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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to work with local authorities to reduce instances of fly-tipping.

Defra chairs the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG), through which we work with a wide range of interested parties, including local authorities, to share good practice with regards to preventing fly-tipping. The NFTPG has developed various practical tools including guides on how councils and others can present robust cases to court, set up and run effective local partnerships to tackle fly-tipping and raise awareness of the household and business waste duty of care. These are available at: https://nftpg.com/

The Government encourages councils to make good use of their enforcement powers, and we are seeking powers in the Crime and Policing Bill to provide statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support councils 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 suspected fly-tippers, to identify how we could help councils make better use of this tool.