Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he is taking steps to review sentencing guidelines for fly-tipping.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Sentencing guidelines are developed by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales, as required by statute.
As an independent body, the Sentencing Council decides on its own priorities and work plan for producing and reviewing guidelines. Therefore, the Government cannot require the Council to review particular guidelines. However, it is open to individuals to approach the Council to ask that it does so.
The Council’s published criteria for developing or revising guidelines is available on its website at: www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/about-the-sentencing-council/our-criteria-for-developing-or-revising-guidelines.
The Ministry of Justice regularly monitors the effectiveness of the sentencing framework.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help increase prosecutions for fly tipping.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In partnership with the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, which includes local authorities and the police, we have produced a guide on how local authorities, and others, can present robust cases to court to support sentences that properly reflect the severity of fly-tipping. This guide is available at National Fly-tipping Prevention Group | Keep Britain Tidy
Through the Prime Minister’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, we are also encouraging councils to increase enforcement activity against fly-tippers. Our fly-tipping intervention grants have also seen nearly £1.2m awarded across more than 30 councils to help purchase equipment to tackle fly-tipping. Many of the projects are using the funds to install CCTV which can be used help catch perpetrators. Another round of grants for tackling fly-tipping are to be awarded in the spring.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken with local authorities to tackle fly-tipping (a) nationally and (b) in Romford constituency.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Prime Minister’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils take tougher action against those who fly-tip. This includes significantly raising the upper limit on the penalties councils can issue to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who give their waste to an unauthorised carrier, which we did in July 2023. We have also increased transparency on the use of these penalties by publishing league tables and recently laid regulations to ringfence the money raised from these penalties for enforcement and clean up activity.
This Government’s fly-tipping grants are helping councils across the country put a stop to fly-tipping at hotspots, such as by installing CCTV and fencing. Nearly £1.2million is already in use with a further £1million to be awarded this spring. A selection of case studies from completed projects are available online so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme.
With the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, we are developing a toolkit to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. So far, the group has published a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework which sets out how to set up and run effective local partnerships. The toolkit, and other resources, are available online at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/national-fly-tipping-prevention-group.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 a comparative assessment of the level of fly-tipping in (a) England and (b) the rest of the UK.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities in England are required to report fly-tipping incidents and enforcement actions data to Defra, which are published annually on Gov.uk. In August, we published new league tables, providing transparency on how councils are using their enforcement powers.
Defra has not made a comparison with data from other parts of the UK.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of police vehicles in rural police forces.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises there can be particular challenges in responding to rural crime. The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in September 2022.
In June 2023 the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the Unleashing Rural Opportunity, setting out four broad priorities that are key to rural communities being able to thrive. As part of this, the Home Office has provided £200,000 to help establish the National Rural Crime Unit. The NRCU supports forces nationally in their responses to rural crime, such as the theft of farming or construction machinery, livestock theft, rural fly tipping, rural fuel theft and equine crime. In collaboration with the NRCU, the Combined Industry Thefts Solution has provided training to nearly 600 police officers, covering skills in how to identify and examine stolen agricultural and construction machinery, and knowledge about the methods of theft.
The Government supported the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which gained Royal Assent on 20 July. The Act will require immobilisers and forensic marking to be fitted as standard to new agricultural equipment such as All-Terrain Vehicles and quad bikes, to help prevent theft of this equipment and identify the owners of stolen equipment when it is recovered.
Operational decisions such as allocation of vehicles are matter for individual police chiefs and their force.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether police officers in rural areas have access to training on tackling rural crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises there can be particular challenges in responding to rural crime. The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in September 2022.
In June 2023 the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the Unleashing Rural Opportunity, setting out four broad priorities that are key to rural communities being able to thrive. As part of this, the Home Office has provided £200,000 to help establish the National Rural Crime Unit. The NRCU supports forces nationally in their responses to rural crime, such as the theft of farming or construction machinery, livestock theft, rural fly tipping, rural fuel theft and equine crime. In collaboration with the NRCU, the Combined Industry Thefts Solution has provided training to nearly 600 police officers, covering skills in how to identify and examine stolen agricultural and construction machinery, and knowledge about the methods of theft.
The Government supported the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which gained Royal Assent on 20 July. The Act will require immobilisers and forensic marking to be fitted as standard to new agricultural equipment such as All-Terrain Vehicles and quad bikes, to help prevent theft of this equipment and identify the owners of stolen equipment when it is recovered.
Operational decisions such as allocation of vehicles are matter for individual police chiefs and their force.
Asked by: Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the merits of devolving fine-setting powers for fly-tipping and littering offences to local authorities.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Fixed penalties provide local authorities with an effective and visible way of quickly responding to environmental crimes, where prosecution may not be proportionate. Local authorities must set fixed penalties for litter and fly-tipping from within ranges specified in law. If a penalty level is not set by the authority then a default penalty level will apply.
We believe local authorities are best placed to select the appropriate level, to ensure it reflects local circumstances such as ability to pay. This flexibility is consistent with the responses we received to the consultation on introducing fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping.
Under the Prime Minister’s Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan, the first local authority fly-tipping enforcement league tables were published in August 2023. These show which councils are making good use of their powers to issue fixed penalties, encouraging both scrutiny and the sharing of best practice.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of CCTV in addressing fly tipping hotspots.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Across two rounds of our fly-tipping grant scheme, we have awarded nearly £1.2 million to help more than 30 councils purchase equipment, such as CCTV, to tackle fly-tipping at known hot-spots. Round one has seen good results; for example, Durham County Council has seen a reduction in fly-tipping of over 60% in the areas where CCTV was installed onto existing lighting columns. A selection of case studies from round one, including for Durham Country Council and other projects utilising CCTV, have been published so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These are available at Keep Britain Tidy’s website.
Round two case studies will be made available in due course and we have recently launched a third round that could see a further £1 million handed out in grants next year to help even more councils tackle the issue.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
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 with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of fires in illegal dumps on public health in (a) Havering and (b) England.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to tackling waste crime, and it is an offence to dump waste on land without appropriate authorisation. The Prime Minister’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan set out how we will support councils to take tougher action against those who fly-tip. We have raised the upper limit for fixed penalties for fly-tipping to £1,000 and taken steps to encourage councils to issue more of these penalties.
We are developing a toolkit with the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. This includes a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework on setting up and running effective local partnerships.
We have also awarded nearly £1.2m to help more than 30 councils purchase equipment to tackle fly-tipping at known hot-spots. We have recently launched another grant opportunity that could see a further £1m handed out in grants next year to help even more councils tackle the issue.
The Environment Agency (EA) investigates fly tipping if the incidents are large-scale, serious, organised illegal dumping or if it immediately threatens human health or the environment. They work in partnership with other local partners such as the police, local authorities, the fire service and United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as needed. This includes seeking advice from UKHSA about public health risks from illegal waste activities if necessary.
As part of its partnership work the EA has provided advice and guidance to the London Borough of Havering to help deal with a specific site in Havering and will continue to do so. The council is the lead authority on regulating this particular site and for monitoring air quality. Its work will take into account any advice on public health matters that it might receive from UKHSA.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
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 taken steps to assist local authorities to tackle illegal dumps in (a) general and (b) Havering.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to tackling waste crime, and it is an offence to dump waste on land without appropriate authorisation. The Prime Minister’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan set out how we will support councils to take tougher action against those who fly-tip. We have raised the upper limit for fixed penalties for fly-tipping to £1,000 and taken steps to encourage councils to issue more of these penalties.
We are developing a toolkit with the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. This includes a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework on setting up and running effective local partnerships.
We have also awarded nearly £1.2m to help more than 30 councils purchase equipment to tackle fly-tipping at known hot-spots. We have recently launched another grant opportunity that could see a further £1m handed out in grants next year to help even more councils tackle the issue.
The Environment Agency (EA) investigates fly tipping if the incidents are large-scale, serious, organised illegal dumping or if it immediately threatens human health or the environment. They work in partnership with other local partners such as the police, local authorities, the fire service and United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as needed. This includes seeking advice from UKHSA about public health risks from illegal waste activities if necessary.
As part of its partnership work the EA has provided advice and guidance to the London Borough of Havering to help deal with a specific site in Havering and will continue to do so. The council is the lead authority on regulating this particular site and for monitoring air quality. Its work will take into account any advice on public health matters that it might receive from UKHSA.