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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of raising fixed‑penalty notice levels for fly‑tipping above the £1,000 maximum; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a publicly available league table for local authority fly‑tipping performance.

The Government no longer publishes a league table of local authority fly-tipping performance. Local authorities in England are required to report fly-tipping incidents and actions to Defra, which are published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england. In assessing the figures local authorities should not be classified as ‘good’ or ‘poor’ performers based purely on numbers of fly-tips and comparisons between local authorities should be made with care.

We have committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess they have created. This will build on the sanctions already available which include fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing and crushing of vehicles and prosecution which can lead to a significant fine, a community sentence or even imprisonment. We want to see councils make good use of their enforcement powers and are taking steps to help them do this, such as by reviewing their powers to seize and crush vehicles to identify and remove barriers. There are no plans to increase the fixed penalty levels at this time.