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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Government's policies on tackling waste crime.

In 2018 we published the Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy which sets out our long-term approach to minimising waste and improving resource efficiency. The Strategy included the first ever strategic approach to waste crime which outlined steps to prevent, detect and deter waste crime. Since publishing the strategy we have made key steps towards achieving our commitments: either through directly actioning our core commitments, or through progressing established plans to further our goals. Despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020/21 the Environment Agency stopped illegal activity at 722 sites, contributing to a 14% reduction in known illegal sites from the previous year.

As part of the Resources and Waste Strategy we committed to publishing an annual set of metrics and indicators for high level monitoring of progress with the Strategy. Earlier this year we appointed a consortium led by Ipsos Mori, to deliver an evaluation of the Strategy which will run over at least five years.