Organised criminals in waste management taking advantage of Environment Agency weaknesses, MPs warn

The Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden used Parliamentary privilege during a Westminster Hall debate to allege that a firm called City Plant within his constituency was "up to its old tricks" after a past prosecution resulted in a "slap on the wrist".

Parliamentary privilege protects MPs from legal action when speaking in Parliament.

He also highlighted that the majority shareholder of a company called Niramax is now serving a prison sentence for murder while a previous part-owner of the same firm is in jail for drug trafficking offences.

Mr Davis said: "In my constituency, over 10 years ago, a company called City Plant took over an existing site. It broke the rules time and time again throughout the first five years, and eventually ended up in the court. It got a slap on the wrist, and broke the rules time and time again thereafter.

"It still seems that City Plant is up to its old tricks. Residents today report a mix of materials being brought on to the site, which is not what has been agreed and is a repeat of other examples. They report noxious odours across the entire area and the destruction of their enjoyment of life, because of the pursuit of illegal profits."

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Earlier in the debate, North Durham MP Kevan Jones said he and Mr Davis had been trying to expose the problems within the industry for 10 years.

"Everyone knows what is going on. They know about the lack of regulation, the low threshold for getting into the industry and the involvement of organised crime," he said.

Mr Jones highlighted the case of Niramax as one he and Mr Davis were concerned by.

"I only had to look at the directors of the company to see something was wrong. Organised criminals - one of them is in prison for murder, and the police told me that his associates had convictions and were involved in a whole host of organised crime - suddenly got involved in waste management.

"They bought a landfill site in the constituency of the Right Honourable member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and one or two in the north-east. They then set out to undercut legitimate businesses. Talking to people in the waste industry, there is no way they could pick up that waste for the amounts they charged."

He added: "It ended up with Operation Nosedive, which HMRC instigated in 2014. HMRC raided the premises and claimed £78 million was to be reclaimed. That was suddenly halted in 2020. The Right Honourable Member for Haltemprice and Howden and I asked why it had been halted and we were told, 'No, no. You can’t look into this because it is HMRC.' The National Audit Office has done a very good investigation that showed HMRC spent six years and £3.5 million of public money, but there were no convictions and there was no outcome."

Mr Davis said: "The people benefitting from the weakness of the Environment Agency are not small-time crooks. They are hardened criminals at the heart of the criminal underworld. He [Mr Jones] mentioned Niramax, which we have already heard about. The majority shareholder he referred to, Neil Elliott, is serving 15 years for murder. An associate, Shaun Morfitt, previously a part-owner of Niramax, is currently serving 18 years for drug trafficking offences and, prior to that, served over six years for a vicious machete attack. These are the sort of people we are dealing with.

"Tax evasion in this industry is enormously costly. The Right Honourable Member gave the figure of £78 million, but I think the expected bill went up to £158 million. Some 14 individuals were arrested, yet the outcome was nothing but a few thousand pounds paid over. We need to know why this has happened, and why the state has no teeth in the protection of the lives of ordinary people and the collection of proper taxes from these criminals in these unpleasant industries."

The debate was led by Newcastle-under-Lyme MP Aaron Bell who made new allegations about the Walleys Quarry site in his constituency. He said it was alleged that hazardous waste, "including arsenic, rat poison and zinc" was being dumped at the landfill site.

Mr Bell said attempts by the Guardian to publish a story on the issue had been prevented by legal threats.

He said: "The current nature and scale of waste crime in this country is beyond the capacity of the Environment Agency as a regulator. The regulatory regime is no longer fit for purpose for two main reasons: the changing nature of the crimes being committed and the failure of the Environment Agency to keep pace and act with sufficient robustness and force against them. It has sadly become a regulator that is no longer feared, but is mocked, with criminals able to carry out offences under its nose."

Environment Minister Jo Churchill agreed that "firmer action" is required on the issue of waste crime.

She said: "This issue has been described as being akin to the narcotics industry. It is that insidious. It blights people’s lives and, as we have heard, raises considerable sums of money illegally in so doing. I therefore agree with everybody that we need firmer action, and I will continue to ensure that we look at that."

She added: "We have already taken action to introduce new powers to stop illegal waste sites posing a risk, which include the ability to lock up sites and force rogue operators to clean up their waste. More widely, we have given the EA an extra £60 million to tackle waste crime since 2014, on top of the wider grant-in-aid funding that it receives from Defra.

"We have also set up the joint unit for waste crime to disrupt serious and organised waste crime and reduce its impact. The unit involves the National Crime Agency, HMRC, the EA and the police. We set it up about six months ago, and there were more than 30 arrests in the first 24 days, so action is being taken."

But Mr Jones said that he and Mr Davis were "sick of talking to Governments that have, over the past 10 years, trotted out the same nonsense every time".

Ms Churchill said the Government is consulting on building a "more powerful" regulatory framework.

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