Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee of your Lordships’ House. I have to say that, until we started our inquiry, I had been unaware of the scale or the seriousness of waste crime. Now, thanks largely to the tenacity of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, as well as the growing interest of the press, both national and local, we are all too aware of Hoad’s Wood; Kidlington; Bickershaw, near Wigan; and, this week, Stockton in Norfolk and Knowsley on Merseyside. But this is only the tip of the iceberg—I suppose I should say “the tip of the tip”. In their letter of 16 December to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, Alan Lovell and Philip Duffy of the Environment Agency said that, in 2024-25, 749 new illegal waste sites had been found, up from 427 the previous year. This is a huge nationwide problem. Not only are these sites illegal, they cost farmers huge sums to clean up, they present a serious fire risk, they pollute streams and rivers and blight the environment and they can, as in Wigan, cause serious health problems to those living nearby and blight their everyday life. The Environment Agency is front and centre in responding to all this, and there are questions for it to answer. For example, why did it not act sooner at Hoads Wood? Where is the sense of urgency, given the scale of the problem and its environmental and human damage? Why can concrete bollards not be put in place much more quickly than they have been up to now? But this is not the responsibility of one agency; it is a bigger problem than that. Responsibility also lies with the Government, the police, HMRC and local authorities. Some of the action already taken is sensible, such as the establishment of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. It is absolutely right to bring the various actors together and to inject coherence into an otherwise anarchic scene. However—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on this—the joint unit should surely get more of a grip than we have seen so far. What else can be done? Our report lists a number of recommendations. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has mentioned some of them. I want to mention just three. First, the Government and local authorities should be doing all they can to encourage the use of legal landfill sites but, if anything, the trend is in the other direction. Fees are going up and appointments often have to be made. This is all an encouragement to criminal gangs. I hope that the Minister can say what more the Government are doing to favour legal tips. Secondly, there needs to be stronger enforcement, more arrests and tougher penalties. Penalties need to fit the crime and be strong enough to deter the crime. That means larger fines and longer jail sentences. What more can the Government do to tip the balance in favour of the law and not the criminals? I hope that the Minister can tell us that. Thirdly, we need to move into the 21st century. Mandatory digital waste tracking to replace the present cumbersome paper system must be right and would put more pressure on criminal groups. Why cannot drones be used more regularly to spot criminal waste sites when they are formed, rather than leaving it until much later? I look forward also to hearing the Minister’s views on that. Much is being done. Much more can and must be done. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said in a letter to the Secretary of State that “waste crime is a profitable and low risk business for” an organised crime group. We have to change that, and we have to change it fast.