Fly-tipping

Lord Cromwell Excerpts
Tuesday 14th May 2024

(4 months, 3 weeks ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Douglas-Miller Portrait Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
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That is a novel idea. I am certainly happy to take it away and consider it extremely carefully.

Lord Cromwell Portrait Lord Cromwell (CB)
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My Lords, the Minister told us earlier that the Government were going to tackle waste sites. I would love to know what that actually means. If it means clearing them up, it simply creates the space for more waste to be tipped. He also talked about on-the-spot fines. The essence of fly-tipping is that there is no one on the spot when you tip it.

None Portrait Noble Lords
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Oh!

Lord Cromwell Portrait Lord Cromwell (CB)
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That is not personal experience. I came across one fly-tipping incident where the offender had actually thrown down the parking ticket that was previously attached to their vehicle and had their number on it. When the police found this, they told me they were not going to take any action because the person whose vehicle it was would simply deny they were driving it.

Lord Douglas-Miller Portrait Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
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The noble Lord raises a series of extremely good points. By the very nature of fly-tipping, as he rightly points out, it is extremely difficult to be in the right place at the right time when someone is doing it. I completely accept that there are limitations around this. However, the Government have introduced a number of new initiatives, such as the use of cameras, to help councils on this issue. It is very difficult to deal with it. To be honest, my personal view is that it is an education issue rather than an enforcement issue, but we are probably getting a little off topic.