Fly-tipping

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tristan Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the principle of the circular economy, which I entirely endorse. The linear economy that we have, which relies on waste disposal, should be challenged. I am very encouraged that, finally, the EPR guidelines that the Government are pursuing are being enacted. We should be encouraging councils to recycle, and that needs to be looked at in relation to the variations of postcode lotteries that we get. In one of the two local authorities in my area, recycling is done on a two-weekly basis, and in the other it is done weekly. Education is also needed on what can be placed in the bins as well. The producers need to be responsible for their packaging and making it recyclable, so I agree that there needs to be some work in relation to corporate interests on that.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

Massive congratulations to my hon. Friend and near neighbour on securing this debate. I am very supportive of everything that has been said so far. One thing that I think has not been picked up yet is just how long it takes to investigate these sites. Many of them are organised crime and many are on private land. The investigations are complicated and often cross lots of boundaries, including institutional boundaries. Frankly, it just takes too long to investigate them to the right level to be able to implement a lot of the enforcement actions, so I would be very keen to hear what my hon. Friend and then the Minister have to say about that.

[Tristan Osborne]

Absolutely. Much commercial fly-tipping is associated with organised crime. I know from the outstanding work of Ian Gilmore and his team at Medway council that they are regularly having to challenge those quite complicated cases. They are multifaceted, involving other elements of organised crime as well. I will not talk about specific locations, because sub judice rules apply. However, we know that in Kent specifically, there are a number of sites where some of this is alleged to involve organised efforts at disposal. As well as local authorities, national enforcement agencies need to be engaged on that to target the gangs that are pursuing that commercial agenda.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 allows councils to use camera technologies, but sometimes there have been restrictions on the use of camera technologies, specifically in areas of hotspots. Can we look at that again, to allow local authorities to use camera technologies in a way associated with challenging this issue?

In relation to public awareness and celebrating the “wall of shame” approach, can the Government use Medway and other councils as a template example of how we can use “wall of shame” approaches to annunciate to the public that we are challenging this issue, and those who commit this crime, robustly? Many councils already announce those whom they are fining for litter dropping and other types of environmental crime, yet there is an inconsistency in relation to fly-tipping.

With regard to waste disposal options, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) on the idea of the circular economy and providing more recycling options, but I also think we need to support the Environment Agency, which saw budget reductions under the previous Government, and allow it to prosecute more illegal waste carriers. We also need to promote further collaboration among land managers, local authorities, police and the Environment Agency to establish ownership of the issue. Many farmers in my area are struggling, and the National Farmers Union has raised with me the concerns among its members that they do not necessarily know who to go to when fly-tipping occurs. They believe that the local authority approach of simply sending them a web link in relation to a fly-tip is not the best solution and is not giving them a solution, and therefore they are having to seek private sector options.

I thank the Library for providing me with the datasets for today’s debate and I thank all those Members who have contributed. I look forward to the ministerial response.