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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of their Fly-tipping statistics for England 2016–17 which shows a 7 per cent increase in fly-tipping incidents from the previous year, what steps they are taking to deter and punish fly-tipping.

The Government is committed to tackling fly-tipping on a number of fronts. In 2016 we gave local authorities the power to issue fixed penalty notices for small scale fly-tipping. We have enhanced the Environment Agency and local authorities’ powers to search and seize vehicles suspected of fly-tipping.

The Sentencing Guidelines for environmental offences were reviewed and strengthened in 2014. The maximum penalty on indictment for fly-tipping is imprisonment of up to five years or a potentially unlimited fine. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Dr Thérèse Coffey will shortly be writing to Ministry of Justice Ministers on the matter of sentencing and we will work with the judiciary so sentencing levels act as an appropriate deterrent

As part of our Resource and Waste strategy we will develop further proposals to tackle fly-tipping. We will enhance partnership working and intelligence sharing, increase the reporting of fly-tipping on private land to target enforcement better and encourage local authorities and the Environment Agency to investigate incidents on private land.