, Chair of the House of
Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee has written to Emma Reynolds MP,
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs today
(Monday 15 December).
The letter can be viewed and downloaded at:
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/50764/documents/278077/default/
, Chair of the House of
Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee said:
“I have written to Emma Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs today (Monday 15 December),
to express the Committee's deep disappointment in her recent
letter of response to our inquiry on waste crime.
It is apparent from both our inquiry and the subsequent reports
of large-scale illegal fly-tipping in different parts of the
country that whatever actions the Government is taking, they are
not sufficient to deal with the problem.
I have therefore invited the Secretary of State to give evidence
to the Committee at the earliest opportunity to explain, in
person, the Government's plans to reduce the scourge of waste
crime which is inflicting misery on impacted communities
across the country and damaging precious environments.”
Notes to editors
- Opened in July 2025, the Committee's short inquiry considered
waste crime, with a focus on serious and organised waste crime
such as illegal waste sites and illegal dumping that pose a
serious environmental risk. It sought to understand the avenues
for and prevalent forms of waste crime and their impacts. It also
aimed to assess the efficacy of current regulatory, monitoring
and enforcement regimes and consider the Government's plans to
address the problem.
- The Committee sent a letter to Emma Reynolds
MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs, on Tuesday 28 October outlining the findings and
recommendations from the inquiry.
- The Committee called on the Government to get tough on
serious and organised waste crime by setting up a root and branch
review after highlighting multiple failures by the Environment
Agency, the ineffectiveness of its Joint Unit for Waste Crime and
a lack of interest shown by the police in tackling what has been
described as “the new narcotics”.
- In addition to the waste crime site in Hoads Wood Kent, the
Environment Agency told the committee that they were aware of six
other sites of similar size:
Lancashire – Burnley x 2
Cheshire – Northwich
Kent – Sittingbourne
Cornwall – Camborne
Norfolk - Fakenham
Since then, other sites have been reported in the media in
Oxfordshire (Kidlington), Wigan and Worcestershire
(Wadborough).
-
wrote to the Environment
Agency's (EA) Alan Lovell (Chair) and Philip Duffy
(Chief Executive) on Friday 5 December over the committee's
concerns about the increasing number of highly environmentally
damaging waste crime sites being discovered since the
Committee's inquiry.
- On Wednesday 10 December, the Committee published the letter it
received from Emma Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to its
letter outlining the findings and recommendations from the
Committee's inquiry into illegal waste crime (sent on Tuesday
28 October).