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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of a (a) national debate and (b) action plan on fly-tipping.

This Government has not made an assessment of the potential merits of a national debate or action plan on fly-tipping.

We are committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created as part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.

We encourage councils to make good use of their enforcement powers, which include fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing vehicles and prosecution, and we are taking steps to develop statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support local authorities to consistently and effectively exercise these powers.

We have also announced a review of council powers to seize and crush vehicles of suspected fly-tippers, to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool.