Mary Creagh

That is a really interesting fact, and not one that I have come across. I will take that away and look at it. As with many of these things, I am responsible for waste and materials and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice is the Water Minister, so things often fall between the gaps of segmented policy brief allocations, but we will look into that and get back to her. I thank the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this debate and other hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. This Government want to be good stewards of our country and planet’s resources, our prosperity, and our economic and environmental resilience, so the loss of any of those resources concerns me greatly. We have seen the damaging impacts that makeshift furnaces abroad have on people’s health and the environment, and the illegal batch pyrolysis of tyres is linked with other criminal activities that cause harm to the environment, people and communities. It is unacceptable that illegal exportation in this country is part of that supply chain. We take the reports from “File on 4” and others very seriously. The Environment Agency is working with Indian counterparts to ensure that waste, including waste tyres, is recovered and recycled lawfully. That is a joint UK effort, and DEFRA works closely with all four UK regulators to ensure that there is a consistent approach regarding controls on the export of waste across the United Kingdom. Scotland banned the export of whole tyres back in 2018, so there is inconsistency. What has that meant? It means, possibly, that whole tyres in Scotland have come down to England and Wales for export, but who knows? It is hard to say what the flows are doing. The Environment Agency is conducting an internal review of how it regulates the export of waste tyres. I and my DEFRA colleagues look forward to that review’s findings, and we will carefully consider its outcomes when it has been completed.