Environmental Protection

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The idea that we can send Environment Agency officials to deal—in some cases—with serious organised crime groups is simply for the birds. People say, “There aren’t prosecutions” or “The penalties are too light”, but the waste is often one part of a multifaceted criminal enterprise—it is just another wing of a business empire. We need to get better at looking upstream, looking at tax checks and looking at the web of companies behind the business, and basically doing the Al Capone method—getting them on tax evasion—and prosecuting them under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

There is a wider point here: we cannot expect council officials who have been denuded and stripped of funds over the last 14 years to suddenly become waste crime enforcers. There may be only one or two trading standards and compliance officers in post in a local council, but this sort of sophisticated crime requires a lot of multi-agency work. Someone from the National Police Chiefs’ Council is now tasked with doing that work; we are doing a review, particularly of local authority competence in this area.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister has touched on organised crime. As I am sure she is aware, modern slavery can be a real issue within the waste crime sector; we have had some powerful debates on that issue in the Chamber. The waste crime action plan sets out that people will be held to account and given community service, but we need to reach further up the chain, because often the people who are caught in the act are the ones being exploited or forced to carry out such activities. I am reassured by what she says, but does she agree that we need to go further up the chain?

[Mary Creagh]

We need to take action at every level. For example, the person who does a weekend job for their friend, transporting half a skip of old kitchen waste that suddenly ends up on a lay-by, in a farmer’s field or blocking a lane, will now face up to nine penalty points on their licence; that should make them think twice before doing that job for their friend. They may only be on the periphery of the criminality, but in order to stop it, we have to look right the way along the chain. Anecdotally, I often hear that when these small-time crooks are apprehended, they are only too pleased to pay the fixed penalty notices to the council and to be let away with it, because they can be the front end of a much, much larger serious and organised crime group.

So what does this all mean? The Environment Agency is finally going to be effectively resourced to undertake the compliance work. The move to permitting means that the agency can suspend and ultimate revoke permits where conditions are breached. It can also prosecute, and those found guilty will face fines or up to five years’ imprisonment. The regulations will mean that the public should have more trust in the people they hand their waste to. We will require waste controllers and transporters to include their permit number on advertising, whether that is a Facebook ad or a branded van.