Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of resources available to local authorities to enforce waste disposal regulations.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question has been interpreted as relating to whether an assessment has been made regarding adequate infrastructure availability for local authorities to meet their Simpler Recycling requirements.
We are working with WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) and waste industry representatives to support readiness for the Simpler Recycling requirements. Specifically, we have engaged with Materials Recycling Facilities (MRF) operators and local authorities to identify challenges with MRF capacity, investment and upgrade timelines, and to work with the sector to identify interventions to support MRFs as they prepare for Simpler Recycling. Those engaged with us are aware of their obligations and are working hard to upgrade their facilities to ensure they can separate the target materials as required by Simpler Recycling.
Further workstreams have included engagement with the organics processing sector who are also clear of the obligations on them and the increase in food waste material which will be generated in the coming years.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the conviction rate was for waste crime offences in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The conviction rates for the last five years are as follows:
2020 – 82%
2021 – 81%
2022 – 86%
2023 – 83%
2024 – 84%
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of prosecutions for waste crime offences in England and Wales.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Of the additional £5.6 million allocated to the Environment Agency (EA) this year to tackle waste crime, £2 million has allowed the EA to recruit an additional 43 operational staff and achieve focus on enforcement. Prosecution is not always the most effective way of stopping waste crime and the EA will continue to use a variety of approaches to disrupt and prevent waste crime, whilst prosecuting the worst offences and offenders, in line with its strategy for reducing crime in the waste sector.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support British farmers producing (a) cereal, (b) milk, (c) butter, (d) beef and (e) other staple food items.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner
Ministers and Defra officials regularly engage with food retailers and producers on a wide range of food supply issues, including affordability and access to staple items such as cereal, milk, butter, and beef. These discussions form part of our ongoing efforts to ensure a resilient and fair food supply chain.
While pricing decisions remain a matter for individual businesses, we recognise the pressures facing both consumers and retailers. The Government continues to monitor food price trends closely and Defra’s Food Strategy, announced in December, will be considering how easily our citizens can access affordable, safe, nutritious, healthy food and we’ll be working across government and with the food supply chain to find solutions.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether additional funding has been allocated to the Environment Agency to tackle waste crime in the current financial year.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra works closely with the Environment Agency (EA) to ensure it is equipped to carry out its functions effectively and deliver for the public and the environment. The EA’s total budget for 2025 to 2026 has increased to £2,274 million and includes £10 million baselined for waste crime enforcement and additional £5.6 million this financial year to tackle waste crime.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will increase levels of funding for local authorities for enforcing the prevention of illegal waste dumping.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The recent Spending Review provides over £5 billion of new grant funding over the next three years for local services that communities rely on. This results in an average overall real terms increase in local authority core spending power of 2.6% per year. The majority of this new funding is unringfenced, recognising that local leaders are best placed to identify local priorities, which could include fly-tipping enforcement.
Defra has no current plans to provide funding to local authorities specifically for enforcing the prevention of illegal waste dumping. We are looking to support local authorities to tackle fly-tipping in other ways. Indeed, we are taking steps to develop new fly-tipping enforcement guidance and have commenced a review of their vehicle seizure powers to identify and remove barriers where we can.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of levels of penalties for waste crime.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Legislation relating to waste crime such as fly-tipping and illegal waste sites allows for an unlimited fine and up to five years imprisonment. We are making the regulations for the transport and management of waste tougher so that those who break the new rules will face up to five years imprisonment. For lower-level offences it is important to ensure that penalties are high enough to act as a deterrent but not too high so that offenders cannot, or choose not to, pay the penalty. The Defra chaired National Fly-tipping Prevention Group has produced a guide on how local authorities, and others, can present robust cases to court. This is available at https://nftpg.com/.
Sentencing is entirely a matter for our independent courts. When deciding what sentence to impose for unlawfully depositing waste, the court will take into account the circumstances of the offence and any aggravating and mitigating factors, in line with sentencing guidelines for environmental offences, issued by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the annual cost to local authorities of clearing fly-tipped waste.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
According to Defra official statistics, in 2023/24, around 4% of fly-tipping incidents dealt with by local authorities in England were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger. For these incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities was £13.1 million. Local authorities do not report clearance costs for smaller incidents. These statistics are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england
According to independent research published by the Environmental Services Association in 2021, the estimated national cost of fly-tipping to the economy has increased from £209 million in 2015 to £392 million in 2018/19. A more recent assessment has not been made.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities seeking to prosecute repeat fly-tipping offenders.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government encourages councils to make good use of their enforcement powers, including prosecution, and we are taking steps to help them do so. We intend to develop new fly-tipping enforcement guidance and are also reviewing their powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers to understand how we could help them make better use of this tool.
While sentencing is a matter for the courts, the National Fly-tipping Prevention Group, which Defra chairs, has produced a guide on how local authorities can present robust cases to court. The guide explains that repeat offending could be an aggravating factor. This is available at https://nftpg.com/.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle fly-tipping in (a) rural and (b) suburban communities.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Fly-tipping is a serious crime which blights communities and places significant costs on both taxpayers and businesses.
Local authorities are responsible for tackling fly-tipping in their areas and we want to see an effective enforcement strategy at the centre of their efforts to tackle the problem. We are therefore taking steps to help councils make good use of their powers, including seeking powers in the Crime and Policing Bill to provide statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance. We are also reviewing their powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool.
In our manifesto we committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created as part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.
Defra chairs the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG), through which we work with a wide range of interested parties, including local authorities and the National Farmers Union to share good practice with regards to preventing fly-tipping, including on private land. The NFTPG has developed various practical tools, guidance and case studies highlighting best practice. These are available at: https://nftpg.com/.