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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has had discussions with the Home Secretary on the potential merits of introducing a national rural crime unit to tackle fly-tipping in rural areas.

The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a range of issues, and Cabinet discussions are considered confidential.

I do however appreciate the difficulty and cost that fly-tipping poses, especially to landowners, and we are working with a wide range of interested parties through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG), such as the National Farmers Union, National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and local authorities to promote and disseminate good practice, including how to prevent fly-tipping on private land.  We recognise the support of the police on this issue by welcoming the focus on fly-tipping in the NPCC’s Rural Crime Strategy 2022-2025.

We are also working with the NFTPG to develop a fly-tipping toolkit which will share best practice on a range of issues related to tackling fly-tipping. Work is currently underway on the next part of the toolkit which will cover how local authorities can set up and run effective partnerships to tackle fly-tipping. We hope to complete this in the spring.