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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to encourage local authorities to adopt proactive enforcement policies to help combat fly-tipping.

We are committed to tackling fly-tipping, and as set out in the Government’s manifesto we have given local authorities the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small-scale fly-tipping. These new enforcement tools provide local authorities with an alternative to prosecutions and will assist them to take a proportionate enforcement response.

This builds on other Government action to tackle fly-tipping, which has included: working with the Sentencing Council on its guideline for sentencing for environmental offences, which came into force on 1 July 2014; making it easier for vehicles suspected of being involved in waste crime to be stopped, searched and seized; and continuing our work with the Defra-chaired National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to promote and disseminate good practice in the prevention, reporting, investigation and clearance of fly-tipped waste.