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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) tackle fly tipping and (b) help local authorities to (i) prevent and (ii) prosecute fly tipping.

The PM’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils take tougher action against those who fly-tip. We significantly raised the upper limit of on-the-spot fines in July, to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who give their waste to an unauthorised carrier. We have also increased transparency on the use of these fines by publishing league tables on fly-tipping enforcement and consulted stakeholders on ringfencing the money raised from fines for enforcement and clean up activity.

This builds on the £1.2m Defra has provided in grant funding to help more than 30 councils implement projects cracking down on fly-tipping, including Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council who received £23,000 to purchase CCTV equipment. We intend to launch another grant opportunity for councils later this year.

With the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, we are developing a toolkit to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. So far, the group has published a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework which sets out how to set up and run effective local partnerships. The toolkit, and other resources, are available online at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/national-fly-tipping-prevention-group.