Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of the (a) powers and (b) resources of the Environment Agency to regulate landfill sites.

The regulatory framework in place is designed to serve operators and protect the local community. Where poor performance does occur the Environment Agency has a range of powers to bring sites back into compliance and, where necessary, to take enforcement action against operators. Regulatory oversight of permitted sites is funded by permitting fees, which are calculated on a full cost recovery basis, in line with the Polluter Pays principle and HM Treasury’s managing public money guidance.