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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with representatives from (a) Police Scotland and (b) the Home Office in relation to tackling fly-tipping in rural areas.

Policies to tackle fly-tipping are devolved.

No discussions have been held with Police Scotland.

In England, the Government is committed to tackling fly-tipping in rural and urban areas. We are working closely with the Home Office on a range of issues in relation to rural crime, including waste crime and fly-tipping. Local authorities and the Environment Agency have a wide range of enforcement powers to tackle fly-tipping and we have recently strengthened these. In 2016 we gave local authorities the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small scale fly-tipping and enhanced local authorities’ and the Environment Agency’s ability to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers.

In November we laid regulations in Parliament to give local authorities and the Environment Agency the power to issue fixed penalty notices to householders who fail in their duty of care and pass their waste to fly-tippers. Two thirds of fly-tips involve household waste so this will help address the main source of the crime. We will also support local authorities in increasing householders’ awareness of their duty of care to ensure their waste is disposed of properly. On 18 December we published our Resources and Waste Strategy for England including a new strategic approach to prevent, detect and deter waste crime including fly-tipping. The Strategy is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/resources-and-waste-strategy-for-england.