‘Polluters must pay’ says Environment Secretary, as unlimited penalties unveiled

• Cap on civil monetary penalties that can be handed out by environmental regulators to be removed
• New laws will mean civil monetary penalties can be levied for a wider range of offences
• Tougher sanctions will crack down on polluters and protect our environment

Those that pollute the environment will face unlimited penalties under new legislation announced today by the government (Wednesday 12 July).

The current limit of £250,000 on variable monetary penalties that the Environment Agency and Natural England can impose directly on operators will be lifted, following a government consultation which received widespread public support.

This will offer regulators a quicker method of enforcement than lengthy and costly criminal prosecutions – although the most serious cases will continue to be taken through criminal proceedings.

New powers will also enable these higher penalties to be levied as a civil sanction for offences under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, the regime under which the majority of Environment Agency investigations take place. This will ensure regulators have the right tools to drive compliance across a range of sectors, strengthening enforcement and holding all who hold environmental permits – from energy and water companies to waste operators and incinerators – to greater account.

Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said:

“Polluters must always pay. We are scrapping the cap on civil penalties and significantly broadening their scope to target a much wider range of offences – from breaches of storm overflow permits to the reckless disposal of hazardous waste.

“It builds on action being taken right across government to stand up for our environment – tackling pollution, protecting delicate ecosystems and enhancing nature.”

Minister for Environmental Quality and Resilience Rebecca Pow said: 

“By lifting the cap on these sanctions, we are simultaneously toughening our enforcement tools and expanding where regulators can use them. This will deliver a proportionate punishment for operators that breach their permits and harm our rivers, seas and precious habitats.

“This was one of the measures set out in our Plan for Water earlier this year. I am proud to say this government has acted swiftly so that this will now be enshrined in law, further strengthening the power of regulators to hold polluters to account.”

Environment Agency Chair Alan Lovell said:

“We regularly prosecute companies and individuals through criminal proceedings, but these new powers will allow us to deliver penalties that are quicker and easier to enforce, even though the most serious cases will continue to go to court. 

“That should be an important deterrent – boosting compliance across a range of sectors, driving down pollution and safeguarding the ecology and prosperity of our natural world.”

There are clear provisions in the Sentencing Council guidelines that will ensure the level of penalties levied are proportionate to the degree of environmental harm and culpability. These include safeguards to ensure the operator’s ability to pay, the size of the operator, and the degree of responsibility and harm, amongst others – all of which are taken into account when imposing a penalty.

The amendments to legislation will be approved by both Houses of Parliament in due course before coming into force.

As set out in the government’s Plan for Water, future environmental fines and penalties from water companies will be re-invested into the government’s new Water Restoration Fund. This fund will deliver on-the-ground improvements to water quality, and support local groups and community-led schemes which help to protect our waterways. River catchment groups – bringing together local NGOs, councils, government agencies and farmers and working together in catchments across the country – will benefit from this funding.

ENDS

Notes for editors

• A variable monetary penalty is a type of civil sanction that the Environment Agency and Natural England may impose for certain environmental offences, when it is proportionate to the nature of the offence and the harm caused.
• Variable monetary penalties provide an alternative to criminal prosecutions, which can be a lengthy and expensive process and are reserved for the most serious offences. The most serious pollution incidents will continue to be dealt with through the courts.
• There were 105 responses (70% individuals and 30% organisations) to the government’s consultation on increasing the cap on variable monetary penalties and broadening their use. A wide range of organisations that are regulated by the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 were represented.
• Offences under the Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2016 include the breaching of permit conditions such as those that exist for discharge limits from storm overflows.  
• Sectors covered under these changes include: waste, energy generation, nuclear, as well as process industry activities such as: chemicals, food and drink, intensive agriculture, landfill, and oil and gas.

As set out in the government’s Plan for Water, we are driving action to strengthen regulation and drive improvements across the water sector, including:

More investment

• £2.2 billion of accelerated investment by water companies, to spend on new infrastructure to tackle pollution and increase our water resilience – including £1.7 billion on storm overflow improvements to cut discharges by 10,000 per year
• Creating a new Water Restoration Fund, using money from water company fines and penalties to support local environmental projects
• Delivering long-term catchment action plans – community-led schemes which aim to improve waterways and surrounding eco-systems – to improve water bodies in England
• More than doubling the money for slurry infrastructure by increasing funding to £34 million for farmers to improve slurry storage, reducing a major source of water pollution
• Supporting farmers to store more water on their land through the £10 million Water Management Grant to fund more on-farm reservoirs and better irrigation equipment

Stronger regulation

• Consulting on banning the sale of plastic wet wipes
• Enabling key water supply infrastructure – such as reservoirs and water transfer schemes – to be built more quickly
• Bringing forward the deadline for water companies to reduce chemicals in wastewater treatment to 2027
• Consulting on extending environmental permits to cover dairy and intensive beef farms, and to improve how this is done for pig and poultry farms, in order to better manage sources of pollution

Tougher enforcement

• Enabling Ofwat to link dividends to company performance, and tightening up measures on water bosses’ bonuses
• Ofwat have also announced measures to penalise companies who fail to properly monitor storm overflows and determined that in the financial year 2023-34, the water sector must return £132m to customers as a result of underperformance