The Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee has said it is deeply disappointed by the government’s ‘complacent’ response to its waste-crime inquiry.
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds has now responded to the waste crime inquiry, which was heavily critical of the Environment Agency and police.
The inquiry’s key recommendation was for the government to hold an independent review of how waste crime is tackled.
However, Reynolds rejected calls for an independent review, writing she would prefer not to ‘divert significant resource’ from planned reforms, such as Digital Waste Tracking (DWT) and waste carriers, brokers and dealers (CBD) changes.
The Committee Chair, Baroness Sheehan, called the response ‘complacent’ and claimed it will ‘give succour’ to organised waste criminals.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson told Circular Online: “This government is bearing down on the cynical waste criminals who damage our environment, harm legitimate businesses and blight our communities.”
“We’re making waste gangs pay for their crimes by working with the Environment Agency to stop the exploitation of our waste system, giving them more officers and 50% more funding to boost waste crime enforcement, and handing out tougher sentences for those who break the law.”
The inquiry also found that the Environment Agency’s Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) ‘appears ineffective’. The JUWC is a multi-agency task force that was established five years ago to lead efforts to tackle serious and organised waste crime.
The Lords recommended that the JUWC improve collaboration between bodies with responsibility for waste crime at the local level, especially policing and local government.
In her response, Reynolds emphasised that the role of the JUWC is not to arrest and prosecute criminals but to facilitate collaboration between partners to tackle waste crime.
“I agree that increased collaboration at a local level can only be beneficial,” Reynolds wrote.
However, she said that attempting to establish stronger relationships at the national level with local authorities has generally ‘proved ineffective’ because of the challenge of finding ‘one or two representatives for over 300 local authorities’.
Reynolds concluded by saying that the JUWC does remain open to this kind of representation in the future.
Waste crime inquiry chair questions Environment Agency’s evidence
Last week, Baroness Sheehan wrote to the Environment Agency over concerns it did not reference significant illegal waste sites when giving evidence to the waste crime inquiry.
As part of the regulator’s evidence to the inquiry, it submitted the locations of several illegal waste sites in England. However, these did not include the high-profile 150m high waste dump in Kidlington, as well as illegal waste sites in Wigan and Wadborough.
The Environment Agency said it was asked to provide the number of illegal dumps the size of Hoads Wood or larger, and the sites covered in the media did not meet this criteria.
The regulator told the committee it was aware of six other illegal waste sites estimated to be as large as or larger than the Hoads Wood dump.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “These claims are inaccurate. We have engaged with Baroness Sheehan’s inquiry in good faith and have responded comprehensively to the questions posed to us.”