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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of introducing a national database of illegal waste sites on the targeting of enforcement resources.

The Environment Agency (EA) already collects, maintains and publishes information on high-priority waste sites in England as part of its risk-based approach to tackling waste crime. In May 2026, the EA introduced a national watchlist of high-priority waste sites, which is updated regularly and provides information on sites causing concern to local communities. This is supported by wider intelligence gathering and analysis to inform enforcement activity. Enforcement decisions are based on a range of factors, including the scale of environmental harm, risk to communities, offending history, and available intelligence.