River Cherwell: Clearing Illegal Waste

Debate between Calum Miller and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I will get back to the hon. Member on that, if I may. The point of a digital waste tracking system is that everything is digitised. The problem has been that it is a paper-based register, so how can people check it at the moment? My understanding is that the move is to a digital system, but I will get back to her. I do not want to mislead her or the House. Perhaps Box officials can enlighten us while I go through the third reform of the waste permit exemptions.

Thirdly, there are exemptions for three high-risk areas: end of life vehicles—that is, car scrappage—end of life tyres and scrap metal. Those exemptions have long caused problems and have been abused. We will replace them with a requirement for a full environmental permit for all those activities. We will introduce greater record keeping requirements for all waste exemption holders and impose controls on how exemptions can be managed at one site.

At the moment, there are seven waste exemptions: construction waste, preparatory treatments, treatment of waste wood, manual treatment, burning vegetation at the place of production only—that is essentially for farmers—storage in containers and storage in a safe place. As I have mentioned, we have increased the waste crime investigation unit budget. It now has 43 full-time staff.

People have often asked me about enabling the Environment Agency to use environmental permit income to tackle waste crime. Rules are set out by the Treasury in “Managing Public Money” about how the income raised by public bodies may be used. These rules ensure transparency to us as parliamentarians and ensure that fees and charges are not set higher than necessary to cover activity that should be properly funded from taxation. We instead look to innovative ideas, and the EA has consulted on the implementation of a 10% levy to generate a further £3.2 million of waste enforcement funding each year. That would enable a further 30% increase in enforcement activity to be targeted at activities identified by the EA as waste crime priorities. Those include tackling organised crime groups, increasing enforcement activity around specific areas of concern such as landfill sites, closing down illegal sites more quickly, using intelligence more effectively and delivering successful major criminal investigations.

[Calum Miller]

I am grateful to the Minister for such a comprehensive response. On the question of funding, the £15.6 million in the budget this year for tackling waste crime, as she said, is for the officers who engage in investigation, but it still strikes me as a small amount of money, with 43 officers for a crime that is now taking place up and down the country. Can she clarify whether the additional £5.6 million is now permanently in that budget and will be going forward such that the additional funds she has referred to for permitting will be over and above that sum? Fundamentally, does she think that this is enough?

[Mary Creagh]

My aim is not to spend further taxpayers’ money on crime; my aim is to stop it happening in the first place. All budget decisions are subject to the normal business planning, but we hope that, through our three-year spending review, we can give the Environment Agency a three-year or indicative settlement that will enable it to plan, rather than the annual process of, “Up this year, down next year,” so that there will be long-range line-of-sight planning. As I say, the EA is consulting at the moment on the additional extra revenue. If that goes through, there would be a funding uplift.

I have the answer to the question from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade): we are happy to confirm that it is already possible to check the online database for permits, so that is good news there.

I have mentioned the different reforms and I think I have answered all the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I am pretty much coming to the end of my speech. On steps taken since 11 December and his specific question about the rise in water level of up to two metres, equivalent to the peak recorded at Thrupp in November ’24, the waste is within a large floodplain that can store a substantial volume of water during heavy rain. The EA has carried out more detailed flood risk assessment to understand any changes in water levels due to the illegal waste and has determined that there will not be any increased flood risk to local properties. My understanding is that sandbags and a fence are there in order to protect the river.

The EA has also carried out regular water quality sampling of the river to check for impacts of run-off or leaching and has found no indication of pollution. If any pollutants were found in the watercourse, the action would depend on the nature and type of the pollutants found.

On fire risk at the site, EA officials have been working with the fire and rescue service, which is leading on monitoring the temperatures of the waste and planning appropriately. The fire risk was one of the main reasons that an exceptional decision was taken to progress works to clear the site entirely.

Analysis on how the site would be cleared, including ecology surveys, has been carried out with partners and the Environment Agency to get contracts in place as soon as possible, but we need to follow legal process to ensure that the waste is disposed of correctly. The clearance timetable is being finalised and will shortly be published on the EngagementHQ website. As I said, we hope that clearance will begin in February. Early indications and scoping indicate that full clearance will take approximately six to nine months. Where possible, we are seeking to recover our costs from those responsible in accordance with the legislation and the “polluter pays” principle, and the EA is working with the economic crime unit to target the finances of waste criminals. That unit can freeze bank accounts, seize assets and investigate cases of money laundering linked to waste crime.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the things that I am very interested in exploring is what the playbook is. The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock asked who such things should be reported to, and the problem is that if that is not clear, people do nothing. The most important thing when any crime is being carried out, wherever it is happening—whether that is on the Tube or wherever we see things happening—is for us as citizens to do something. That might be reporting it to the council, the local police or the Environment Agency, whose hotline is 0800 807060—I thank my officials for getting that through so that it is on the public record.

The playbook is important. Once something has been reported, what does the local authority, the police or the EA do? What is the definition of “major site”? I have visited sites, including Watery Lane in Staffordshire, where two vanloads of fly-tipping was not classified as a major problem, and it fell to the local authority to clear it. People were locked in their homes physically unable to leave via the road—an absolutely extraordinary position for people to find themselves in. What is the playbook, what are the definitions and where do national agencies step in?

The Environment Agency expects to fund the clearance efforts by making efficiencies in its operations, without impacting on or scaling back any other services. The EA is not funded to clear up waste sites nationally, however, and makes these types of decisions only in exceptional circumstances.

The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock asked about additional landfill tax revenue. The waste crime survey that the EA has carried out indicates that 20% of waste is handled illegally. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that 23% of landfill tax is evaded, contributing to an annual waste crime cost of roughly £1 billion a year, including a £150 million landfill tax gap, which is 23% of the theoretical liability—I hope that everyone can understand that. That £1 billion a year shows that this is big business. It is a profitable and lucrative business, and we are all paying. We are paying twice, because we are losing the £1 billion and then clearing up the waste, so it is a double whammy for us—it is maddening.

[Calum Miller]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out those figures so clearly. That was the point that I was driving at in addressing the budget for waste crime. It is not so much that I or anybody else wants to spend money dealing with criminals, but a relatively modest investment in detection and investigation could yield a higher proportion of that missing tax. We lose £1 billion every year, but a relatively modest increase in the waste crime unit’s budget, or the National Crime Agency doing more, could potentially bring in more of that revenue, which should be used for the benefit of all taxpayers.

[Mary Creagh]

I am in passionate agreement with the hon. Gentleman, as I am sure is everyone in the Chamber and watching at home. I would say, however, that big businesses use all available resources to protect their income. They are sophisticated businesses—some are registered companies—and they have their own ways of making life difficult for law enforcement. We are in a bit of a David and Goliath situation. They have been very good at doing that. This is a complex crime, and it takes a while to unravel.

We continue to work with the Treasury on the best approach to fiscal policies to tackle and reduce waste crime. The joint unit for waste crime is a UK-wide partnership, working with the Environment Agency, HMRC, the National Crime Agency, the police and others. It shares intelligence, powers and resources to disrupt waste criminals. The unit, which was launched in 2024 and uses proceeds of crime action and asset freezes, has doubled in size thanks to our extra funding. Anyone with intelligence about waste crime can report it to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

My message to our constituents around the country is that waste crime is an absolute top priority for the Government. My message to the waste criminals is we are coming for you and we are going to shut you down. My message to the legitimate waste operators is thank you for your work maintaining safe, healthy and clean environments in our towns and putting pride in our places. Let us all ensure that we work together to create a truly circular economy in which this sort of terrible crime is unthinkable and its perpetrators are put out of business.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Calum Miller and Mary Creagh

Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I commend my hon. Friend’s constituents for their important work, particularly Derby city council’s Streetpride champions. Their work is supported by this Government, who are committed to helping councils to do more: seizing and crushing the vehicles of fly-tippers; forcing fly-tippers to clear up their own mess; and bringing in new five-year prison sentences for those transporting waste illegally.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

Criminals have dumped a mountain of illegal plastic waste, 20 feet high and weighing hundreds of tonnes, in my constituency on the floodplain adjacent to the River Cherwell. River levels are rising and heat maps show that the waste is heating up, raising the risk of fire. The Environment Agency says that it has limited resources for enforcement, and the estimated cost of removal is greater than the entire annual budget of the local district council. Will the Minister meet me urgently to discuss what support the Government can offer to avoid an environmental disaster?

[Mary Creagh]

We inherited a whole system failure in the waste industry, from end to end with failures at every level. That is why there has been an epidemic of illegal fly-tipping. It is now the work of serious and organised crime. We have a waste crime unit that has undertaken in the last financial year—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members stop chuntering they might learn something. It has undertaken 21 money laundering investigations, six account-freezing orders and 13 confiscation orders. However, I am aware of this incident and I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it. I understand that a restriction order was served to prevent further access and tipping at the site.

Climate and Nature Bill

Debate between Calum Miller and Mary Creagh

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I pay huge tribute to the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for securing this debate and giving these vital issues the parliamentary and ministerial attention they deserve. I know from my own time as a new MP, back in 2006, running the Children’s Food Bill through the parliamentary process, that it is a very steep learning curve. It is clear that there is much to learn about this process, and about how progressive change takes place in this House. In that case, I withdrew my Children’s Food Bill because I knew that the Government were going to do something later that would implement the things I wanted to do.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I am going to make a couple of opening remarks, and then I will take interventions.

For more than two decades, the hon. Lady has been a fearless environmental campaigner. Rowing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, she understands better than any of us our planet’s beauty, strength and vulnerability to climate change, ocean acidification and global warming—as Storm Éowyn rages across the country, with the island of Ireland under a red alert, it is certainly not a day for anybody to be out on the Irish sea.

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the twin issues of climate and nature with the hon. Lady today. As a former Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, I share her passion for measurable, specific, time-bound targets with clear Government plans to underpin them in order to achieve progress. What we can say, and what the Climate Change Committee has said, is that the previous Government were strong on long-term targets but very short on interim targets to get us to those places. We cannot will the ends without willing the means.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a great point, and I thank him for the sterling work he has done campaigning on those issues, not just in Leeds but nationally. He is right that when it comes to politics, it is all about show, not tell. I left this House in 2019, and these are subjects that I cared about even when I was not a Member of Parliament. The climate and nature crisis was what drove me to put myself forward for election again, because this is the place where we can make things happen. I heard what the hon. Member for South Cotswolds said about placards and protest, and about how the art of politics is about governing and choosing.

[Calum Miller]

It is clear that the Government do not wish to divide on this issue—in either meaning of that word—so can the Minister please reassure my constituents who desperately want to see the Bill adopted that there will be meaningful change in the Government’s approach and, in particular, binding commitments on the nature provisions, so that the backsliding we saw from the previous Government does not continue under this one?

[Mary Creagh]

I give the hon. Member my assurances on that. I want to make it absolutely clear that this is a long-standing problem. We have heard from both the Father of the House and the former baby of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). [Interruption.] Not the Father of the House—the almost Father of the House. From a grandfather to an almost baby.

Convention on Biological Diversity

Debate between Calum Miller and Mary Creagh

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for his very kind words to me, and for securing today’s debate. What an incredible privilege it is to stand here as the Minister for nature in a Labour Government who will put this at the front and centre of our national missions.

My hon. Friend is a true champion of nature at home and abroad, and as a distinguished former Minister for biodiversity he has made tireless efforts to hold us, the UK, and all parties to the convention on biological diversity to the very highest standards. He deserves our thanks and commendation for that work. I also thank him for hosting the introduction to the International Conservation Caucus Foundation on Tuesday, where I had the chance to meet both the Colombian ambassador to the UK and representatives from Canada house. It was an important reminder of the fact that reversing nature loss is a global priority—one that we can achieve only by working in partnership with our friends around the world. We will need leadership, participation and commitment in equal measure to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and climate change.

As the MP for Coventry East, I am delighted to have the opportunity to listen and learn today on the UK’s approach to the next meeting on the convention on biological diversity, COP16, which, as my hon. Friend said, takes place in Colombia this October. It is a unique opportunity to begin to re-establish the UK as a global leader on nature and climate co-operation. Protecting and restoring biodiversity begins at home. Almost half our bird species and a quarter of our mammal species that have been assessed are at risk of extinction here in the UK. Precious landscapes in our national parks are in decline, with rivers, lakes and seas awash with sewage and chemical pollution.

We feel that loss and destruction of nature wherever we live. We remember our childhoods, looking out of the window at murmurations of starlings—across the Warwickshire countryside, in my case—and we think about how rare it is now to hear the cheeping of a sparrow in our gardens. More of our land is underwater, with our children getting sick after swimming in our seas and rivers.

This Labour Government are laser focused on restoring and protecting nature. In England, we will deliver a plan to hit the Environment Act targets, halting the decline of species by 2030. We will honour our international agreements to protect 30% of our land and seas by the same date, and we will ensure that England’s environmental improvement plan is fit for purpose. We will work collaboratively with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations on the shared challenges and opportunities that restoring nature brings. We will do that in partnership with civil society, communities, businesses and volunteers, to harness their creativity and insights.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing this debate. I recently attended a session led by the Wildlife Trust in my constituency on exactly the depletion about which the Minister is speaking. In my previous role as a county councillor I was aware of the previous Government’s efforts around local nature recovery partnerships and strategies. Can Minister clarify whether it is the intention of this Government to persist with those and, if it is, whether they will be adequately funded? One of their features under the last Government was a lack of funding to allow them to have the impact that we would all hope they would.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. The Secretary of State is today visiting the Purple Horizons project in the west midlands, an example of a huge nature recovery project extending across 10,000 hectares of vital heathlands, wetlands, woodlands and grasslands. That is an example of the partnership working that the hon. Gentleman talks about, with the local Wildlife Trust there, the council, the University of Birmingham and Lichfield district council. It is my firm intention, as we move towards the autumn statement and the spending reviews next year, that nature should take its place firmly at the heart of those discussions.

Nature is central to each of the missions that define this new Government. We know that being in nature promotes wellbeing and tackles poor mental health. Clean air helps to cut hospital emissions. Protecting landscapes that capture and store carbon helps us to meet our net zero targets, and training people for new jobs in new industries, restoring and protecting the natural world, will protect our economic growth.

Nature is the monopoly provider of everything we need to exist, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West has already said, but we stand at a moment in history where nature needs us to defend it. Without it there is no economy, no food, no health, no society. We are not merely observers; we are an integral part of nature and our future depends on protecting it. I look forward to working with my brilliant team of officials and my new ministerial colleagues at DEFRA to tackle the nature crisis.

At COP15 in Montreal, 196 countries agreed the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We look forward to COP16 and there is much on the agenda. My hon. Friend asked about attendance. Four Ministers from three different Departments attended the last conference on biodiversity. We do not yet have a detailed programme of events in Cali, which is completely normal at this stage, but once we do we will confirm precisely who will attend, and we will of course make that information available to the House. Hon. Members can rest assured, however, that this Government will send a very senior delegation from across Government so that the rest of the world will be in no doubt as to the crucial importance we place on the summit and on global co-operation on nature loss.

There are 33 items on the agenda for this COP, covering everything from marine protected areas to plant conservation. UK teams will be active on all of them, driving consensus and finding ambitious agreements to help to deliver the goals and targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework. We must speed up and scale up action at home and abroad.

However, there are three priorities we are following closely. First, the negotiations on digital sequence information, or DSI, aim to ensure that those communities that make available genetic data from biodiversity—trees, plants and fungi—receive benefits from doing so. This is a unique opportunity for global science and nature conservation: payments for using genetic information could unlock billions of dollars of finance for nature every year and ensure that nature is protected for future generations of not just scientists, but forest dwellers. UK negotiators are chairing the negotiations on this complex issue, and are making good progress towards ensuring that this COP will be able to take the exciting step of launching a new global fund for nature action.

On implementation, all parties need to take domestic action to fully implement the GBF. The first step is to publish the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, or NBSAPs. We have been working hard with the devolved Administrations to prepare a UK-wide plan—a single document—to show the policies and strategies that are in place. We will aim to publish that NBSAP as soon as possible ahead of COP16.