Fly-tipping

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what further action they are taking to deal with the recent rises in fly-tipping.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I express my regret that I could not find a suitable topic for International Women’s Day.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, fly-tipping blights communities and poses a risk to human health and the environment. Tackling this issue is a priority for the Government. As set out in our manifesto, we have given councils the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small-scale fly-tipping. This builds on previous action, including giving authorities the power to seize and crush vehicles involved, strengthening sentencing guidelines for environmental offences and publishing a revised Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but clearly the existing powers are simply not working. Figures issued by Defra just last week show that the incidence of reported fly-tipping increased by 4% last year, while the amount that Her Majesty’s Government spent on both prevention and prosecution fell by 4%. Given that many people consider that high levels of landfill taxation are a contributory factor to the increase in fly-tipping, will Her Majesty’s Government consider the possibility of increasing the level of money for enforcement action against waste crime funded from this tax?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. I should point out that the statistics of increases of 4% in the incidence of fly-tipping have to be looked at very carefully, because different local authorities gather these statistics in different ways. It would be useful to examine how these figures look this time next year because the power for local authorities to issue fixed penalty notices came in only in May 2016, so we would like to think there will be some effect on this issue next year. The right reverend Prelate also mentioned landfill tax. I will take careful note of what he said, but as he is aware, this goes into central government.