Lizzi Collinge

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for bringing forward this important debate. Fly-tipping is not only damaging to our environment—it makes our communities worse places to live. No one wants to walk past those huge piles of rubbish. I represent Morecambe and Lunesdale, which hosts some of the most beautiful spots in the country. I have a national landscape, a national park, the beautiful Lune valley and of course Heysham and Morecambe, which look out across the beautiful Morecambe bay. Morecambe’s town motto is “Beauty surrounds, health abounds” and I would like to preserve that beauty for my constituents. Rural constituents contact me about this issue, but as the debate is focused on residential areas, I will limit myself to talking about problems raised with me in towns like Morecambe, Heysham and Carnforth. I put on the record my thanks to the local Wombles groups and the litter-pickers, who go out every week in all conditions to help tidy up our community. Residents in Morecambe regularly tell me about their frustration at rubbish left in alleyways and ginnels. They worry about letting their kids go out to play because of broken glass. They are worried about rats—not to mention the expense. Millions of pounds are spent in England every year just to clean up waste. I asked my constituents what more could be done to tackle fly-tipping and an overwhelming number of people cited the cost of properly disposing of rubbish as a driver for fly-tipping. Private waste companies and council removal services are expensive and people without a car just do not have any other option, so if money is tight, there is a strong temptation to do the wrong thing and avoid disposal fees. Although I might get very grumpy at the outcome, we have to take an approach of what works and what might prevent the problem. Suggestions from my constituents included regular neighbourhood skip days, where people could use council skips, three bulky item pick-ups per year, keeping the restrictions on van trips to the tip but removing the need to book so that people can go on spec, community waste points and incentive schemes. I am really interested in the Minister’s comments on prevention. Prevention will not fix the problem entirely; we need enforcement. I am really pleased to see the Government publish the waste crime action plan, which takes a zero-tolerance approach. The Environment Agency receiving an extra £45 million over the next three years is important to boost enforcement. I really like that fly-tippers will face being ordered to clean up their mess and will be required to repay the cost of their illegally dumped waste. That is really important. They could also face penalty points on their licences and, if they are a serious repeat offender, even lose their licences. Constituents talk to me about cameras. I know that some councils have been using drones as well, and we have to look at all the ways that we can tackle this issue. Lancaster city council covers the Lancashire part of my constituency, and it found that across the whole of their district, fly-tipping is prevalent in five wards. Those are the five most deprived wards, so people who already face a lot of challenges also have to deal with their neighbourhood looking like crap. It is just not fair. What surprised me was that the city council said that some people told them that they did not know that fly-tipping was illegal—they did not know that it was a criminal offence. I am slightly suspicious of that. To close, the waste crime action plan allows for tougher enforcement, which is very welcome, and for more resources for that. We also have to make sure it is easier for people to do the right thing in the first place, encourage a sense of pride in people’s local communities and ensure that people take personal responsibility for their actions.