Yesterday (25 February), after the Countryside Alliance highlighted the latest official statistics showing 1.26 million fly-tipping incidents in England in 2024–25, the House of Lords went on to debate a series of amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill aimed squarely at tackling waste crime. By the end of the evening, peers had inflicted government defeats and backed stronger measures to ensure fly-tippers, not victims, pay the price.
At the heart of the debate were Amendments 13, tabled by Lord Davies of Gower (Con), and 21, by Viscount Goschen (Con). Amendment 13 requires the Secretary of State’s guidance on fly-tipping enforcement to make clear that where a person is convicted of a fly-tipping offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the offender should be liable for costs incurred through loss or damage resulting from that offence. It also requires engagement between waste authorities and local police to ensure that landowners or communities on whose land waste is dumped are not left footing the bill.
More consequentially still, Amendment 21 places a duty on local waste authorities to collect fly-tipped waste and seek to recover costs from offenders. If implemented, this would be a seismic change that would permanently relieve private landowners of clean-up costs associated with fly-tipping and, as Viscount Hailsham (Con) pointed out, disincentivise councils from driving the activity by closing or restricting access to waste sites. It would also strongly incentivise effective investigation and prosecution.
In moving his amendment, Lord Davies described fly-tipping as a “serious and growing blight”, citing both national figures and stark rural examples, including a farmer facing a £40,000 clean-up bill after 200 tonnes of waste were dumped on his land. He argued that the current system creates a “significant disparity between the offences and the enforcement”, signalling that offenders are unlikely to face meaningful consequences.
Peers from across the House spoke powerfully in support. Viscounts Goschen and Hailsham argued that victims should not bear the financial burden of criminality. Lord Cromwell (CB), a farming director, described toxic waste entering watercourses and recounted a case in which perpetrators were effectively untouchable despite clear evidence. Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP) described two criminals convicted of dumping outside Londonderry who were jailed for 21 months and one year, but their business was reckoned to have benefitted to the tune of £33 million. Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe (CB) emphasised the need to shift culture so that fly-tipping is treated unequivocally as a criminal, not merely civil, wrong.
While the government, represented by Lord Hanson of Flint, pointed to the new guidance for councils that Defra issued yesterday and to existing cost recovery powers following conviction, it resisted these amendments. The Minister argued that existing cost recovery powers following conviction were sufficient and that shifting responsibility to councils would represent a “fundamental shift” from the long-established position that private landowners bear clean-up costs where waste is dumped on their land.
The House disagreed. Amendment 13 was pressed to a division and carried by 213 votes to 150: a clear government defeat. Despite opposing Amendment 21, the government did not seek to divide the House on it after its previous defeat, meaning it was agreed.
Also successful were Amendment 19, adding three penalty points to the driving licence of those convicted of fly-tipping, and Amendment 20, enabling vehicle seizure in connection with such offences. Government Amendments 25 and 26, relating to parliamentary scrutiny of guidance, were likewise accepted.
The debate underscored the scale of the problem and the disproportionate impact on rural communities. These votes will not, however, be ultimately decisive because the government can still seek to override them in the House of Commons and pressure the Lords to back down. The Countryside Alliance would argue strongly that the government should instead accept these amendments or, in the alternative, substitute amendments of its own that would achieve the same effect and ensure that victims are no longer treated as the responsible party.
Regardless of the result, the Lords’ decisions send a strong signal that Parliament expects tougher, more victim-focused enforcement. For farmers, landowners and rural residents who have too often been left to clear up after other people’s crime, this marks a significant step forward.