Draft Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026

Tom Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 General Committees

[Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)]

In my constituency, we have already paid dearly the price of waste crime and seen its impacts on our city and the surrounding area, so I really welcome this measure. I think most people would expect that we use digital tools these days to track, trace and gather data on the movements of value streams like this one. As we move forward into a more circular economy and see higher energy waste streams being handled, that becomes all the more important. As an officer in the all-party parliamentary group on critical infrastructure and heritage crime, it is good to see measures coming into place to tackle those areas of crime as well.

I note that the regulation introduces a fee and I am interested in the future value for money of that fee. In particular, I note that the Secretary of State has responsibility for the operation of the digital waste tracking system, but it is not clear how that will be administered in practice or to whom the fee will be paid.

Can the Minister explain the Secretary of State’s intention on the day-to-day administration of the waste tracking system? Will that be done by the Environment Agency, some other public body, or will it be contracted out to a private entity?

Will the Minister also comment on the development of the software? I note from the accompanying papers that it is currently in a private beta test stage, but the optimism bias being used is 400%. Does that indicate a problem or some very high uncertainty on the final areas of development of that software?

Apart from those small details, I strongly welcome the regulations and all the Department’s work.