Minister Hardy answers an Urgent Question on waste crime.
The British countryside is one of our nation's greatest treasures.
From rolling hills to tranquil woodlands, it is beautiful and essential for both our wellbeing and health.
That's why it is absolutely deplorable when waste criminals scar the landscape with complete disregard - damaging precious ecosystems and undermining our communities.
This Government is committed to tackling waste crime, which is a blight on local communities and the environment and damages legitimate businesses.
The Environment Agency has a wide range of powers which it uses in its enforcement work against organised crime in waste and other environmental areas. It has strong powers of entry and evidence gathering, it is able to authorise mobile communications data and it has authority to use covert human intelligence sources. It is one of only three non-police agencies to have access to police databases.
The Joint Unit for Waste Crime, hosted by the Environment Agency, brings together the Environment Agency, HMRC, National Crime Agency, the police, waste regulators from across the UK and other operational partners to share intelligence and tasking to disrupt and prevent serious organised waste crime.
The Environment Agency's Economic Crime Unit targets the financial motivation behind offending and uses financial mechanisms to inhibit the ability of offenders, including Organised Crime Groups, to operate.
This Government has also increased the Environment Agency's funding, including the amount available to tackle illegal waste operators, after years of frozen budgets and real terms cuts. We have raised the budget for waste crime enforcement by 50% this year to £15.6 million.
But this Government plans to go further still - to tighten the net on waste criminals with policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by them. We are fundamentally reforming the waste carriers, brokers and dealers' system, tightening waste permit exemptions and introducing digital waste tracking.
And we're determined to clean up Britain and end the throwaway society.
