{"id":849,"date":"2026-03-25T08:48:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T09:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/?p=849"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:02:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:02:54","slug":"environment-agency-lacks-powers-to-tackle-waste-crime-mps-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/environment-agency-lacks-powers-to-tackle-waste-crime-mps-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Environment Agency lacks powers to tackle waste crime, MPs say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/div>\n

\"Environment<\/h4>\n

The Environment Agency is \u2018spread too thin\u2019 and lacks powers to tackle waste crime, an influential group of MPs has said.<\/h4>\n

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned that the Environment Agency is not set up to effectively deal with illegal waste dumping, blaming gaps in its powers and intelligence gathering.<\/p>\n

The Committee also criticised the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) for a lack of strategic direction that, it said, limits the regulators\u2019 ability to plan or target resources effectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The PAC also said the Environment Agency was restricted to the \u2018lengthy and expensive route\u2019 of criminal prosecutions without the option of enforcing civil powers against illegal waste sites.<\/p>\n

The report produced by PAC comes the week after Defra published its waste crime action plan that promised an additional \u00a345 million to the Environment Agency for waste crime enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The funding will be spread over three years and is on top of a\u00a0previously announced \u00a35.6 million increase<\/a> to the Environment Agency\u2019s enforcement budget.<\/p>\n

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said regulators are \u2018drowning in recommendations from multiple reviews\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur report finds that the current position is that regulators are not sufficiently resourced to follow this multiplicity of recommendations, while still carrying out their responsibilities towards the environment,\u201d Clifton-Brown said.<\/p>\n

As a solution, the PAC said that Defra should explore merging the regulatory responsibilities of Natural England and the Environment Agency.<\/p>\n

Clifton-Brown continued: \u201cWhilst they do have slightly different roles in regulating the environment, some of their larger functions, such as monitoring the planning system and taking enforcement action, significantly overlap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA single culture would be able to more coherently face outwards towards sectors that need to engage.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of its waste crime action plan, Defra announced a suite of new measures, including new \u2018police-style\u2019 powers for enforcement officers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the PAC\u2019s report said that the new measures were not well-coordinated, and questioned whether the Environment Agency has the \u2018resources and skills\u2019 to manage the upcoming changes.<\/p>\n

A separate inquiry by the House of Lords said it was difficult to conclude that \u2018incompetence\u2019 at the Environment Agency<\/a> has not been a factor in failures to prevent and effectively prosecute waste crime.<\/p>\n

The Lords were also critical of the police, saying they were \u2018unimpressed\u2019 with the lack of interest they showed in tackling waste crime.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Environment Agency lacks powers to tackle waste crime, MPs say<\/a> appeared first on Circular Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The Environment Agency is \u2018spread too thin\u2019 and lacks powers to tackle waste crime, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}