Contribution
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for bringing it, and all noble Lords who have spoken. We have had some interesting contributions that have ranged from careers advice to archaeology. I think everybody agrees that waste crime is out of control and that it is low risk and high reward. The Government’s own national waste crime survey suggests that one-fifth of all our waste ends up in the hands of criminals at one point or another. The costs are hard to quantify, as the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, has pointed out, but every year it costs the UK economy somewhere between £1 and £4 billion. The returns are great: up to £2,500 per lorry.
To answer the question of this debate, my personal view is that the systems for preventing and dealing with waste crime are fundamentally broken. It is the broken systems that are creating broken outcomes. I have no wish to criticise individuals, many of whom work extremely hard, but it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the way we currently organise the resources for the Environment Agency is not working and not properly fit for purpose.
The Minister responded to a question on this that I asked the other day by saying that it was a new problem. I beg to disagree. My view is that it is a long-standing problem that has been largely hidden away from the public’s view and public consciousness. The systems themselves have, in effect, operated to avoid the true scale of the problem. It has been a fear of finding out that has predominated; a fear of the cost involved in recognising the true scale of the problem.
I first became involved in this with the Hoad’s Wood campaign. I asked an Oral Question on it—I spoke to the then Minister in private first—which led to a ministerial direction. After that, I foolishly promised that I would try to change the systems. I am very pleased that the Environment and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, did its report. That report genuinely sought co-operation and solutions to these problems. We asked the Environment Agency how many illegal waste sites the size of Hoad’s Wood were known to it; the answer that came back was six. That report has been a turning point. We had over a thousand pieces of press generated before Christmas as a result and the more we look, the more we find. The more we understand, the greater the problem appears to be.
More sites have come to light since the publication of the House of Lords report than were known in their totality to the Environment Agency beforehand. That is both alarming and extraordinary in equal measure. The Government have chosen largely to ignore the report that we published, and while we welcome brokers, dealers, carriers and digital waste-tracking reforms, they were in the pipeline before our report. Beyond that, there have been no new measures in the response from the Government. I guess there are two options for us: either we can take a less optimistic view that the Government are on the track that they are on and things will not change; or we can take a more optimistic view. My hope is that the Government are listening. I know that Ministers are concerned about this and that they are formulating policies to take this forward.
For me, the starting point is that the body set up as a regulator is fundamentally not the right body for dealing with organised crime—this is an organised crime problem, and it needs to be dealt with as organised crime. The recent police White Paper offers the ideal vehicle and place for dealing with organised waste crime, should this Government choose to take that course of action. I hope they will do so, because that is where the answer lies.
The Government need to acknowledge the true scale and vast number of illegal sites, most of which are simply not cleared; they are devastating to our communities and the environment. I will refer the Minister to some specific points. First, I am pleased that Hoad’s Wood is being cleared up, but the Hoad’s Wood campaign is concerned that there is no plan—that it can see—to secure that site, once it has been cleared. We do not want to go back to where we started.
Secondly, I want the Treasury to stop charging the Environment Agency landfill tax on the sites it clears. That is just silliness.
Thirdly, the Government should allow the Environment Agency to use more of its income from permitted sites to deal with illegal waste problems. I am pleased that Kidlington is being cleared up too, but I do not want the Environment Agency to bankrupt itself and become unable to do all the other important stuff it needs to do because of the cost of clearing up these sites.
Fifthly, I want Ministers to acknowledge the true scale of the problem. I would like them to use remote monitoring to come up with a plan for clearing these historic sites and hypothecate landfill tax for a period for clearing up these sites that have been mentioned, such as Wigan.
Finally, I would like the Minister to give a clear commitment to us that the Government do indeed take this issue seriously and that they are planning to bring forward, as a matter of urgency, a concrete plan to deal with this as a national priority and to bring forward some real solutions so that we can all move forward.