Landfill tax rises boosting fly-tipping, says spending watchdog

theguardian.com:

Organised criminals have accidentally been given incentives by the government to fly-tip, a damning report by the National Audit Office has found.

Fly-tipping has increased year-on-year in England since 2012-13 and reached 1.13 million recorded incidents in 2020-21 – at a cost of £11.6m to clear large-scale incidents.

The NAO said the large rise in the rate of landfill tax has increased the amount of money criminals can make from waste crime. The amount of waste sent to landfill dropped by 75% between 2010-11 and 2020-21.

At the same time, there has been an increase in the money criminals can make by avoiding landfill tax through the misdescription of waste, illegal waste sites, and some types of fly-tipping. HM Revenue and Customs estimates that in 2019-20, £200m of landfill tax was not paid through non-compliance.

They also found that over the years, organised crime groups have become more involved in waste crime as it has become more lucrative.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “The evidence available shows that waste crime is increasing, and organised criminals are becoming more involved.

“Government needs to target resources effectively and understand what progress it is making towards its aim of eliminating waste crime by 2043. To do so, it will need a robust set of performance measures to identify when actions are off-track.”

The government has blamed the pandemic for slow progress on tackling fly-tipping, arguing that Defra resources had to be diverted elsewhere.

The Liberal Democrats accused the government of “legalising littering”. In the year 2020-21, incidents rose by 16% on the previous year but the number of fixed-penalty notices issued fell by 24%, and the number of prosecutions dropped by more than 50%.

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