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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to work with local authorities to reduce the level of fly-tipping.

Tackling fly-tipping is a Government priority and manifesto commitment. Next spring we will be giving councils the power to tackle small scale fly-tipping through fixed penalty notices as an alternative to prosecutions.

This builds on other Government action to tackle fly-tipping, which has included:

• working with the Sentencing Council on its guideline for sentencing for environmental offences, which came into force on 1 July last year;
• making it easier for vehicles suspected of being involved in waste crime to be stopped, searched and seized; and
• continuing our work with the Defra-chaired National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to promote and disseminate good practice in the prevention, reporting, investigation and clearance of fly-tipped waste.