Environment Protection: Enforcement
(asked on 10th June 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many environmental permit breaches were recorded by the Environment Agency in each year between 2019 and 2025; how many were classified as category 1, 2 and 3; and what proportion resulted in formal enforcement action.
Answered by
Emma Hardy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) make decisions on how it responds to all environmental permit breaches using its Enforcement and Sanctions Policy. Permit breaches can be handled through a regulatory response or through formal enforcement action.
Please note, enforcement action will appear to be decreasing disproportionately but this reflects ongoing investigations which have not yet concluded the process for consideration of enforcement sanctions (i.e. governance process).
Question | How many environmental permit breaches were recorded by the EA in each year between 2019 and 2025? | How many were classified as category 1, 2 and 3? | What proportion resulted in formal enforcement action? Please Note: On average 90% of the figures for Cat 1-3 breaches below are Category 3. In line with the EA enforcement and sanctions policy these cases will receive an ongoing regulatory response from its officers and the remaining breaches may require formal enforcement action . The percentage of formal enforcement action is based only on the number of breaches which it considered may require a formal enforcement response. | ||
Year (Calendar) | Total Number Breaches | Breaches classified as Cat 1-3 | Total Number of Cat 1-3 permit breaches considered for Formal Enforcement Action. | Number of Cat 1-3 permit breaches considered and resulted in Formal Enforcement Action | % Of Cat 1-3 permit Breaches considered and resulted in Formal Enforcement Action |
2019 | 19068 | 15094 | 1004 | 662 | 66% |
2020 | 12556 | 10441 | 748 | 443 | 59% |
2021 | 12793 | 11795 | 775 | 382 | 49% |
2022 | 14873 | 11884 | 882 | 266 | 30% |
2023 | 19491 | 13885 | 1261 | 192 | 15% |
2024 | 19771 | 15239 | 1281 | 131 | 10% |
2025 | 19524 | 14545 | 1477 | 67 | 5% |