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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of current legislation relating to fly tipping in (1) urban, and (2) rural, areas.

In its manifesto, the Government committed to increase the penalties for fly-tipping. Fly-tipping is unacceptable whether it occurs in urban or rural areas and tackling this crime is a priority for the Government. Existing legislative and regulatory controls are the same for both urban and rural areas. Tackling fly-tipping requires a local approach, tailored to the characteristics of the area and the community in which the problem occurs. We are committed to encouraging local solutions for local problems and the role of central Government is to enable and support this local action: providing a clear legal framework of rights, responsibilities and powers, setting national standards and, where possible, making sure that the costs of dealing with fly-tipping is passed to those responsible for causing the problem.

The Resources and Waste Strategy, published in 2018, set out an ambitious package of commitments to modernise the way waste is regulated, to prevent, detect and deter waste crime, including fly-tipping. Defra is subsequently preparing a number of legislative reforms to tackle waste crime, including fly-tipping. We are taking forward the commitment in the Strategy to develop proposals for the reform of the waste carrier, broker and dealer regime. We are working with industry and the regulator and we intend to consult later this year. At the same time, we intend to consult on the introduction of mandatory electronic waste tracking. This will reduce the ability of waste criminals to hide evidence of the systematic mishandling of waste and make it easier for enforcement authorities to identify material dropping out of the system, and therefore make it easier to protect against fly-tipping. The reforms aim to improve competence in waste transportation and deter illegitimate operators from entering the sector. This will help to ensure that waste is dealt with appropriately and to reduce the incidence of waste crime and fly-tipping.

The Environment Bill provides a significant step forward in delivering a number of the commitments set out in the Resources and Waste Strategy. The newly introduced Bill amends section 108 of the Environment Act 1995 to make it easier for an officer to search premises to seize and remove documentary or other evidence. The new power does not require a warrant if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that first obtaining a warrant would allow for evidence to be concealed, altered or destroyed. Further to this, Schedule 11 of the Environment Bill removes the seven-day notice period required before powers of entry can be used to access residential premises. The current seven-day notice requirement enables, for example, rogue waste carriers who operate from their home address rather than a business address, to destroy evidence. These new powers will work to ensure waste criminals, such as illegitimate waste operators reliant on fly-tipping for income, are held accountable for their actions.

In recent years we have bolstered local authorities’ powers to tackle fly-tipping, including introducing fixed penalty notices of up to £400 for those who give their waste to fly-tippers, or fly-tip themselves. We have also enhanced the powers available to local authorities and the Environment Agency to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers.

As well as legislative changes, Defra is developing a fly-tipping toolkit, following a commitment in the Resources and Waste Strategy. The toolkit will be a web-based tool to help local authorities and others work in partnership to tackle fly-tipping. It will cover, for example, the use of new technology to report fly-tipping, the presentation of cases to court, the sharing of intelligence within and between partnerships and promoting the duty of care to individuals and businesses.

Furthermore, as the majority of fly-tips involve household waste (62% in 2018/19), we published a research project on public awareness of and adherence to the household waste duty of care in August 2019. At the same time, we published related publicity materials. The materials have been provided to the Local Government Association to circulate to local authorities. They are also available on the website of National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, which is chaired by Defra: http://www.tacklingflytipping.com. By limiting the material given to fly-tippers and using appropriately licenced waste carriers, everyone can play their part in reducing fly-tipping incidents.