Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to address this important question on what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of the performance of the Environment Agency in addressing waste crime. In doing so, I am pleased to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and all members of her committee for the hard, diligent and challenging—but rightly so—work that they have done on this important issue. Let us be without doubt, as we have all spoken with one voice this afternoon: waste crime blights our local communities. It damages the environment and, in the worst cases, it directly threatens our health. It also undermines legitimate businesses and deprives the public purse of tax income. Serious and organised crime in the waste sector is on the rise, and the Environment Agency is regularly alerted to new illegal waste sites. The EA is a place-based organisation, tackling local problems through local area teams that operate in both urban and rural locations. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, expressed concern that rural areas were losing out. The way in which the Environment Agency operates ensures that it is a local and needs-based agency, rather than resource being hoarded in a particular geography at the top of the organisation. I hope that that is helpful regarding the question she asked. This Government are committed to tackling waste crime and are helping the Environment Agency to build future capability. It has a wide range of powers, which it uses in its enforcement work against organised crime in waste and other environmental areas. Indeed, in the past couple of weeks, several arrests have been made in relation to the waste site near Kidlington, and waste sites have been shut down in Yorkshire and Minster in Kent. In Liverpool, an arrest was made and the Environment Agency seized a vehicle as part of a multi-agency operation. In her opening contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, asked a question comparing Kidlington and Bickershaw. First, the scale of the fire risk at the Kidlington site sets the case apart from other illegal waste dumps in England and provides an overriding public imperative. We are clear that it is not the Environment Agency’s normal responsibility to clear illegal waste sites, and it is not funded to do so. It has the power to clear waste only in exceptional circumstances such as these, if there is a significant risk to the environment. On Bickershaw in Wigan, the illegal dumping there is absolutely disgraceful. I know how strongly the local community rightly feels about it. My colleague in the other place, Josh Simons MP, has been complaining and campaigning long and hard on this, and I pay tribute to his work with the local community on it. The Environment Agency is working with Wigan Council and the UK Health Security Agency to help the local partnership consider the implications of the council’s waste initial sampling results and to advise on potential permitted disposal sites. The current risk of fire is assessed as low, but the Environment Agency is reassessing any pollution risk posed by the illegal waste in the light of an updated fire risk assessment to determine whether, in principle, the level of risk meets the threshold for the use of its discretionary powers, such as those it has already used in Kidlington. In short, without going into too much detail on this site, important though it is, I want to reassure your Lordships’ Committee that if the Environment Agency considers that a risk of pollution exists, it may use its powers to arrange actions to remove or reduce that risk. Additionally, partner agencies through the local resilience forum will need to consider the risk to surrounding infrastructure. We want to ensure that the Environment Agency is making the best use of its extensive powers to prevent waste crime. As I said, the Environment Agency has no duty to clear illegally dumped waste, and it is not funded to do so. In response to the other question that was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, this is the case for both public and private land. The landlord is responsible for keeping their land secure and free of waste that should not be there, rather than letting dumped waste persist and grow into larger sites, which could in turn attract further dumping. It might be considered as equivalent to the broken windows paradigm that one sees in community policing. However, while we must uphold the polluter pays principle and avoid creating perverse incentives for waste criminals, the Environment Agency will decide to clear illegally dumped waste where that waste presents an untenable risk to the public and the environment, as it has done in the case of Kidlington. We also encourage local authorities to investigate all incidents of fly-tipping, including those on private land, and make good use of those enforcement powers. Furthermore, Defra regularly assesses the Environment Agency’s performance in discussion with the Environment Agency’s chair and chief executive. The aim is to establish a clear line of sight for Ministers through to front-line delivery, transparent performance data and honest conversations about progress and barriers to delivery. The Environment Agency reports its performance every quarter through its published corporate scorecard. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked some questions on statistics. I contend that waste crime is estimated to cost the UK £1 billion a year, with an estimated 20% of waste, 34 million tonnes per year, handled illegally at some point through the supply chain. There are more than 500 active illegal waste sites known to the Environment Agency, and it is monitoring the 33 highest risk illegal waste sites according to specific risk criteria. However, waste crime, as alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is deliberately hidden and therefore inherently difficult to measure, including the total costs to the environment, local communities and individuals. We know that the Environment Agency’s current corporate scorecard measure on illegal waste sites does not reflect the true nature or scale of waste crime and likely provides only a narrow view. So, we are working with the Environment Agency to develop better indicators and metrics. In addition to helping the Environment Agency to improve assessment capabilities, Defra has already taken steps to ensure that it is equipped to carry out its functions effectively. Its total budget for 2025-26 has increased and includes £15.6 million for waste crime enforcement, a more than 50% rise from 2024-25, representing a £5.6 million increase. That demonstrates the Government’s commitment to tackling environmental waste crime. This has enabled the agency to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and other environmental crime teams by 43 full-time staff, helping to deliver successful major criminal investigations and to enforce new duties introduced this year, including the new packaging extended producer responsibility requirements. Since 2020, the JUWC has worked with over 130 partner organisations and led or attended over 300 multi-agency days of action, resulting in over 170 associated arrests. So, it is fair to argue that a multi-agency approach is being taken and led by the JUWC and the EA. Indeed, in the last year, 2024-25, the Joint Unit for Waste Crime organised 70 days of action, 13 arrests were made by partners as a result of those days of action and 47 disruptions were delivered. That is some more detail about the activity that the JUWC has been undertaking. Alongside that work, the agency is looking at technology-based opportunities to track and measure waste crime, such as combining satellite imaging and machine learning to provide early-warning mechanisms. Indeed, to answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, drones are used by the agency when investigating and gathering evidence. This capability will improve the agency’s insights and business intelligence, which will inform its overall strategic approach and how it prioritises its resources. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, asked why there were so few prosecutions from the JUWC’s work. I should say that prosecutions take time to work through the legal and court system but numbers are in line with other law enforcement agencies when compared to the number of interventions. Prosecutions are, of course, only one part of the picture: prevention and disruption work are at least as important. We are building on these developments to make further policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by criminals: fundamentally reforming the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime; tightening waste permit exemptions; and introducing digital waste tracking, to answer the specific question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. She also asked about a single contact point for reporting waste crime. The GOV.UK site has a page entitled “Reporting fly tipping or illegal waste dumping”, which directs people either to the relevant local authority, via a postcode search, or indeed to Crimestoppers, which has a hotline, depending on the scale of what is being reported. Waste criminals often work within the legitimate system, and most waste at the largest illegal sites today was originally consigned legally. The new digital waste-tracking system and reforms to waste-permitting exemptions and the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime will mean that criminals will have to work a lot harder to source the waste to dump in the first place. It will make it much harder for criminal businesses to undercut legitimate ones. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, talked about applying online. It is a good way to use some spare time during a debate on a Thursday afternoon, but it will be much harder to undertake a similar activity under this new system. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, referred to the case that was reported of the 80 year-old farmer. That is a very distressing case, where the cost of clearance was beyond the farmer. To help individual landowners blighted by waste crime, the Government will speak with insurers to determine the necessary market conditions for a viable waste crime insurance market to form as quickly as possible, which seems a fair approach to helping landowners. I am tight on time but I will try to address a couple more questions from noble Lords. We talked already about reform of the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime, but I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. On Hoad’s Wood in Kent, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, but there is certainly work happening there. To finish, the Government have committed to tackling waste crime, not only to prevent environmental harm but to ensure resources are being properly recycled or recovered and fed back into the economy. We are not resting on our laurels. We are working at pace to develop further reforms and make sure that we tackle this problem. With that, I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate and the noble Baroness and her committee for its work, and I take the opportunity to wish everyone a very happy February Recess.