The head of the Environment Agency (EA) has told a House of Lords committee hearing that the system for tackling waste crime is not working.
Philip Duffy, the chief executive of the EA, told the Lords’ environment committee that the justice system does not deter waste crime.
“[In terms of] the severity of the penalties, the likelihood of being apprehended, and the speed it takes to go through the criminal justice system – it’s too slow, it’s too weak, and it’s too uncertain,” he said.
Mr Duffy said increases in landfill tax rates, and the cost of recycling, are causes for concern in tackling waste crime.
There is also evidence of major organised crime gangs “penetrating the UK waste sector”, he said, and pointed to criminality within legitimate waste companies as a reason for the thousands of tonnes of rubbish seen at sites like Bickershaw in Wigan, and Kidlington in Oxfordshire.
“Somebody, somewhere in that system, possibly holding a permit from the Environment Agency, gave [the criminals] that waste, either they knew [the criminals] were going to dispose of it on a field, in which case, in my view, they are guilty of the same level of criminality as those who dumped it,” Mr Duffy said.
The EA chief also accused some landfill sites of tax evasion by misdeclaring the category of waste to avoid higher levels of landfill tax – labelling it the “biggest form of criminality in waste”.
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“This systematically undermines the business model of legitimate and well-run waste companies,” he said.
Mr Duffy also said the illegal waste site in Kidlington was the result of a “very long, prepared criminal operation”.
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Residents believe the dumping at Kidlington started around July last year. Mr Duffy said “the gang involved clearly had thought about planning it back to January of that year”, and that thousands of tonnes of illegal waste had been dumped within a week.
Last week, Sky News reported how the government is looking to hand EA officers police-style powers, including arrests without warrants, searching premises and seizing assets.
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The EA also unveiled a 10-point plan to tackle waste crime, including speeding up response times when alerted to dumping and more co-ordinated intelligence gathering.
The government also announced it will fund the clear-up of three large illegal waste sites in Wigan, Sheffield and Lancashire following Sky News reporting about a north-south divide in funding.
