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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities in tackling fly-tipping in the West Midlands.

Fly-tipping is a serious crime which blights local communities and the environment.

Local authorities have a range of enforcement powers to help them tackle fly-tipping including fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing and crushing of vehicles and prosecution action which can lead to a significant fine or even imprisonment. We encourage councils to make good use of their enforcement powers and are taking steps to develop new guidance to support them to consistently, appropriately and effectively exercise these existing powers.  We have also announced a review of council powers to seize and crush the vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool.

We committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created as part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.

In the meantime, Defra continue to chair the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group through which we work with a wide range of stakeholders, such as local authorities and the Environment Agency, to share good practice on preventing fly-tipping. Various practical tools are available from their webpage which is available at: https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/national-fly-tipping-prevention-group.