Esther McVey

I beg to move, That this House has considered fly-tipping in Tatton constituency. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell, and I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about this matter. Hardly a week goes by without someone contacting my office about the scourge of fly-tipping, and I am sure that is an experience shared by many hon. Members. The name fly-tipping belies the seriousness of the issue: it is a grave matter of someone dumping their waste on someone else’s land. That person has not bothered to dispose of the waste properly and so they think they will dump it on somebody else’s land. The problems it causes cannot be overestimated. I want to focus on the impact on local communities and consider what practical measures can be taken to ensure the problem does not continue to grow. This is not a new problem—fly-tipping has plagued communities for years—but it is a growing problem. In 2023-24, local authorities in England reported 1.15 million fly-tipping incidents, a 6% increase on the previous year, and I have heard that that is rising even further. Hon. Members will be aware that under current provisions, small-scale fly-tipping on public land is the responsibility of local authorities, while larger-scale fly-tipping falls under the responsibility of the Environment Agency and on private land the responsibility generally falls to the landowner to remove somebody else’s waste. Statistics from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that in 2023-24 the most common size category for fly-tipping incidents was equivalent to a small vanload, making up 31% of incidents, followed by the equivalent of a car boot load or less, which accounted for 28%. Whether beside a road, in a car park, on a public footpath or in open fields, we have all seen it. I share the frustration and upset felt by residents at the impact that dumping rubbish, no matter how big or small, has on their communities. Fly-tipping is rising across Tatton, from household rubbish to dumped tyres on Crowders Lane, Lach Dennis; waste on the side of the A556 at Lostock Gralam towards Plumley; household items such as mattresses on Holmes Chapel Road, Allostock; and waste dumped in the woodlands of Broad Lane, Sproston, the Sainsbury’s car park in Wilmslow and the Marston playground. That list is growing. The process to report fly-tipping to local councils is unnecessarily difficult, requiring excessive back-and-forth communication. For example, when I reported a fly-tipping incident on School Lane, Pickmere late last year, it turned out to be a veritable ping-pong of emails between departments and then a trawl of website pages just to report the incident. Only last month, I met residents from Colshaw Farm in Wilmslow, who lamented the whole process. They are now seeing an increase in fly-tipping, which has become a regular occurrence, and they have to use this system all the time. Those people, who are proud of their local community, want to keep their community tidy, but thoughtless, reckless people dump rubbish in their area.