represented Rockcliffe before he moved to Epping Forest—that bar the odd incident, the Hespin Wood site was largely compliant for over four decades. However, that changed last year when the site was sold.

In less than 12 months, the new operator, Seletia, has in no short order turned a once compliant site into a towering mountain of fetid and probably non-compliant waste. Debris from the mountain has been blown on to the adjacent M6. The heap dominates the skyline. The liquid run-off trickles into a beck that runs through adjacent farmland. The smell is stomach-churning and can be smelled on the other side of the city, more than 10 miles away.

I will just read some of the comments that the villagers of Rockcliffe made when the BBC asked them about the site a couple of months ago. One said that the odour was so dreadful he could almost taste it. He said:

“You can’t get away from it, even with the windows shut…It woke me up at one o’clock in the morning once and I was tasting it, not just smelling it.”

Another said that she had become more and more concerned as the landfill had grown in height, and she was especially worried about the fact that the pupils at Rockcliffe Church of England primary school could see the mountain when they played outdoors. Another local resident said that her migraines, she believed, were linked to the smell:

“Migraine sufferers can be sensitive to smells and I’m realising now that that’s what’s triggering it.”

In response to the BBC, Seletia said that it was one of four operators on the site and did not believe that its landfill site was causing the problem. In response to that, I would say that the other three operators on the site have been there over the same period. The only thing that has changed at Hespin Wood is the takeover and management of the site by Seletia. Moreover, people living at the nearby sister site, another Seletia site at Flusco in Newbiggin—in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—have, over exactly the same period, experienced an increase in problems, to the point at which the Environment Agency has now suspended operations on the Flusco site. Thanks to action by the Environment Agency at the Hespin Wood site, it seems to have temporarily stopped accepting new waste, although local villagers doubt that somewhat. The bottom line is that the actions of Seletia and other rogue operators require a new approach, which is why I welcome these new regulations. For too long, our landfill sites and local communities have been targeted by rogue operators.

Driven by the evasion of landfill tax and disposal fees, waste crime has evolved into a highly profitable and organised enterprise. It undercuts legitimate businesses, pollutes our soil, and leaves taxpayers with staggering clean-up bills. The current system for registering waste carriers, brokers and dealers is broken. It relies on a basic tick-box exercise with minimal background checks—a vulnerability that criminals have systematically exploited. That is why I believe that the regulations represent a massive regulatory shift, dismantling the old registration model and pulling these rogue operators directly into the robust environmental permitting regulations framework.

When these laws take full effect, they will tighten the net on waste criminals at landfill gates in three distinct ways. First, operators will no longer just be able to sign their names on a register; they will have to actively prove that they are fit to handle waste. The Environment Agency will enforce strict background checks, mandatory identity verification, criminal record screenings and technical competence assessments before a single permit is issued. Those with a history of illegal dumping will and should be locked out of the system entirely.

Secondly, there is the issue of transparency. Bad actors frequently use anonymous white vans and misleading online advertisements to trick the public and smuggle illegal loads into disposal sites. Under the new regulations, operators must prominently display their unique permit numbers on their vehicles and in all advertising. That simple change turns each one of us into an enforcement officer and enables us to target and identify rogue traders, who will be instantly visible.

Thirdly, heavy penalties are needed. Previously, illegally transporting or brokering waste carried no custodial sentence, which was unacceptable. The draft regulations change that, introducing a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for those who flagrantly break the law and ruin people’s lives. Furthermore, the Environment Agency is being granted expanded, decisive powers to revoke permits instantly and issue immediate enforcement notices to freeze rogue operations on the spot.

As the residents of Rockcliffe know, non-compliance and waste crime are not a victimless nuisance; they constitute an assault on our environment and on our economy, and an assault on people’s homes. By transforming the way in which waste is controlled and transported, the regulations will ensure that only legitimate, heavily scrutinised operators can move material through our supply chain and through our communities. I welcome the closing of loopholes and the crackdown on criminality in the waste sector, and I look forward to a day when the likes of Seletia are forced out of the waste sector altogether.