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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what fiscal steps she plans to take to cut levels of waste crime in a) Newcastle-under-Lyme, b) Staffordshire and c) England.

In addition to driving forward the policy and regulatory reforms designed to close the loopholes being exploited by criminals, we are also increasing the resources available to the Environment Agency (EA). The EA’s total budget for 2025 to 2026 has increased and includes £15.6 million for waste crime enforcement. This is a more than 50% increase from 2024/25. Overall, the EA has been able to increase its frontline criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams across England by 43 full-time staff.