Fly-tipping

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Lady makes another good point. We have seen, probably across the country, many areas where recycling centres have closed. If people do not have cars or if they struggle to travel, it is even more difficult for them to reach those areas. She is absolutely right. We could have a much wider debate about funding for local authorities, but I will focus on some of the ideas that some local authorities are using.

Under Newham Council and Keep Britain Tidy’s award-winning and innovative crime scene investigation approach, fly-tipping was cut by up 70%. Fly-tips were surrounded by bright yellow tape and left for a few days, to highlight their lasting impact on the area to perpetrators, before then being cleaned up. It was an imaginative approach and demonstrates the spirit that we need to combat a persistent problem. That is why the suggestions that follow are as much as possible aimed at utilising the powers that councils already have.

The first idea is mega-skips. Many people have told me that the accessibility of waste removal services and centres—the hon. Lady made this point—is a major barrier to bringing down levels of dumping. Nearly one in five jobs in my constituency is paid below the London living wage, yet services to dispose of bulky items of household waste are often expensive. On top of that, levels of car ownership in the borough are at record lows, putting recycling centres out of reach of many in our community.

One fantastic suggestion that I support is to replicate the mega-skip days run by Wandsworth Council, whereby skips are provided around the borough on certain days of the year so that residents can simply get rid of items for free. I hope the Minister will join me in encouraging Croydon and other councils to look at mega-skip days. Are they something that he would support?

The second idea is changing behaviours. Many who wrote to me were dismayed by the feeling that fly-tippers were getting away without facing any consequences. That is extremely understandable, given that official statistics show that Croydon is the second easiest place in the country to fly-tip and get away fine-free. Last year Croydon Council issued just 10 fixed penalty notices, despite recording more than 20,000 instances of fly-tipping.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. She raises a really important point about fixed penalty notices. So often people are literally dumping waste, especially in the countryside, on an industrial scale, costing local authorities across the country hundreds of thousands of pounds—indeed, millions of pounds. The deterrent is not there, so does the hon. Lady agree that increasing quite dramatically the fixed penalty notice that local authorities can charge the people they catch would help, but that we should also send a message to magistrates, so that people know that fly-tipping is not worth it, because when they are taken to court—as South Staffordshire Council has done—they will be hit with very hard penalties?

[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If we look at the stats that I just cited—more than 20,000 instances of fly-tipping and only 10 fixed penalty notices—it is clear that people feel that they can get away with it. Of course we need more enforcement and appropriate punishment, when it is right to do that. This is a really pernicious, horrible crime, and the response in our courts should reflect that.

The promise that crimes will have consequences is central to our justice system. One idea that I think is interesting is Merton Council’s wall of shame, which puts that principle into action. The council uses its roaming CCTV to capture images of fly-tippers, and it puts those images up as posters around fly-tipping hotspots. Merton has only just started doing that, but it achieved seen results. Merton has even filmed, with the CCTV, people coming with their rubbish and looking at the poster and then walking away, because they realise that there might be consequences to their actions. What Merton is doing could be something that the Minister might look at on a more national scale.

Next, I want to talk about having a strategy. As we have established, fly-tipping is widespread across the country. Croydon Council has focused on blitz clean-up approaches to hotspots, which is a good in itself, but I agree with the suggestion that I have had from many constituents that a more joined-up approach is needed. Each council—Croydon Council being one—should develop a fly-tipping strategy that explores the root causes of fly-tipping, identifies the hotspots in each borough, outlines what tools the council already has at its disposal, and produces a plan to deploy those tools to address the problem. Let me give one example of councils using the resources that they have. Several councils use their YouTube page to show pictures of perpetrators of fly-tipping—again, to try to shock people into realising that they are committing an offence and should stop.

I am grateful to have had this debate to highlight the pestilence that is fly-tipping, to commend community efforts to address it and to outline some ways to address it. Everyone deserves to live in a neighbourhood that they feel proud of. The levels of fly-tipping in Croydon and across the country are completely unacceptable. I am suggesting to Croydon Council that it set up mega-skip days to provide freely available skips so that residents can more easily get rid of unwanted items for free, that it set up a fly-tippers wall of shame—learn from Merton Council and publicise images of fly-tippers—and that it approach fly-tipping strategically. We need to use the enforcement measures and other tools that we have, look at what we can do in the online space, and develop a fly-tipping strategy to tackle the problem across the borough. We cannot and must not allow this situation to continue. We know that there are solutions. We know that things can be done. I want to see a future in which fly-tipping is drastically reduced, and I look forward to working with the local community, council and Government to clean up Croydon.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) for tabling this important debate. I also thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. I will pick up on the points that have been raised. I know from my own constituency, from Keighley and Ilkley, just how much of a nuisance fly-tipping can be in our areas and in relation to the wellbeing of our communities. It is an absolute disgrace that it happens as much as it does across all our constituencies, whether they are urban or rural environments. Fly-tipping harms the environment, blights our local communities and burdens our local economy. The estimated cost of fly-tipping to the UK was £392 million in 2018-19. The reports of fly-tipping are higher today. Local authorities reported more than a million fly-tipping instances in 2022-23 and over 80% of farmers say that they have been affected by fly-tipping on their land. We are all familiar with the financial implications when they are left to deal with the consequences of waste left on their property.

In recent years, we have given councils tougher powers and grants to tackle fly-tipping hotspots, and have worked with stakeholders to co-design a fly-tipping toolkit to help landowners, councils and businesses to tackle common issues. The latest statistics may show that the tide is beginning to turn, with fly-tipping on public land down for the second year running, but we know that there is much more to do.

I want to turn to some of the key themes raised in the debate, before picking up on some of the ideas that the hon. Member for Croydon Central proposed. In March last year, the Prime Minister published the antisocial behaviour action plan, which sets out the steps the Government would like to take to support councils to take tougher action to deter people from fly-tipping, and punish those who have done so.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been delivering against those commitments at pace. In July, the maximum penalty councils can issue for fly-tipping was increased significantly from £400 to £1,000. We also increased the penalty for householders who gave waste to a fly-tipper from £400 to £600. That builds on other powers that councils have, such as the ability to seize vehicles suspected of being involved in fly-tipping.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I thank the Minister for pointing out that the amount councils can charge in a fixed-penalty fine has gone up. Would the Minister look at that, so that instead of £600 it could be £2,000 or £3,000 and is a real disincentive to fly-tipping?

[Robbie Moore]

I was about to come on to that point. My right hon. Friend makes an important point, but the challenge at the moment is that, although that power is available to many local authorities, the uptake in prosecutions is not there, even at the higher rate of £1,000. Many local authorities do not issue any prosecutions in a year. We have to ask why a power that is available to many local authorities is not being used. Rather than simply look at increasing the penalty, the first step of deterrence must be to ensure that local authorities use the powers awarded to them.

I am pleased to see that some councils such as Buckinghamshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council have begun to adopt those higher rates, showing that those crimes are being taken seriously in those areas. We want councils to make greater use of the income they receive from those penalties. From 1 April, that income will be ringfenced in law, to improve and expand enforcement capability, and clean up mess from fly-tippers. Local authorities will be able to ringfence for those offences if they wish.

We have also increased scrutiny of how councils are using those powers through the publication of our fly-tipping enforcement league tables, which are now in their second iteration. Those show that some councils are already taking the fight to these criminals. As I have said, however, some councils, with significant fly-tipping issues, are barely scratching the surface, and are not issuing any fixed-penalty notices in the first place. We have to ensure that those penalties are imposed, to create a deterrent. The Department has written to those councils, reaffirming expectations that they should take tougher action, and encouraging them to reach out to others to learn how better to tackle fly-tipping.

The overarching goals of enforcement should be to change the behaviour of those who offend and to deter others from doing so. It has been our long-standing position that penalties should never have to be used to raise revenue, but when they are utilised we expect that local authorities can ringfence those funds to help to cement our priority of reducing fly-tipping waste.

Fly-tipping is a serious crime, and offenders can face an unlimited fine and imprisonment if convicted in court. It is right that councils use the full extent of these powers to prosecute where appropriate, and we are helping them to do that effectively. We have engaged legal experts and worked with the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to produce a guide in 2021 on how councils and others can build robust court cases—and I am pleased to see that the average court fine has since increased by 12%. We will continue to explore other options to further strengthen sentences, such as working with magistrates and judicial colleagues, to raise awareness of the severity of fly-tipping and the harm it causes.

We are also funding councils across the country to directly intervene at fly-tipping hotspots. Across two rounds of fly-tipping grant schemes we have now awarded £1.2 million to help more than 30 councils. However, it is disappointing that some councils want to close their household waste and recycling centres. Indeed, in my own constituency of Keighley, Bradford Council wants to close a household waste and recycling centre in Ilkley, and the Sugden End HWRC in the Worth valley. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) mentioned this issue as well.

I would urge local authorities to look at the negative consequences associated with fly-tipping as a result of closing household waste and recycling centres. I would urge them to keep those centres open, because the negative financial consequences could outweigh the positives.

Fly-tipping and Illegal Dumping

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) on securing this debate.

We have heard already about the impact of fly-tipping right across the country. We have heard how it blights communities and disrupts people’s lives. In South Staffordshire, sadly, we often have to deal with industrial-scale fly-tipping—not just a mattress, sofa or small items of building products, but large truckloads abandoned in woods and on the roadside. That has an enormously high cost, be that for the landowner or the local authority. Even more importantly, it blights the local community in such a dreadful way.

We know that the cost of disposal is high. For an individual or an authority that has to dispose of fly-tipped goods, the average cost is £800. The Minister will probably talk about the large fines that can be levied on fly-tippers—she will probably mention that a fine of up to £50,000 can be levied. If she does, I hope she also mentions how many individuals have been charged that top fine of £50,000. I know that in the past it has been exceptionally rare, so I hope she will cover that.

A few years ago, the Government made an important move by giving local authorities the ability to levy on-the-spot fines. That had an initial impact, but it does not go far enough. The largest fine they can levy is £500. As has already been touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), the cost of actually bringing a prosecution averages between £1,500 and £2,000. The investment that needs to be made by local authorities to catch these criminals can often be substantial.

I would like to make a suggestion to my hon. Friend the Minister. As she will be aware, the Queen’s Speech included the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. What better way to level up and improve communities than by having that Bill address fly-tipping? I suggest to the Minister—she could go back to the Department and claim that this is all her own work—that the limit for on-the-spot fines levied by local authorities should be increased dramatically to £5,000. People who dump rubbish would then feel the pain for causing disturbance, nuisance and vandalism to our countryside.

Will the Minister also consider amending legislation so as to enable local authorities to make better use of closed-circuit television in a concealed environment? So often, fly-tipping occurs regularly in spots across the countryside because they are conveniently located close to main arterial roads. Changing the legislation to enable local authorities to make better use of concealed CCTV would have an enormous impact by increasing the number of fly-tippers they could catch. It would allow local authorities to keep those fines, creating the incentive to go after the fly-tippers.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) and all right hon. and hon. Members who have come to this Chamber to tell us forcefully that we need to keep our foot to the floor on fly-tipping. It blights all our communities across the country, from Wales to the east of England and from Scotland to Cornwall, but we have heard glimmers of where working together can start to deliver change.

I hope to go over some of the things that my hon. Friend raised and to outline a little more how we are driving forward in some of these areas. As many Members touched upon, and as the head of the Environment Agency said, waste crime is the new narcotics. There is a lot of money in it, and it drives antisocial behaviour. While I am here, I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) on her powerful contribution, and her council on being one that really does drive forward those enforcement measures and ensure that people receive the full force of what we are able to do, in telling them that it is not good enough to litter communities and to fly-tip.

The Government have been taking significant action and are committed to stamping out fly-tipping. I share everyone else’s abhorrence of it. It blights communities and the environment. It is extremely impactful on animals and, as we have heard, on human health on occasion. As my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) and for Moray (Douglas Ross) said, some of the things that are dumped are completely unacceptable.

Fly-tipping has been debated in the House in previous years. Since then, we have made significant progress and we have given local authorities and regulators new tools to tackle the menace, but we need them to use their powers. It is not enough to keep a cookery book closed; it has to be opened for the joys to be discovered. If councils really want to help us with fly-tipping, they must take every ability we have given them to beat it. We have strengthened powers to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers. We have legislated to introduce fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping and for householders who give their waste to fly-tippers. The hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) mentioned the need to make sure that licences are checked. Actually, that is a householder’s responsibility, but not everybody knows that they have to do that. As that system becomes electronic, it will be considerably easier for people to go online—like we do with other things—and check the licence. If somebody does not have the appropriate waste carrier licence, they should not be used for waste disposal.

It is important to ensure that everybody is up to date. For example, if a kettle breaks down, as a small electronic good it can be taken back to the retailer and they will get rid of it. Not everybody is aware of that, so they can be seen littered across our countryside. I am due to meet with manufacturers of mattresses on 6 June, because of mattress mountains—I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) who mentioned mattresses being dumped. It is a problem up and down the land. Extended producer responsibility is slowly going through, but I want to see manufacturers coming forward and voluntarily saying what they will do with their items. The paint manufacturing industry recently came to me because it has developed a scheme in Cambridgeshire, which I hope to see, where paint can be taken back to any retailer.

Along with things like the DIY consultation, which we will be completing shortly, it is important that people have options with what to do with their waste. The majority of fly-tipping is the size of a small van or the boot of a car. It is small scale, notwithstanding what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) said was happening in some areas of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) mentioned tyres. With particular items, we are having to drill down on how we tackle them.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

The Minister made the strong point that it is important for local authorities to take responsibility and to use the powers that they have as effectively as possible. Is she willing to consider the prospect of increasing the amount of the fixed penalty fine that they can levy? I think it is currently set at £500. Could that be increased substantially?

[Jo Churchill]

Fixed penalty notices are currently set at £400. Local authorities can issue fines of up to £400 to fly-tippers and householders who pass their waste on to those who are not licensed. I will take that point away, because my right hon. Friend is not the first to say that perhaps the fine is not high enough. However, some councils do not even use the powers that they have to fine people up to £400. I really urge people to use everything we have given them.

Hedgehog Conservation

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile]

I am told that in the western isles, there are no hedgehogs at all.

My relationship with the hedgehog goes back to my own childhood in suburban Woking, when I was read by my actress mother Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle”—hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that this is not the only Mrs T who has been important in my life. I was therefore deeply shocked to discover that in the last 10 years, hedgehog numbers have declined by about one third nationally. According to the House of Commons Library, the principal reason for this prickly animal’s decline is the loss of habitats. Likely factors in the hedgehog’s demise are the loss of permanent grasslands, larger field sizes, the use of pesticides and herbicides and a reduction in hedgerow quality. I understand that badgers are a natural predator of hedgehogs and that consequently they avoid sites where badgers are present.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the importance of using our gardens as a vital habitat for hedgehogs? I recently built a hedgehog house in my garden. Sadly, as yet I have no residents in it, but I hope it will encourage diversity and a growth in hedgehog numbers in South Staffordshire.

[Oliver Colvile]

I will be making a similar point in a moment.

Hedgehogs seem to thrive in urban and suburban areas, but the move to tidy, sterile gardens—I am sure the garden of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) is not sterile—has also contributed to their demise. However, these suburban habitats are broken up by fences and roads, pushing hedgehogs into unsuitably small areas.

Dairy Industry

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Miss McIntosh]

I beg to disagree with my hon. Friend; I believe that the groceries code adjudicator should extend to dairy farmers, but I would go further: I believe that there is a role for the Office of Fair Trading in reviewing increased collaboration on pricing and marketing, and on the whole agreement between farmers.

On a Select Committee visit to Denmark—I will declare an interest: I am half-Danish and very proud of that—we were hugely impressed by the amount of exports and marketing opportunities that there have been through its co-operative movement. Arla was one of the first and most successful dairy co-operatives, and we understand that there are now 1,000 producers in this country under Arla. I yield to no one in my admiration of British and north Yorkshire farmers, particularly those who work on the land in my area. They are fiercely independent and fiercely proud of their tradition, but we must do more to help them co-operate and understand that, if state-aid rules are not deemed to be broken in Denmark, we could apply the same collaboration and co-operative movement in this country.

On exports, my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire set the scene well. We saw a 3p increase in price about two or three years ago, which was very welcome. We have now seen at least a 1p—and potentially up to a 2p or 3p—decrease. I understand that that is partly because of the global situation, partly because of Russian sanctions and partly because of the milk powder scenario in China, but every time the price goes up, people flock to milk production. We then get a glut of milk and two or three years later, the price goes down. There is a circular situation, and if we are not careful, we will have, at some stage in the long term, a potential food security issue.

Another hon. Friend set the scene for me to say that 40% of leftover liquid milk is used for butter and cheese. We produce Shepherds Purse and Wensleydale cheese in north Yorkshire, and Cheddar cheese is world-renowned. Liquid milk and milk products generally are some of the most nutritious products available. We should be doing more not only to generate growth in this country for this market, which is very popular, but to ensure that we are exporting as much as we possibly can.

There is a role for Government. I believe that what the Committee set out in our report in 2011 still pertains today: dairy farmers should be offered written contracts by processors that specify either the raw milk price or the principles underpinning the price, the volume and timing of deliveries, and the duration of the agreement. Unless such contracts are made compulsory, we will continue to be in this circular situation. That is a very good argument for looking at the voluntary code, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), whom I am delighted to follow. If we have a situation where the voluntary code is not deemed to be working, let us review it and see whether it should be made compulsory. Let us look at why the groceries code and the adjudicator’s remit does not extend to the role of the dairy industry. Let us look at having greater oversight by the Office of Fair Trading. Let us work with the European Commission and our partners, crucially, to underpin the labelling. If we can get the labelling right at an EU level, that would be a great way forward. Let us encourage all consumers to buy the red tractor products.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

One of the key drivers in the creation of the groceries code adjudicator was to try to deal with some of the inequalities that dairy farmers had to deal with all the time. Does my hon. Friend feel it is incumbent on us to do everything we can to address that long-term issue?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend made that intervention. I hope that the Minister, having heard that, will listen to the arguments made by both my hon. Friend and me. I hope that as many people as possible will heed the message and hear the voices that have spoken this afternoon. I believe that we need a greater balance in the relationship between the dairy producer, the processor, and the retailer. Having a four-pint milk bottle sold for 89p is unsustainable. That certainly would not happen in China.

I shall end my arguments by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and by saying that I hope the Minister will review the recommendations in our 2011 report, which we stand by, and will review the groceries code adjudicator and the voluntary code, and encourage co-operatives. There must be a role either for the Competition and Markets Authority or, as I would argue, the Office of Fair Trading.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I think every Member of the House is well aware of my hon. Friend’s commitment to his local growing businesses. He is a stalwart supporter of them. We want them to expand, not only for the local jobs that would create, but for our food security. That is why, for example, we have done combined horticultural production and energy research to try to assist companies such as those in his constituency with the energy they use, which is a big outgoing—and why we have an agri-tech strategy, drawing together engineering skills, R and D, and genotyping to try to reduce costs, using the fantastic innovation we have around the country. I am happy to consult him to see what more we can do to help specific growers in his constituency, who do a fantastic job.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to safeguard the future of forests and woodland.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

We have set out our commitment to protecting, improving and expanding England’s forestry assets. This includes establishing a new body to run the public forest estate, maintaining a core of forestry expertise in government and supporting the forestry sector to improve its economic performance. We are also giving greater priority to plant health and we look forward to receiving the final report of the tree health and plant biosecurity taskforce later this month.

[Gavin Williamson]

The Forestry Commission owns a considerable amount of land in and around my constituency, including on Cannock Chase and Highgate common. What action are the Government taking, along with the Forestry Commission, to work more closely with voluntary organisations such as the Staffordshire wildlife trust to improve not only access, but the wildlife management of these important local beauty spots?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman has absolutely hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what we set out in the forestry and woodlands policy statement. We made it clear that we want the new public forest estate management organisation to work closely with local communities to improve the delivery of public benefits such as access, recreation and biodiversity. The Forestry Commission is already taking that commitment forward by developing a new package of community engagement measures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am happy to accept the hon. Lady’s comment on my eloquence, but I do not accept her criticism of what we are doing. We think that what we are doing is going to work. We are working closely with the European Commission, with local government and with BT and the other providers. We have to get this done. We have a plan and we are going to deliver it.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to support rural businesses in Staffordshire.

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

A £165 million package of measures to support rural economic growth is being rolled out across England. Of that, £100 million of rural development funding is targeted at improving rural businesses, with 38 projects in Staffordshire already receiving funding under the farming and forestry improvement scheme and seven projects being actively considered for rural economy grants. Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent local broadband plan has also been allocated £7.44 million from the Government’s £530 million rural broadband programme.

[Gavin Williamson]

Halfpenny Green vineyard in my constituency has over the past 30 years been producing some of the finest quality English wines. It has become an important local employer and is a perfect example of the importance of farm diversification. Indeed, Mr Speaker, the wine is so good that I am sure I would even be able to provide you with a bottle—if I was able to get called earlier in statements. [Interruption.] Maybe even two bottles. Can my right hon. Friend explain what steps he is taking to encourage rural diversification for farmers?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman may wish to develop his thoughts at greater length in an Adjournment debate.