Joint Unit for Waste Crime: Wales

(asked on 10th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the effectiveness of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 19th March 2021

The Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) celebrated its first anniversary in January. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic limiting some of its activities, it has delivered significant benefits in taking a UK-wide approach with its partners to tackle serious and organised criminality affecting the waste sector. Regulators from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are fully integrated into the Unit and are members of its Oversight Board and Defra is also represented. Defra officials hold discussions with colleagues in other Government departments as needed on tackling serious and organised crime in the waste sector.

In its first year, across the UK, it has led 28 multi-agency investigations and taken part in 34 days of action and raids with other partners, including the Metropolitan Police's largest ever armed raid. The Unit has developed intelligence links and sharing arrangements with a wide range of organisations in the public and private sectors including law enforcement agencies, infrastructure providers and the financial services sector. The coordination that has been brought to dealing with this aspect of serious criminality in society has proved its worth and helped law enforcement agencies arrest a number of suspects and disrupt criminal activity that damages the environment, the economy and communities.

The business planning round for 2021-22 included an assessment of the funding required by each of the department’s arms-length bodies, including the Environment Agency, to deliver its priorities and statutory obligations.

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