The government’s attitude to waste crime is “close to decriminalisation” as fines are so low, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee (Pac) has said.
Organised criminals view the relatively tiny fines as a business expense, MPs have warned, as illegal waste dumping becomes a lucrative income stream for gangs.
Estimates put the cost of the crime at about £1bn a year for England, though that is probably an underestimate. A new Pac report, to be presented to parliament on Thursday, found that such crimes are on the rise as little is done to tackle them.
The report is highly critical of Defra and the Environment Agency, which it says are making only “slow and piecemeal” progress in implementing the 2018 resources and waste strategy aimed at eliminating waste crime. It points out there is still no plan for achieving its target of eliminating waste crime by 2043. The report states that four years into that 25-year target, measures central to achieving the aim such as digital tracking of waste are “not even at the pilot stage”.
According to the committee, “waste crime is not getting the local or national attention needed to effectively tackle it, despite it being on the rise and increasingly dominated by organised criminal gangs”, and the cost of living crisis is potentially increasing the “incentives for people to get rid of waste inappropriately”.
The report said fines were insufficient and only jail sentences deterred waste criminals. It recommended that Defra and the Environment Agency use technology including satellites and drones to track down fly tippers. It also said that the landfill tax, implemented to increase recycling, has increased incentives to fly-tip.
The report found that HMRC had not yet achieved a single successful prosecution for landfill tax evasion. The one investigation where it did try to prosecute the alleged offenders cost £3.5m but did not go to court because evidential requirements were not met.
Pac chair, Meg Hillier, said: “Another day, another policy headline with no plan or demonstrable progress towards achieving it, despite years of resources put in. The result is property and countryside blighted by fly-tipping, toxic leaks into our soil, and tonnes of waste illegally exported by the UK to developing countries even less able to cope with its indefinite negative effects.
“With growing involvement of criminal gangs, adept at evading detection and who regard the fines if they are caught as merely a business expense, a much more serious approach to enforcement is required. Currently the department’s approach to large parts of waste crime is closer to decriminalisation. Targets become meaningless – rubbish, you might say – when there isn’t even a strategy for achieving them, much less any indication or measurement of progress. Sadly, all the signs four years into a 25-year target period are that the problem is getting worse.”
Environment minister Trudy Harrison said: “We are cracking down on waste crime, which costs the economy in England around £924m per year. That is why we are reforming the licensing system, introducing mandatory digital waste tracking, investing to tackle fly tipping, and supporting people to do the right thing by disposing of their waste correctly.”
