Lord Katz (Lab)

My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, explained, the purpose of these amendments is to take forward some of the recommendations of your Lordships’ House’s Environment and Climate Change Committee to tackle serious and organised crime in the waste sector. At this point, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the work of her committee, not just in their detailed examination of the issue but in the whole way their report has raised the profile of this important issue. I am glad we have had an opportunity to discuss waste crime in the round. As we have noted, and I think we are all in accord across the Chamber, this is a serious issue. At the end of the debate on the previous group, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mooted that perhaps we need to rebrand fly-tipping to make people take it more seriously. From reflecting on this debate, nobody can be in any doubt, as the committee’s report demonstrated, that this is a serious business—and it is a business. It incurs huge costs in terms of the damage done. It is obviously a very profitable business to those who engage in it and I think we are all determined to tackle it. We argue that there are certainly provisions in the Bill, as well as other government actions, that will help to address this. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, waste crime costs the economy an estimated £1 billion annually. We are determined to tackle it, why is why we are preparing significant reforms to the waste carriers, brokers and dealers regime and to the waste permit exemptions regime. Bringing waste carriers, brokers and dealers into the environmental permitting regime will give the Environment Agency more powers and resources to ensure compliance and to hold operators to account. Changes will make it harder for rogue operators to find work in the sector and easier for regulators to take action against criminals. Our planned reforms will also introduce the possibility of up to five years’ imprisonment for those who breach these new laws. We are also introducing digital waste tracking to make it harder than ever to misidentify waste or dispose of it inappropriately. By digitising waste records, we will make it easier for legitimate businesses to comply with their duty of care for waste and reduce the opportunities for criminals to operate. Furthermore, better data will help us manage resources more sustainably, reduce waste and protect the environment for future generations. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, noted, the Government have also increased the Environment Agency’s funding, including the amount available to tackle illegal waste operators. This year, we have raised the budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% to £15.6 million. The Joint Unit for Waste Crime, which is hosted within the Environment Agency, has nearly doubled in size thanks to that extra funding. Overall, the EA has been able to increase its front-line criminal enforcement resource in the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and area environmental crime teams by 43 full-time equivalent employees. They will be targeted at activities identified as waste crime priorities, using enforcement activity data and criminal intelligence. That includes tackling organised crime groups, increasing enforcement activity, closing down illegal waste sites more quickly, using intelligence more effectively and delivering successful major criminal investigations. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, touched on the terrible incident at Kidlington, which we discussed in the previous group. All I can do is repeat what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. The Government are engaging with the Environment Agency on the case with the utmost seriousness. An investigation is underway, and an Environment Agency restriction order has been served to prevent access to the site and further tipping. I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra; it is bad now, but at least this way it cannot get any worse. The local resilience forum has been notified to explore opportunities for multi-agency support. Noble Lords may be aware that there was an Urgent Question in the other place this afternoon asked by the local MP Calum Miller; I believe that my honourable friend the Minister Mary Creagh offered to meet with Mr Miller to discuss this further. This is an issue that we are taking very seriously. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will appreciate, the Environment and Climate Change Committee wrote to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as recently as 28 October, to set out the conclusions of its inquiry into waste crime. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that it will necessarily take a little time to consider fully the Government’s response. Having read the letter that the committee sent this morning, I know that it is a complex letter that raises many points, and rightly so. Notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, offered from the annals of classic British comedy, we do not want to rush our response, and it certainly would ill behove me to shoot from the hip in my response when my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will respond to it. I assure the Committee that the Secretary of State is carefully considering the report and will respond in due course. Noble Lords will be aware of two facts, and I will put it no more strongly than this. First, the committee asked in its letter for a response by 9 December. Secondly, we are due to continue in Committee on this Bill until the end of January at the earliest—