Fly-tipping

Shaun Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Deirdre Costigan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is certainly right: that, too, is the experience of my constituents in Ealing Southall, where they have very much said that this is an issue of pride in their community. Much research has also been done on what is called the “broken windows syndrome”, in which fly-tipping also encourages crime and antisocial behaviour. My hon. Friend is certainly right in that regard.

My residents in Ealing Southall have identified Beaconsfield Road and Bridge Road, along with George Street in Hanwell, as key hotspots, but there many more. In fact, more than a million cases of fly-tipping are recorded every year in this country. Of course, many will not be recorded at all as communities just give up. One third of all fly-tipping takes place in London and eight London authorities were in the top 10 areas with the highest number of fly-tipping incidents in England, according to the most recent statistics. I am afraid to say that all too often it is the poorest areas of the country that are most likely to face such issues. That is due to overcrowded housing and a lack of outside space for bins, which are particular issues in London.

There are some great organisations fighting the scourge of fly-tipping. In Ealing, LAGER Can, whose representatives are here today watching the debate, does amazing work in partnership with the council—not just to clear litter, but to clear and report fly-tips. Nationally, Keep Britain Tidy has strenuously campaigned on the issue. The previous Government periodically announced new crackdowns on fly-tipping, but has that made a difference? I do not think my constituents in Ealing Southall noticed any improvements in 14 years of that Government’s supposed crackdowns; in fact, it is clear the problem has got worse.

Why did the previous Government fail to get a grip on the issue? First, only about 1% of fly-tips result in a court prosecution. That is because councils lost about two thirds of their funding over 14 years of Tory austerity, so they cannot afford to pay for the detailed and expensive investigations needed to take a fly-tipper to court. Even if they do try to take a fly-tipper to court, the average fine is only about £500, which does not pay the council’s costs. It is much quicker and cheaper for the council to just pick up the fly-tip. That solves the immediate problem, but of course people then start to think, “Well, I can dump my mattress or these few bags of rubbish on the corner because the council will pick them up.”

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that when councils seek to investigate, prosecute and prevent fly-tipping, they should be able to recover the full cost, including when issuing fixed penalty notices to those who are guilty? After all, it is the polluter who should pay.

[Deirdre Costigan]

I certainly agree. I will return later to my hon. Friend’s point about making the polluter pay. Currently it is certainly not worth councils’ time or money in many instances to take fly-tippers to court because the fines, and indeed the sentencing, do not act as a deterrent. Some people feel it is okay to leave their rubbish at the end of the street because the council will pick it up. This is a vicious cycle and we need to break it.

Secondly, in the small number of cases that do go to court, magistrates do not take the issue seriously enough or understand how fly-tipping blights the life of local communities. The sentencing just is not enough to make people think twice. The criminals who make a pretty penny by offering to take away waste for 20 quid tell the court they are unemployed, so they get away with not having to pay. The waste carrier licensing system is also so lax that it is hard for someone to lose their licence, even if they have broken the rules and been convicted.

Thirdly, there is a problem with housing in London. We know that there is not enough of it and that is why this Government have committed to building 1.5 million new homes. Right now, in Ealing Southall, there are people living in overcrowded accommodation, where there is often not enough space for a bin. I have also been told by many of my constituents that tenants sometimes illegally sub-let a room, but insist that the new tenant does not use the rubbish bins so that the landlord does not find out.

Finally, there is just too much waste in the first place. As a nation, we are drowning in unnecessary packaging, single-use drink containers, and household items that are difficult and expensive to recycle. We have to be honest about fly-tipping. In a Keep Britain Tidy study, one in five people in London admitted that they had fly-tipped themselves—this is often black-sack fly-tipping. It is simply not an excuse that the council is not doing enough because every council in London offers a free kerbside collection for black-sack rubbish. However, people often do not see this as fly-tipping, and it is very difficult to change their behaviour. No amount of education seems to work.

Trying to stop people from fly-tipping is a huge challenge. Keep Britain Tidy has piloted a number of schemes, including in Newham, that have had some success, but the schemes often simply move fly-tipping to the next road. Some councils have tried community skips, including my neighbouring authority of Brent. However, despite the council’s hard work, Brent sadly still has the highest fly-tipping rate in London, at 34,000 incidents a year. Although residents like the community skip, it does not stop people from fly-tipping.

The recycling charity WRAP has found that there is no evidence at all to link free bulky waste disposal with a reduction in fly-tipping. Even the Conservative Hampshire County Council acknowledged that fly-tipping did not increase when it started to charge for DIY waste. Just as it is clear that there is not one cause of fly-tipping, so it follows that there is not one answer.

This is a complex problem that needs a number of different approaches. Crucially, it needs to be led by Government, not by cash-strapped councils. We need a national strategy to combat fly-tipping, which will bring together the Environment Agency, councils, Keep Britain Tidy, waste disposal authorities and other stakeholders to crack this problem once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a cross-Government approach to fly-tipping? We need the Home Office to recognise that it is often linked to organised crime, particularly in respect of the bigger fly-tips. There is a role for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and for the Ministry of Justice. Will my hon. Friend work with her counterparts across Government to focus on this work?

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I want to correct the record on what the shadow Minister said about the waste figures, because the methodology changed in 2019-20. In that year, there were 980,000 incidents of fly-tipping. The numbers to 2022-23 increased by 10.5% to 1.08 million incidents, so the numbers and the trend lines are all going in the wrong direction.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) made an absolutely valid point. Far too often, when people come to collect stuff from households, we are hiring Messrs Bodgit and Scarper. We need to make sure that the carrier number is printed on the side.

On the point about the DVLA, we all have access to DVLA tax and MOT information on our phones. It cannot be beyond the wit of officials to make sure that the databases are joined up. It does introduce complexity, but we are actively looking at that.

Whether someone lives in the countryside or in a city, they should be able to take pride in their place. The story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) of people climbing over rubbish to get out of their house in an emergency is simply intolerable in the sixth richest country in the world.

Local authorities have reported over 1 million incidents, and the cost to local authorities was £392 million in 2018-19. That is why our manifesto committed to taking back our streets from the fly-tippers and vandals and forcing them to clear up the mess they have created as part of a crackdown to tackle antisocial behaviour.

The National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group has produced guidance to help councils to present robust cases to court, but where the gain is not worth the candle because the fines are too low or the fly-tippers are allegedly too poor, we need to get a little cannier about what we do and how we get back to the principle of polluter pays. As the shadow Minister said, fixed penalty notices can be issued, as can notices of up to £1,000 or £600 to the householder who passes on their waste to someone without a proper licence, but we need to educate the public about their responsibilities as well.

We recognise the efforts made by the London borough of Ealing to tackle the issue. It is in the top 10% of councils for issuing fixed penalty notices and I hope it will continue to do that good work. There are lessons to be learned from throughout the country. According to our statistics, the council did not carry out any prosecutions, so we encourage it to use its powers to the full.