Baroness Sheehan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the performance of the Environment Agency in addressing waste crime.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, as chair of the Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee I am delighted to have an opportunity to debate our inquiry into waste crime. I begin by thanking all noble Lords who will be contributing to this debate, particularly as it is the last business before our February Recess.
The committee’s inquiry painted a profoundly disturbing picture. The scale of waste crime is staggering: some 38 million tonnes every year is dumped illegally, enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times over and estimated to cost the taxpayer £1 billion annually. Worse still, more than one-third of that illegal activity passes through the hands of serious organised crime groups. These are not opportunistic fly-tippers, but organised criminal networks—people who engage in drug trafficking, firearms, money laundering and modern slavery.
Local residents report waste dumping to all the right authorities, such as the local council, the Environment Agency and the police. In every single case we encountered, residents’ repeated reports were ignored. They were passed from pillar to post and left to confront these criminals themselves, frequently with the result that they live in fear of reprisals. Residents chose to write to the committee anonymously rather than appear in front of cameras, either to give oral evidence to the committee or to speak to TV crews. The committee recommended a dedicated waste hotline for the public, so that local teams on the ground can respond immediately. Will the Minister take this suggestion to the Government?
Members of the committee were shocked to learn of the brazenness with which these criminals operate. They know that the chances of being caught are slim and that, even if they are caught, they will get away with it, receiving at the most a paltry penalty charge notice of a few hundred pounds. Given that we heard that the payload on a single lorry is £2,500, that is a good deal. It is profitable for criminals, and it is a scandal that they are getting away with it.
The committee wrote to the Secretary of State for Defra last October, outlining our deep concerns about the demonstrable inadequacy of the current approach to tackling waste crime and identifying multiple failures by the Environment Agency. For example, it has ignored repeated calls by local residents, it has the power to issue stop notices but has too often not done so in time, and it has sanctions of unlimited fines and prison sentences of up to five years available to it, yet its record of using these powers effectively is woeful. Our letter also highlighted the lack of interest shown by the police. Neither the National Crime Agency nor the National Police Chiefs’ Council would give oral evidence to the committee. The NCA in written evidence stated that it did not have anyone with sufficient knowledge of the issues to appear before the committee, and we are talking about serious organised criminal gangs here.
I shall say a few words about the illegal waste super-sites that are being discovered on a regular basis around the country since our inquiry report was published. Recent examples are the 25,000 tonnes dumped along the A34 in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and the Bickershaw site in Wigan. These mixed-waste sites are similar in nature to the egregious Hoads Wood site, which featured in our inquiry. Mixed-waste sites are dangerous because they combine many different hazards in one place, often at a huge scale, making pollution, fires and health risks much harder to control.
I visited both the Kidlington and Bickershaw sites. The Environment Agency is cleaning up the Kidlington site, and rightly so, as it is obviously polluting the River Cherwell and poses a serious fire risk. However, I put it to the Minister that it is unjust to treat the Bickershaw site differently from the Kidlington site. The Bickershaw site is close to houses and the local primary school. My real fear is that if it is still there when the weather warms up, there will be a repeat of last year’s fires, one of which burned for 10 days, forcing the primary school to close because of the noxious fumes. Will the Minister undertake to do all he can to help the people and the schoolchildren who are suffering due to the risks of the Bickershaw site? They should not have to live with this toxic nightmare on their doorstep while waiting for lengthy proceedings about ownership and culpability to be resolved, which could take years. I repeat my request for the Government to share the risk assessment of both sites with my committee. I also understand that the BBC has submitted a freedom of information request about the risks posed by the Kidlington site, which I hope will produce a response from the Government.
The committee was deeply disappointed by the Government’s response to our findings. They cited instead reassurances by Philip Duffy, chief executive of the Environment Agency, who in essence asserted that the problem was under control and rejected our recommendations. However, the committee’s call for an urgent independent root-and-branch review of the Government’s response to waste crime stemmed from compelling evidence of a systemically broken process rather than mere isolated issues.
The Environment Agency said in its response that it was,
“doing everything within our power to ensure that the perpetrators pay the price to clean up the site, rather than taxpayers”.
It would be more reassuring if the Environment Agency had said that it was reviewing its processes and why these sites grow so large from small beginnings, why its considerable powers are not exercised at an early enough stage to nip the problem in the bud, why it is unable to prosecute the criminals and impose penalties that would be seen as a deterrence and why the JUWC, the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, which was set up after the recommendations in the 2018 waste strategy review, has been ineffective.
We heard that Treasury rules force the Environment Agency’s efforts to be focused on the regulated waste sector, whose transgressions, sometimes minor, are pursued with zeal. In addition, we heard that the law forces the Environment Agency to pursue private landowners to clean up waste dumped on their land, even those who are the victims of such crimes. Does the Minister agree that a root-and-branch review of the waste system would allow the Government to assess whether such rules are helpful? Can the Minister update the Grand Committee on when we may expect to see long overdue reforms, such as the waste crime levy, a digital waste tracking system, and carrier, broker and dealer reforms? If urgently and properly enacted, they will help to grip this scourge of waste crime that is blighting local communities and damaging precious environments.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
I have been talking rubbish for many years; more accurately, I have been talking about waste crime and disposal for many years. I first got interested when I was the chair of public health in Newcastle in the 1990s. As the Member of Parliament for North Durham, I took a particular interest in this because of the actions of a company called Niramax in the north-east of England. The people running it would not have passed a “fit and proper person” test. After a lot of lobbying with fellow MPs, such as David Davis MP, there was an investigation into Niramax; it was called Operation Nosedive. Somebody had a bit of a sense of humour when they named it Nosedive because it went nowhere and spent £3.5 million of public money with no prosecutions, even though there was clear evidence of widespread landfill tax fraud and environmental crime.
David Davis and I persuaded the NAO to look into the issue. It produced an excellent report in 2022, which people may not have read; it mirrors many of the issues covered in the report that has just been referred to. It shocked me a bit that the National Crime Agency would not appear before the committee because David Davis MP and I went to see it throughout this process to raise this directly with it. The 2022 report said that there was no data—there is still no data—a problem with exporting waste abroad, permit abuse, which is still going on, and an increase in fly-tipping, which, again, is still going on. Increases in landfill tax had made the issue more lucrative for criminals. It estimated that something like £200 million a year was lost through landfill tax fraud; it plucked that figure out of thin air because it does not actually know what the issue is. More disturbingly, it said in black and white that 41 of the 60 major organised crime groups in this country are involved in waste crime. The most common sanction from the Environment Agency, to which the noble Baroness just referred, is either a warning letter or advice.
The report also said—it was quite clear—that the number of prosecutions had dropped from some 800 a year in 2007 to 60 in 2017-18. The response of the previous Government was to set up the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. I asked a Question a few months ago on how many prosecutions it had pursued, and the answer was none at all, which begs the question of what that unit is doing. I also asked whether there had been any prosecutions for landfill tax fraud. Remember that landfill tax goes back to 1996. The answer was that there has not been a single one, so I do not know how we can come up with this figure of £1 billion a year—I think it is a lot worse than that. The industry reckons that 18% of the waste stream is going into illegal waste across the country. The noble Baroness mentioned the issue raised by farmers and others of dumping on their land; if you look at the Times this morning, there is an example from Hertfordshire.
It seems to me that the problem is that there is the number of different agencies: the Environment Agency, the police, HMRC, local councils, and, I would strongly argue, the National Crime Agency. The responsibility is falling between the cracks, even though the evidence is there. The 2022 report states what the problem is. On one occasion, I referred to the Environment Agency as newt lovers and tree huggers. I am sorry, but that is their approach here. It is not about enforcement. What is needed in this area more than anything is not jointed-up working between these agencies but an enforcement culture—a culture that means they are going to go after these people.
I share the noble Baroness’s frustration on behalf of individual constituents. If there is an example of where the state is failing, this is it, and we need to address it. On the point about talking to industry, the industry is aware and is prepared to work with the Government to try to sort this out, but the problem is that the Environment Agency is spending most of its time regulating the industry. The industry is not the problem; these illegal issues are.
I say in closing that we need an enforcement culture. With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, we do not need any more reviews. The evidence is there; we know what the problem is. We need the political will to do something about it. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime might have been a movement forward, but it does not have teeth. It needs to be politically driven to say, “Right, we’re going to take on these individuals and make sure that the law is enforced and that the penalties are there”. The noble Baroness is right: frankly, the penalties against these individuals are just operating costs for them. This is a multi-million-pound business for these individuals, and that money is going directly into other areas of crime. I urge the Minister to take this away and say that we need action, not more reviews or words.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on securing this debate and thank her both for her excellent leadership as the chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, of which I have the privilege to be a member, and for her comprehensive introduction to this topic. I also acknowledge the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for urging the committee to investigate waste crime.
The headline item on “Channel 4 News” on 26 January was the illegal dumping of an estimated 25,000 tonnes of waste on Bolton House Road, Bickershaw—it is near Wigan in Lancashire—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has already referred. A local resident described living near the dump as a “living hell”. Residents had asked for it to be cleared up for over a year, but no one had accepted responsibility—not the local authority, the Environment Agency or the landowner, the Duchy of Lancaster.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said, residents on the whole fear to speak out because they are afraid of reprisals. However, one brave resident, Nicha Rowson, talked to “Channel 4 News” about the rats and flies in her house, as well as the foul stench emanating from the dump nearby. One of her children, who has special needs, has had to move out of the house because of the impact of the dump. As we have already heard, last year, the dump caught fire, causing a local primary school to close for over a week. Yet the Environment Agency has said that the site does not pose a sufficient level of risk to require urgent clean-up. Does the Minister agree with the Environment Agency?
On top of the human misery caused by waste crime, there are important impacts on the environment, including water pollution, air pollution and the destruction of habitats. We have already heard that waste crime costs the economy £1 billion per year, but that is an estimate—just an estimate—of the cost of clean-up, enforcement and lost revenue to legitimate businesses and the Exchequer; it does not include the cost to people or to nature. I therefore ask the Minister: does Defra have an estimate of the total cost of waste crime, including the impacts on human well-being and the environment?
I turn to the question of how much waste crime there is. We have heard that there are an estimated 38 million tonnes a year of waste crime, but we were also told that only 27% of waste crime is reported. I suspect that this may be one of Donald Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns: if it is not reported, how do we know how much there is? Nevertheless, the Environment Agency told the BBC that 517 known dumps were still active at the end of last year, including 11 of the so-called super sites, such as the Kidlington site that we have heard about. However, if only around a quarter of sites are reported and known, there could be as many as 2,000 dumps in England, or one for every 25 square miles. Given these uncertainties, can the Minister tell us the Government’s estimate of the total number of sites and the level of uncertainty in that estimate?
If I were a careers adviser for an aspiring and ambitious young criminal, I would recommend waste crime as a career option worth serious consideration. I would point to the attractive features of waste crime. There is plenty of money to be made and there is a very low chance of getting caught. The Environment Agency received 24,000 reports of waste crime in the three years up to March 2025. Criminal investigations were opened for 1.3% of them, and there was a prosecution in 0.65% of cases. Even if you are caught, the penalties are generally light and can simply be priced into your business model. What is more, if you make a success of it, you might be able to graduate to become involved in international criminal gangs, with career openings in areas such as people trafficking, drugs and money laundering.
Sir James Bevan, the then CEO of the Environment Agency, said that one of the best ways to prevent waste crime was
“to change how criminals calculate the odds, by imposing much tougher penalties on them if caught. We would like to see much bigger fines (at present many serious criminals treat these as business expenses) and more use of confiscation of criminals’ assets. But in particular we would like to see more and longer prison sentences, which really concentrate the criminal mind”.
Does the Minister agree with Sir James Bevan’s assertion that this is simply too easy and profitable for criminals? As things stand, the deterrents for waste crime are inadequate and are not being properly enforced.
Lord Redesdale (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sheehan for initiating this debate and for the work she did on the committee.
I will speak first as an amateur archaeologist. That seems a bit random, but I say that because our job as archaeologists is to find things such as middens: waste sites from the past. I can see archaeologists of the future specialising in these sorts of things, although I would hate to be the archaeologist who digs up the sort of stuff that we are seeing in these waste tips. That is a joke in one respect, but it is not in another, because most of these sites will never be cleared up and therefore will be part of the archaeological record of the future.
We have just had a briefing from the City of London Corporation about Epping Forest. It has two fly-tipping incidents a day, which is eating up a percentage of its budget as a charity. When I was on the train to Newcastle the other day, I counted 16 dumping sites just by looking out of the window.
I also speak as a landowner, and obviously many people would say to me, “Well, you’re a landowner, you can afford to deal with this”—but it is a real issue. Luckily, my estate is in the middle of nowhere, but even we had a lorry turn up and dump a load of rubble just in a farm entrance. Luckily, we could deal with it by laying a new roadbed, but the cost of that is frightening. It goes to a very basic rule: if it comes from the highways and over your wall, you have to pay for it; if it stays on the highway, they seem just to leave it there. That is just a personal point.
Something I find really surprising is that, if you want to get involved in this, it is an easy area to get into, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said in his erudite speech. In the time it took him to make his speech—I timed this yesterday—I could apply for a waste licence. It is a hundred quid a year if you do a three-year licence, and I could then have a waste licence to drive an articulated lorry full of waste. I do not see how it is even possible that someone can just go on a website, get that licence and suddenly legally drive around waste, without any real question about what they are doing. I understand how difficult this is, because of the amount of waste that has to be moved around the country, but, if it is that easy to get a licence, it is hardly surprising that so much of it ends up in gateways, down the back of embankments or wherever it is found.
The origins of this go back to recycling centres. You see somebody turn up with a van. Lots of jobbing builders turn up. People have to book in a van, and they can only do two trips a week, but, looking at what comes out of the van, I wonder: how much easier is it just to turn up somewhere and dump it on the side of the road? That is of course the origin of this, and the issue has grown larger and larger as we have moved forward.
I was looking it up and I was at the debate in 1996 on the Finance Bill where this was introduced. The fabulous Earl Ferrers, for those who remember him, was very positive about how it was going to work and how it would raise a great deal of money. Another issue at the time was that we had to meet the European directive and we still had the problem of closing down landfill sites, because most of them were full. We were diverting waste, and this was a way of acting as “polluter pays” and it was going to move things forward.
When I set up and ran the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, we worked incredibly hard to build up anaerobic digestion to take food waste out of the waste stream. We have been incredibly successful in certain areas. I think councils around the country should take the positive nature of that, but the fault lies with the Government. We have actually changed landfill tax into being just a tax. It has no bearing in the Treasury’s eyes on what happens going forward.
If we take landfill tax, which the TaxPayers’ Alliance says is now raising £600 million a year—I do not usually use the TaxPayers’ Alliance as a source of reference—we could then direct that into enforcement, which would solve the problem. The Government are not taking this seriously enough, but I think they will. The reason is that we just have to go back a few months to when the water companies were constantly lambasted over combined sewer overflows—CSOs. In fact, Liberal Democrats would stand next to any pipe for a photo opportunity, because it is such a good issue. I have a feeling that my friend the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will be doing exactly the same when he starts to track down the vast numbers of large sites which have not been reported on, but which are going to cause a national outrage in the not-too-distant future.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, the chair of the environment committee, on securing this timely debate and raising the issue in Committee this afternoon. I have only recently joined her committee, but I am delighted to join such an excellent scheme under her skilful leadership. On this occasion I will limit my remarks, as I was not privy to the evidence, though I entirely support the conclusions reached: in particular, the need for greater resources and for a review, which I will come to in a while.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, I have followed this issue closely both as a constituency MP for the Vale of York, and subsequently for Thirsk and Malton, but also in my privileged position of chairing the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the other place, where we also learned of the issues from landfill sites being full to busting.
For the Environment Agency to tackle waste crimes in rural areas successfully will require resources on a huge scale. The agency already uses the tools at its disposal—cameras, drones, radar and light detection—but its resources are limited and severely stretched. I would like to raise two issues this afternoon: first, how the Environment Agency can hope to address widespread rural crime and the particular offence of waste crime, given its limited resources, without support from police forces, HMRC and local authorities; and, secondly, how and why waste crime is treated differently, depending on whether it is perpetrated on public or private land.
In terms of the scale of the crime, the evidence submitted by the Environment Agency to the short inquiry demonstrated that 24,625 crimes were committed between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025, ranging from the burning of waste, illegal waste sites and fly-tipping through to waste carriers and unauthorised waste management activity. The enforcement actions taken were varied, ranging from 1,037 advice and guidance letters through to 685 warning letters and 156 prosecutions.
Early intervention is probably the most effective response to waste crime, and acting promptly to warnings from residents, councils and others. However, the sheer size of the crime and the area to be policed, especially across open countryside, makes it a nigh-on impossible task. Differentiating between where the crime is perpetrated, especially in relation to fly-tipping and the dumping of highly toxic waste, often building materials left by serial criminal offenders, I can see no logical argument for treating the crime differently depending on whether it is conducted on public or private land. Are the Government prepared to review this and equate the offences of and sanctions for waste crime, regardless of where it takes place, on either public or private land?
I am grateful to the City of London Corporation, which states in its briefing for today’s debate that the strategic implication is clear: without stronger alignment between police activity, local authority enforcement and the Environment Agency, organised waste crime will continue to flourish. In a Times article yesterday, it was reported that an elderly farmer in his 80s “simply cannot afford” the £40,000 bill to remove 200 tonnes of rubbish fly-tipped on his land, close to a busy main road. It is not as though farmers do not have enough to worry about at the moment without this additional expense.
There are many other examples of this; I put it to the Minister that, behind each one, there is very human distress and suffering. I hope that, in summing up the debate, the Minister will address these anomalies. I hope in particular that he will implement the very first recommendation of the report, for a root-and-branch review and more integrated working between the Environment Agency, HMRC, the National Crime Agency, policing and local authorities in order to address this scourge of the offence of waste crime, particularly in rural areas.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, I speak as a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee of your Lordships’ House. I have to say that, until we started our inquiry, I had been unaware of the scale or the seriousness of waste crime. Now, thanks largely to the tenacity of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, as well as the growing interest of the press, both national and local, we are all too aware of Hoad’s Wood; Kidlington; Bickershaw, near Wigan; and, this week, Stockton in Norfolk and Knowsley on Merseyside.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg—I suppose I should say “the tip of the tip”. In their letter of 16 December to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, Alan Lovell and Philip Duffy of the Environment Agency said that, in 2024-25, 749 new illegal waste sites had been found, up from 427 the previous year. This is a huge nationwide problem. Not only are these sites illegal, they cost farmers huge sums to clean up, they present a serious fire risk, they pollute streams and rivers and blight the environment and they can, as in Wigan, cause serious health problems to those living nearby and blight their everyday life.
The Environment Agency is front and centre in responding to all this, and there are questions for it to answer. For example, why did it not act sooner at Hoads Wood? Where is the sense of urgency, given the scale of the problem and its environmental and human damage? Why can concrete bollards not be put in place much more quickly than they have been up to now? But this is not the responsibility of one agency; it is a bigger problem than that. Responsibility also lies with the Government, the police, HMRC and local authorities. Some of the action already taken is sensible, such as the establishment of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. It is absolutely right to bring the various actors together and to inject coherence into an otherwise anarchic scene. However—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on this—the joint unit should surely get more of a grip than we have seen so far.
What else can be done? Our report lists a number of recommendations. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has mentioned some of them. I want to mention just three. First, the Government and local authorities should be doing all they can to encourage the use of legal landfill sites but, if anything, the trend is in the other direction. Fees are going up and appointments often have to be made. This is all an encouragement to criminal gangs. I hope that the Minister can say what more the Government are doing to favour legal tips.
Secondly, there needs to be stronger enforcement, more arrests and tougher penalties. Penalties need to fit the crime and be strong enough to deter the crime. That means larger fines and longer jail sentences. What more can the Government do to tip the balance in favour of the law and not the criminals? I hope that the Minister can tell us that.
Thirdly, we need to move into the 21st century. Mandatory digital waste tracking to replace the present cumbersome paper system must be right and would put more pressure on criminal groups. Why cannot drones be used more regularly to spot criminal waste sites when they are formed, rather than leaving it until much later? I look forward also to hearing the Minister’s views on that.
Much is being done. Much more can and must be done. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said in a letter to the Secretary of State that
“waste crime is a profitable and low risk business for”
an organised crime group. We have to change that, and we have to change it fast.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for bringing it, and all noble Lords who have spoken. We have had some interesting contributions that have ranged from careers advice to archaeology. I think everybody agrees that waste crime is out of control and that it is low risk and high reward. The Government’s own national waste crime survey suggests that one-fifth of all our waste ends up in the hands of criminals at one point or another. The costs are hard to quantify, as the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, has pointed out, but every year it costs the UK economy somewhere between £1 and £4 billion. The returns are great: up to £2,500 per lorry.
To answer the question of this debate, my personal view is that the systems for preventing and dealing with waste crime are fundamentally broken. It is the broken systems that are creating broken outcomes. I have no wish to criticise individuals, many of whom work extremely hard, but it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the way we currently organise the resources for the Environment Agency is not working and not properly fit for purpose.
The Minister responded to a question on this that I asked the other day by saying that it was a new problem. I beg to disagree. My view is that it is a long-standing problem that has been largely hidden away from the public’s view and public consciousness. The systems themselves have, in effect, operated to avoid the true scale of the problem. It has been a fear of finding out that has predominated; a fear of the cost involved in recognising the true scale of the problem.
I first became involved in this with the Hoad’s Wood campaign. I asked an Oral Question on it—I spoke to the then Minister in private first—which led to a ministerial direction. After that, I foolishly promised that I would try to change the systems. I am very pleased that the Environment and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, did its report. That report genuinely sought co-operation and solutions to these problems. We asked the Environment Agency how many illegal waste sites the size of Hoad’s Wood were known to it; the answer that came back was six. That report has been a turning point. We had over a thousand pieces of press generated before Christmas as a result and the more we look, the more we find. The more we understand, the greater the problem appears to be.
More sites have come to light since the publication of the House of Lords report than were known in their totality to the Environment Agency beforehand. That is both alarming and extraordinary in equal measure. The Government have chosen largely to ignore the report that we published, and while we welcome brokers, dealers, carriers and digital waste-tracking reforms, they were in the pipeline before our report. Beyond that, there have been no new measures in the response from the Government. I guess there are two options for us: either we can take a less optimistic view that the Government are on the track that they are on and things will not change; or we can take a more optimistic view. My hope is that the Government are listening. I know that Ministers are concerned about this and that they are formulating policies to take this forward.
For me, the starting point is that the body set up as a regulator is fundamentally not the right body for dealing with organised crime—this is an organised crime problem, and it needs to be dealt with as organised crime. The recent police White Paper offers the ideal vehicle and place for dealing with organised waste crime, should this Government choose to take that course of action. I hope they will do so, because that is where the answer lies.
The Government need to acknowledge the true scale and vast number of illegal sites, most of which are simply not cleared; they are devastating to our communities and the environment. I will refer the Minister to some specific points. First, I am pleased that Hoad’s Wood is being cleared up, but the Hoad’s Wood campaign is concerned that there is no plan—that it can see—to secure that site, once it has been cleared. We do not want to go back to where we started.
Secondly, I want the Treasury to stop charging the Environment Agency landfill tax on the sites it clears. That is just silliness.
Thirdly, the Government should allow the Environment Agency to use more of its income from permitted sites to deal with illegal waste problems. I am pleased that Kidlington is being cleared up too, but I do not want the Environment Agency to bankrupt itself and become unable to do all the other important stuff it needs to do because of the cost of clearing up these sites.
Fifthly, I want Ministers to acknowledge the true scale of the problem. I would like them to use remote monitoring to come up with a plan for clearing these historic sites and hypothecate landfill tax for a period for clearing up these sites that have been mentioned, such as Wigan.
Finally, I would like the Minister to give a clear commitment to us that the Government do indeed take this issue seriously and that they are planning to bring forward, as a matter of urgency, a concrete plan to deal with this as a national priority and to bring forward some real solutions so that we can all move forward.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for tabling this important Question for Short Debate and for her work as chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee.
Waste crime costs our economy approximately £1 billion every year, but, as the noble Lords, Lord Beamish and Lord Krebs, rightly highlighted, the figure is probably a lot more. But the costs are not only financial: it is a scourge of the countryside and is particularly painful for those communities who live in the area. My noble friend Lady McIntosh referred to the Times, which states today that fly-tippers have dumped a £40,000 bill on a farmer. The clean-up is often left unfairly to landowners and local authorities. Saturday morning community pickup sessions are now regrettably a regular feature of country life. Some 57% of landowners and farmers have been impacted, many of whom do not necessarily have the resources or training to address the consequences.
It is totally fair to ask the Minister: what support is available to victims of this relentless crime and what exactly are the Government planning to do to increase awareness? The Government have highlighted that understanding the true extent of criminal activity is inherently difficult. That said, it is estimated that only one in four waste crimes are being reported. Moreover, the reports available indicate that waste crime is on the rise. The Environment Agency found 749 new illegal waste sites in 2024-25, compared with 427 in the previous year—that is a substantial increase. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, rightly asked, how many actually are there? The real number is probably significantly more.
The Environment and Climate Change Committee’s inquiry found serious failings in the agency’s performance. Repeated reports of serious waste crime were not investigated. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, observed in her letter that it was,
“difficult to conclude that incompetence at the Environment Agency has not been a factor”.
The Government have pledged reforms, but we note that the committee felt deeply disappointed by their response. While reforms are evidently needed and welcome, can the Minister specify what reforms they are pursuing and give timelines for the delivery of those reforms? If this is a priority, this must be reflected in the legislative programme.
Enforcement needs reform. As was emphasised by the committee, the lack of effective deterrence means that waste crime remains profitable and low-risk for organised crime gangs. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, summarised it perfectly: this is a business. The fines are just operating costs, and these are criminal enterprises. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was right when he said that it is easy money. Criminal gangs talk about it like this: “Come along, it’s free money”. As the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, mentioned, 41 out of the 60 major organised crime groups are involved. This is simply a no-brainer for criminal gangs, so when will the Government take steps to ensure that the fines match the profits obtained and contribute to the clean-up costs, as per the entirely sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Jay? His Majesty’s loyal Opposition have tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill that would put the onus of the clean-up back on the offenders of fly-tipping, which seems entirely proportionate.
The committee also recommended establishing a single point of contact for reporting waste crime. Victims should surely be able to report an incident once without navigating a maze of bodies with unclear responsibilities. Improving the Environment Agency is clearly vital, but we must remember that it is only one of 13 organisations in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime launched under the previous Government. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has previously proposed giving lead responsibility to the National Crime Agency. At the time, the relevant Minister said that all options will be considered, so I hope that today’s Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Katz, will understand that it is totally fair and reasonable to ask what assessment has been made since then. When can we have an answer to the entirely sensible proposal from my noble friend?
Finally, can the Minister clarify what responsibilities the new integrated water regulator will take on from the Environment Agency regarding waste crime? I have had time to touch on only a handful of the committee’s recommendations, but we thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for her dedication to this issue and wish her well for the future relentless focus that will clearly be required to fix this issue once and for all.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to address this important question on what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of the performance of the Environment Agency in addressing waste crime. In doing so, I am pleased to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and all members of her committee for the hard, diligent and challenging—but rightly so—work that they have done on this important issue.
Let us be without doubt, as we have all spoken with one voice this afternoon: waste crime blights our local communities. It damages the environment and, in the worst cases, it directly threatens our health. It also undermines legitimate businesses and deprives the public purse of tax income. Serious and organised crime in the waste sector is on the rise, and the Environment Agency is regularly alerted to new illegal waste sites.
The EA is a place-based organisation, tackling local problems through local area teams that operate in both urban and rural locations. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, expressed concern that rural areas were losing out. The way in which the Environment Agency operates ensures that it is a local and needs-based agency, rather than resource being hoarded in a particular geography at the top of the organisation. I hope that that is helpful regarding the question she asked.
This Government are committed to tackling waste crime and are helping the Environment Agency to build future capability. It has a wide range of powers, which it uses in its enforcement work against organised crime in waste and other environmental areas. Indeed, in the past couple of weeks, several arrests have been made in relation to the waste site near Kidlington, and waste sites have been shut down in Yorkshire and Minster in Kent. In Liverpool, an arrest was made and the Environment Agency seized a vehicle as part of a multi-agency operation.
In her opening contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, asked a question comparing Kidlington and Bickershaw. First, the scale of the fire risk at the Kidlington site sets the case apart from other illegal waste dumps in England and provides an overriding public imperative. We are clear that it is not the Environment Agency’s normal responsibility to clear illegal waste sites, and it is not funded to do so. It has the power to clear waste only in exceptional circumstances such as these, if there is a significant risk to the environment.
On Bickershaw in Wigan, the illegal dumping there is absolutely disgraceful. I know how strongly the local community rightly feels about it. My colleague in the other place, Josh Simons MP, has been complaining and campaigning long and hard on this, and I pay tribute to his work with the local community on it. The Environment Agency is working with Wigan Council and the UK Health Security Agency to help the local partnership consider the implications of the council’s waste initial sampling results and to advise on potential permitted disposal sites.
The current risk of fire is assessed as low, but the Environment Agency is reassessing any pollution risk posed by the illegal waste in the light of an updated fire risk assessment to determine whether, in principle, the level of risk meets the threshold for the use of its discretionary powers, such as those it has already used in Kidlington. In short, without going into too much detail on this site, important though it is, I want to reassure your Lordships’ Committee that if the Environment Agency considers that a risk of pollution exists, it may use its powers to arrange actions to remove or reduce that risk. Additionally, partner agencies through the local resilience forum will need to consider the risk to surrounding infrastructure.
We want to ensure that the Environment Agency is making the best use of its extensive powers to prevent waste crime. As I said, the Environment Agency has no duty to clear illegally dumped waste, and it is not funded to do so. In response to the other question that was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, this is the case for both public and private land. The landlord is responsible for keeping their land secure and free of waste that should not be there, rather than letting dumped waste persist and grow into larger sites, which could in turn attract further dumping. It might be considered as equivalent to the broken windows paradigm that one sees in community policing.
However, while we must uphold the polluter pays principle and avoid creating perverse incentives for waste criminals, the Environment Agency will decide to clear illegally dumped waste where that waste presents an untenable risk to the public and the environment, as it has done in the case of Kidlington. We also encourage local authorities to investigate all incidents of fly-tipping, including those on private land, and make good use of those enforcement powers.
Furthermore, Defra regularly assesses the Environment Agency’s performance in discussion with the Environment Agency’s chair and chief executive. The aim is to establish a clear line of sight for Ministers through to front-line delivery, transparent performance data and honest conversations about progress and barriers to delivery.
The Environment Agency reports its performance every quarter through its published corporate scorecard. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked some questions on statistics. I contend that waste crime is estimated to cost the UK £1 billion a year, with an estimated 20% of waste, 34 million tonnes per year, handled illegally at some point through the supply chain. There are more than 500 active illegal waste sites known to the Environment Agency, and it is monitoring the 33 highest risk illegal waste sites according to specific risk criteria.
However, waste crime, as alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is deliberately hidden and therefore inherently difficult to measure, including the total costs to the environment, local communities and individuals. We know that the Environment Agency’s current corporate scorecard measure on illegal waste sites does not reflect the true nature or scale of waste crime and likely provides only a narrow view. So, we are working with the Environment Agency to develop better indicators and metrics.
In addition to helping the Environment Agency to improve assessment capabilities, Defra has already taken steps to ensure that it is equipped to carry out its functions effectively. Its total budget for 2025-26 has increased and includes £15.6 million for waste crime enforcement, a more than 50% rise from 2024-25, representing a £5.6 million increase. That demonstrates the Government’s commitment to tackling environmental waste crime.
This has enabled the agency to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and other environmental crime teams by 43 full-time staff, helping to deliver successful major criminal investigations and to enforce new duties introduced this year, including the new packaging extended producer responsibility requirements. Since 2020, the JUWC has worked with over 130 partner organisations and led or attended over 300 multi-agency days of action, resulting in over 170 associated arrests. So, it is fair to argue that a multi-agency approach is being taken and led by the JUWC and the EA. Indeed, in the last year, 2024-25, the Joint Unit for Waste Crime organised 70 days of action, 13 arrests were made by partners as a result of those days of action and 47 disruptions were delivered. That is some more detail about the activity that the JUWC has been undertaking.
Alongside that work, the agency is looking at technology-based opportunities to track and measure waste crime, such as combining satellite imaging and machine learning to provide early-warning mechanisms. Indeed, to answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, drones are used by the agency when investigating and gathering evidence. This capability will improve the agency’s insights and business intelligence, which will inform its overall strategic approach and how it prioritises its resources. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, asked why there were so few prosecutions from the JUWC’s work. I should say that prosecutions take time to work through the legal and court system but numbers are in line with other law enforcement agencies when compared to the number of interventions. Prosecutions are, of course, only one part of the picture: prevention and disruption work are at least as important.
We are building on these developments to make further policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by criminals: fundamentally reforming the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime; tightening waste permit exemptions; and introducing digital waste tracking, to answer the specific question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. She also asked about a single contact point for reporting waste crime. The GOV.UK site has a page entitled “Reporting fly tipping or illegal waste dumping”, which directs people either to the relevant local authority, via a postcode search, or indeed to Crimestoppers, which has a hotline, depending on the scale of what is being reported.
Waste criminals often work within the legitimate system, and most waste at the largest illegal sites today was originally consigned legally. The new digital waste-tracking system and reforms to waste-permitting exemptions and the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime will mean that criminals will have to work a lot harder to source the waste to dump in the first place. It will make it much harder for criminal businesses to undercut legitimate ones. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, talked about applying online. It is a good way to use some spare time during a debate on a Thursday afternoon, but it will be much harder to undertake a similar activity under this new system.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, referred to the case that was reported of the 80 year-old farmer. That is a very distressing case, where the cost of clearance was beyond the farmer. To help individual landowners blighted by waste crime, the Government will speak with insurers to determine the necessary market conditions for a viable waste crime insurance market to form as quickly as possible, which seems a fair approach to helping landowners.
I am tight on time but I will try to address a couple more questions from noble Lords. We talked already about reform of the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime, but I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. On Hoad’s Wood in Kent, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, but there is certainly work happening there.
To finish, the Government have committed to tackling waste crime, not only to prevent environmental harm but to ensure resources are being properly recycled or recovered and fed back into the economy. We are not resting on our laurels. We are working at pace to develop further reforms and make sure that we tackle this problem. With that, I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate and the noble Baroness and her committee for its work, and I take the opportunity to wish everyone a very happy February Recess.