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 with local authorities to tackle fly-tipping (a) nationally and (b) in Romford constituency.

The Prime Minister’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils take tougher action against those who fly-tip. This includes significantly raising the upper limit on the penalties councils can issue to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who give their waste to an unauthorised carrier, which we did in July 2023. We have also increased transparency on the use of these penalties by publishing league tables and recently laid regulations to ringfence the money raised from these penalties for enforcement and clean up activity.

This Government’s fly-tipping grants are helping councils across the country put a stop to fly-tipping at hotspots, such as by installing CCTV and fencing. Nearly £1.2million is already in use with a further £1million to be awarded this spring. A selection of case studies from completed projects are available online so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme.

With the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, we are developing a toolkit to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. So far, the group has published a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework which sets out how to set up and run effective local partnerships. The toolkit, and other resources, are available online at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/national-fly-tipping-prevention-group.