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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding his Department has allocated to (a) Barnsley local authority and (b) local authorities in England to encourage them to search and seize vehicles of suspected fly-tippers.

We are taking strong action to tackle waste crime. We have created a Joint Unit on Waste Crime. The Environment Agency has received an extra £60m to tackle waste crime since 2014. We have updated legislation regulating waste. These include increasing the powers for the Environment Agency to tackle problem waste sites, enhanced technical competence requirements for permitted waste sites, and introducing new penalties for breaches of the duty of care for household waste. We will further reform the legislative framework for the waste duty of care and carriers, brokers and dealers, mandating the digital tracking of waste (subject to consultation), tackling the waste exemptions most often linked to criminal activity and enhancing operator competence.

We are developing a toolkit for local authorities and others to tackle fly-tipping, including specific guidance on strengthening evidence for prosecution cases. We will work with magistrates and the Judicial Office to raise awareness for magistrates of the prevalence and importance of tackling waste crime, including fly-tipping, and offer training in the environmental offences sentencing guideline.

The Government has provided local authorities with over £200 billion for this spending period. While councils make their own spending decisions, we would expect councils to prioritise these to deliver what their residents want to see, including investing in tackling fly-tipping.