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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with the National Crime Agency on tackling waste crime.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a full member of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) which was launched in January 2020 as a multi-agency taskforce to share intelligence and operational capability and capacity to tackle serious and organised criminality in the waste sector. The NCA is a member of the Joint Unit’s Oversight Board, as well as being fully involved operationally. The Oversight Board also includes Defra officials. Officials from the Environment Agency and NCA are in very regular contact through the work of the JUWC.

The JUWC has shown the value of joint working when tackling the poly-criminality of organised crime groups. In the two years since the Joint Unit for Waste Crime launched it has worked with over 50 partner organisations and engaged in 74 multi-agency days of action, which have resulted in 52 associated arrests by other agencies.