Waste Management Sites
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 15 Jul 2026 · 33 speeches · Official Report
[Dr Andrew Murrison in the Chair ]
I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of waste management sites on local communities. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. For nearly three years, the people of Fleetwood have been forced to live with an intolerable smell from the Jameson Road landfill site. They have complained, protested and reported the effects on their health to the council, the Environment Agency, the Government and to me, their Member of Parliament. Over the past two and a half years, the Environment Agency has taken increasingly severe action against the operator of the site. Each time, the operator has breached its permit and acted unlawfully in the process, and still the smell remains. At times recently, it has been worse than ever. In March of this year alone, more than 4,000 complaints were made. The central point that I wish to make is that this is proof of a broken regulatory system. Residents can make thousands of complaints, and people and businesses can be forced to leave an area because of an operator acting unlawfully, and still they are left breathing the same foul air. If our system cannot prevent that from happening, it is broken. If the regulatory system’s purpose is to record suffering, issue notices and hold meetings, but not to prevent suffering for the local community, its purpose and objectives are the wrong way around. In Fleetwood, it is as simple as this: a private company is making money from stinking out the entire town and damaging...
As my hon. Friend knows-we have discussed this many times-we in Newcastle-under-Lyme know all about the impact that the idea of profit over people can have on the health and wellbeing of communities such as hers and mine, and about the consequences of landfill sites. She is right to say that this is a case of the state going missing in action. I look forward to working with her to ensure that we get the policies needed to keep our communities safe, our air clean and our people living in the situations we want them to live in.
I agree. I hope that we will get that done-or start the battle to do so-today. Absurdly, none of the waste is even from Fleetwood. It seems that waste can be transported from across the country to any landfill site that is happy to take it-a form of waste tourism. The waste comes from outside Lancashire, harming people and the environment in the process. Of course, working-class northern communities such as mine are allowed to be collateral damage. This is not just about Fleetwood; communities across the country have found themselves trapped in the same nightmare that we have experienced.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She may be aware that we have had a plastics recycling facility in my constituency for several years. Only when it opened did we suffer an awful fly infestation across the town, as well as a horrendous odour. It is on a normal industrial estate, but it is immediately next to a residential area. Surely the Environment Agency should have had some sort of involvement in the decision to allow it to open.
My hon. Friend is correct, and I agree with him. I will address that point in my remarks. Communities across the country have found themselves trapped in the same nightmare that we have experienced: living beside waste sites, making complaint after complaint and discovering that the system is better at documenting their suffering than ending it. People have reported headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, vomiting and breathing difficulties, with some requiring hospital treatment. The prolonged stress is also harming my residents’ mental health. Children do not want to play outside, parents have had to keep the windows shut-even during the recent hot weather-and businesses are losing customers. Some residents are considering leaving the town they have lived in all their lives, while others have already left. I take this opportunity to raise the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), who, unfortunately, cannot join us today as she is attending a Select Committee. Her constituents have also had to keep their windows shut and stay indoors because of the awful smell coming from a landfill site. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) has constituents who can smell the landfill site in my constituency, as the odour blows across the Wyre estuary to Knott End and Preesall. Nobody should have to live like that, in Fleetwood or anywhere else. Let me share some of the experiences that residents have reported to me. One wrote to say that the landfill has...
The issue of enforcement is a serious one. An incinerator in south London has breached its air pollution limits almost 1,000 times in 18 months, but nothing has been done by the EA-no court proceedings, no licence suspension, nothing. A similar plant is planned for my constituency. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must act now to ensure that all operators-be they water companies or waste management companies-are held to account when they break the rules? How am I meant to assure my constituents that they will be safe from health risks?
I agree. The problems began following the transfer of ownership from SUEZ to Transwaste Recycling and Aggregates, and the resumption of tipping in January 2024. SUEZ proved that sites like Jameson Road can be operated properly without a detrimental impact on the local community, but across the country more operators are cutting corners and operating outside of the law. Meanwhile, our enforcement framework has not kept up. It is designed around the assumption that operators will do the right thing, often with local authorities in mind. As we have learned in Fleetwood, we cannot afford to make that assumption any longer. The nature of waste management has changed. Small waste management firms are now operating sites that were previously considered economically unviable. As the Jameson Road debacle suggests, to make such sites profitable, companies are now operating them poorly, breaching the terms to their permits and ignoring planning conditions. Local people are left to bear the brunt of their corner cutting. The issuing and transferring of environmental permits needs to be more robust. Perhaps a new environmental permit should be issued with each change of ownership. If an economically unviable site has been closed, any prospective operator should surely be asked how they will overcome the financial issues. The way in which operators plan to make a site profitable without cutting corners should be scrutinised, and permits should not be carried over if operators cannot...
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this timely and important debate, and for her tireless work on these matters over such a long time. Fourteen years of austerity have meant cuts to important resources in our public services, including the Environment Agency, and those services do not have the funding or resources to undertake the work that is so essential right here, right now. Does she agree?
I agree. I thank the Environment Agency, which has worked tirelessly despite massive staff shortages and everything else. It has worked with me and my community to resolve this problem. The passing on of responsibility while communities suffer cannot continue. The regulators point to the limits of their powers; the operators point to the weather; Departments point to the regulators. Meanwhile, residents are told to make another complaint and keep filling in their diary sheets. That is how faith in Government is destroyed, especially when that pattern is so recognisable in other aspects of the way the country is run. A private company is making money from stinking out an entire town, damaging people’s health and livelihoods, and the British state has so far been incapable of stopping it. I have dedicated much of my time as an MP to working out why. The children of Flakefleet primary school understand the injustice. A year ago, they wrote to the Prime Minister and handed a petition into 10 Downing Street. The smell from Jameson Road dominates their life at school, and those pupils believe that when something is clearly wrong, those in power will listen and act. That is why I invited this Prime Minister to come to Fleetwood, and I will be inviting the next one to do so as well. My constituents are tired. They feel ignored and forgotten. Many believe this situation would never have been allowed to continue for so long in a wealthy commuter town in Surrey, and I agree with them....
I will be talking about a waste site in Surrey, where unfortunately we have some very similar issues. I hope the hon. Lady understands that this is a national issue, not one that is confined to certain locations of the United Kingdom.
I apologise for naming Surrey. The wider enforcement framework must change. Regulators need clear powers to suspend operators quickly, stronger tests of operators’ competence and the ability to consider the cumulative impact of sites on communities. Penalties must change behaviour, rather than become a cost of doing business. The financial consequences must fall on the polluters, and we must make sure that companies cannot take the profits while leaving residents and taxpayers to carry the costs when things go wrong. We need a system that learns from the crisis in Fleetwood rather than one that waits for the same crisis to unfold elsewhere. A Labour Government should not stand by while private operators profit from the suffering of working-class towns. We were elected to show that government can work and that the state can protect people and stand up to private interests when they cause harm. Jameson Road is a test of that promise. It is also a test of whether we are prepared to fix a national regulatory failure. Reforming the system would show communities across the country that they will not be abandoned when the same failures occur on their doorstep. The next community to face this problem should not have to start from the beginning-keeping diaries, gathering medical evidence and begging regulators to act, while the operators continue to profit. The British state must prove that it is not too broken to stop this. With that in mind, I have several questions for the...
Order. We are under time pressure, so I will place an indicative limit of four minutes on speeches.
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison, as I know that much of what I am going to say will be familiar to you. I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing this debate. Waste facilities provide an essential public service, but communities living alongside them must not be expected to bear the consequences of weak regulation or poor waste handling. Two problems are affecting residents in my constituency: the persistent landfill gas odour around Lower Compton, and the growing fire risk over the last few years caused by lithium-ion batteries entering the household waste system. The Environment Agency has received almost 4,000 odour reports over the last three months. As the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood mentioned, the system is not working. Residents have described an overpowering sulphurous smell entering their homes, disrupting their sleep and preventing them from opening their windows or using their gardens. Many have reported headaches, nausea, coughing and feeling unwell. When I visited the landfill site, I was left with a headache and felt unwell for several hours. Although that is only my experience, it gives me some understanding of what the residents have been repeatedly describing. I have pressed the Environment Agency and the operator for action, raised the issue at Prime Minister’s questions and written to the Environment Secretary. The sustained pressure has secured action for...
Order. Members will have to be brief. I am sure that Adam Jogee will be an exemplar.
You have never said that before, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing the debate. As I said in my intervention, I know she is committed to working on the same issues that I have spent much of my first few years in this House working on. In my first Westminster Hall speech as the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, I said I would not stop going on about Walleys Quarry landfill site until it is closed, capped and restored. It is now closed; capping is, broadly speaking, in operation; and soon, all being well, we will be able to get it restored so that local people in my community can use it. I am proud that after almost a year and a half since the closure notice was issued, we finally chased the cowboy operators of that landfill site out of our town and shut Walleys for good As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood described, and as the Minister knows, because I have told her many times, for far too long, my community was blighted by respiratory irritation, headaches, disrupted sleep, mental health strain and a constant foul odour in the air from high levels of hydrogen sulphide. We were blighted by pollution and constant worry. Children could not play outside, schools could not open their windows and, disgracefully, it reached the corridors of the Royal Stoke hospital. Furthermore, many older people were left housebound. My hon. Friend talked about putting people before...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this debate. I have several waste management sites in my constituency. At most of them, we just get the odd problem now and again, and we can deal with it by talking to them, but one causes particular problems. Grunty Fen sits in the heart of the countryside and is accessed from narrow fen roads. In normal operation, the residents of the nearest village, Witchford, suffer large volumes of heavy lorries and litter blowing from those lorries. The fen roads used by the lorries sit on peat soils, which expand when it is wet and contract when it is dry. The combination of the changing subsoil and the regular heavy lorries corrugates those roads vertically and horizontally, breaks the road edges away, and creates ever-growing potholes. The roads are virtually unusable by ordinary cars, let alone cyclists. The residents feel that they have no say in the timing and volume of the traffic, nor do they see extra funding for road maintenance. That would all be bad enough, but there have recently been several fires at the site. One such fire in April burned for about 17 hours, generated significant black smoke that spread over Witchford, and required an extensive fire and rescue response. The Environment Agency recently published the findings of its inspection. It found that the emissions from the fire breached one of the permit...
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing the debate. As parliamentarians, each of us recognises the necessity of waste facilities and the function that they perform, but local communities should not have to tolerate the conditions that residents of mine in Heywood have been forced to put up with in recent years. Due to the prevailing wind direction in my part of the world, my constituents continue to endure appalling odours emitted from the Valencia Waste Management site on Pilsworth Road. The landfill there opened over 50 years ago. As it has gradually filled, it has become increasingly unbearable for local residents, which has led to the creation of the Heywood Against Landfill group. I take this opportunity to commend them for their enduring activism. The site also hosts a recycling centre, which I understand is also contributing significantly to the current issues. Heywood Against Landfill has made it clear to Valencia, as have I, that the operation of the site has driven so many nearby to the point of utter dismay, with stark implications for their quality of life. Windows had to remain shut, people could not put washing out to dry, and many even began to question the elevated number of respiratory illnesses in the town. Heywood Against Landfill rightly urged members of the public to raise their concerns with the Environment Agency and lobbied for...
My hon. Friend is making an important speech and representing her constituents very well. I want, perhaps unusually, to put on record an example of good practice by a waste management company. In my constituency, the community engagement team at Viridor, led by Karen Peer, do excellent work with local schools and the community to make sure that they are aware of what is happening. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should see that kind of practice across the country?
I absolutely agree, and I would like to see more of that, not least in my constituency. The Environment Agency countenanced the site’s reopening, and it was adamant that it had the means to monitor the air quality and odour levels, yet less than a year down the line, we are back where we started, and my constituents, like many represented here today, are suffering the consequences of the agency’s inability to address the core problems. That is because we do not have the means to handle nuisance concerns around recycling in the same way that we do for landfill. In such situations, lived experience matters. The executives of Valencia would not live anywhere near one of these sites themselves, but our constituents are expected to suck it up and put up with entirely unacceptable conditions. Heywood Against Landfill has now designed an online odour complaint reporting log, which sends each instance directly to the Environment Agency. That is great, but the group would rather not spend its valuable time doing that. The group’s efforts will highlight once again the scale of the issue in Heywood, but it remains clear that there needs to be enforcement action to match the level of ongoing outrage. I understand that the waste strategy is due for review in this Parliament. From speaking with local residents, it is clear that they are desperate for the strategy to give greater consideration to the impact of poorly managed sites that also take recycling. They want legislation to...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing this debate. Residents of the part of Calne that is in my constituency have long reported strong and unpleasant sulphurous odours from the Lower Compton landfill. The odours have at times been severe enough for people stuck in their homes to keep the windows shut-not a pleasant situation given the current heatwave-and have been reported by the local BBC as causing illness. This has been a periodic problem in Calne and other towns. I am pleased to report that, with the help of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), we have got the Environment Agency on the case. The offending landfill vaults are being closed and additional landfill gas wells will be installed to increase gas capture and reduce emissions from the site. Additionally, there has recently been a spate of fires at Lower Compton landfill, caused by batteries in vapes, endangering residents and staff. Every week in the UK more than 6 million vapes are thrown away instead of being recycled. When crushed, lithium batteries can spark, smoke or catch fire, creating a danger to waste facilities, those who work on them and those who live near them. I urge the Government to increase public awareness of how to safely dispose of vapes. Single-use plastic waste is another long-standing issue that needs to be addressed. None of us likes seeing...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this very important debate. I want to speak about a case in my constituency that shows the problem and, importantly, what the solution can look like. Last July, business owners near the Hurstwood Court recycling centre on Raikes Lane in Burnden contacted me about traffic and road safety. Queues for the site were backing up on to St Peter’s Way and spilling on to Manchester Road. Access to local businesses was being blocked, and there was a real safety risk. That was happening day after day. I brought together Bolton council, Recycle for Greater Manchester and the operator, SUEZ, to address the problem. To their credit, all parties acted. A hatched yellow box has been painted at the entrance and exit to keep it clear. The entrance has been reprofiled so that more vehicles can wait on the site while speaking to the gate attendant, rather than queuing on the public road. A new turning space has been created for vehicles leaving without entering the centre, and cones have been installed to stop the parking that was blocking sightlines. To be honest, those measures have not solved the problem completely, but they have mitigated some of the worst of it and have made real differences to residents and businesses. Alongside the physical changes, Recycle for Greater Manchester has been suggesting alternative, less...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing the debate. It is so important that I speak on this issue, as in my constituency we have an incinerator operated by a company called Viridor, which has been in operation for the last 12 years. Like the example in Fleetwood, it processes waste from all around the country, very little of which is produced by the actual residents of Runcorn. Local residents have to live with the problems that hon. Members have talked about this afternoon, including dreadful smells at times and rubbish strewn around the approaching roads from the heavy goods vehicles that deliver the waste. There is noise 24 hours a day-the HGVs have an operational licence for 24 hours a day, and there is the mechanical noise from the plant itself. Every day, 275 HGVs are allowed to go in and out of the plant. I have stood there, endlessly watching one after another. The noise and smell are horrific, with 3,000 tonnes of waste processed in the plant every day. The air pollution at times is a disgrace. As we have heard, people cannot hang out their washing. There are even layers of dust on cars. There is a physical and mental effect on health. Local residents cannot sleep or open their windows. Light pollution from the headlights of HGVs coming down the road is constant through the night, which is worse in winter, of course. As a consequence, local house...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing this timely debate. Two separate areas in my constituency are suffering difficulties. The first is West Heath in Congleton, where there is an awful fly problem. Residents report they are unable to have barbecues, and do not wish to open their windows or doors. It appears that the problem may be associated with a local metal recycling plant. The plant has issued a statement that it is co-operating with the council and the Environment Agency and does not believe the problem emanates from it. Although the long-standing feeling among local people is that it may very well be an issue with the recycling plant, they would also like the Environment Agency to investigate nearby standing water and other possible sources. I do not want to pin the blame too specifically on any one factor at the moment, but it is important that the Environment Agency has the resources, the powers and inclination to investigate thoroughly as soon as possible. My residents report similar experiences to those described by many people in the Chamber, talking about how it is making their houses difficult to enjoy, particularly in the summer months. They are worried about disease and about opening their children’s bedroom windows at night, which in the current environment is straightforwardly dangerous. I absolutely call on the Minister to encourage...
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. We owe a big thank you to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for setting the scene and addressing a matter that has been an overwhelming source of anxiety and frustration for my constituents-the physical, environmental and social effects of waste management sites on our local communities. I welcome the Minister to her place. We are very fortunate to have her here, and I am sure that she will have all the answers that we seek. I hope she will give us some encouragement. I wish to give a Northern Ireland perspective. Northern Ireland is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I would like her help, and my request to her would be to enter discussions with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland, Andrew Muir at the Northern Ireland Assembly, to ensure that we can work together on such things. In this House, in debates on waste management strategy, we often get bogged down in talking about percentages, targets and EU-aligned frameworks. I will bring something from ground level to this Chamber, however, from the Ards and North Down borough council, in my beautiful constituency of Strangford. Let it be known that the people of Ards and North Down are not against recycling. For example, recycling rates of nearly 56% have been reached through the commitment of nearly every house-indeed, of every house-in Ards and North Down. Households separate their glass, they compost and they wash...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for securing this very important debate. I must emphasise that this is a nationwide issue: it affects not just working-class constituencies but leafy Surrey, including Epsom and Ewell. I will set the scene. It is a peaceful early morning in the residential community on the edge of Epsom Downs, a picturesque, 600-acre area of unspoiled chalk downland with panoramic views of London. We are right next to the Chalk Pit, a waste-processing site in Epsom in Surrey. Crash! Bang! Boom! Residents are suddenly awoken. It is 6 o’clock on 20 July. They hear the scraping, clanking and banging of metal, the humming of industrial machinery and the roaring of the trommel. Workmen shout loudly. Car horns honk. Dust chokes the air. Lorries speed up and down the road. It does not end until late in the evening, and this goes on and on all day, every single working day. Could the Minister, and all those in the Chamber today, live with that constant noise, dust and disruption? Would the Minister be willing to accept this lack of action and change? My residents have no choice. Their homes are here. Their lives are here. This site was never meant to become what it is now when it went to planning 10 years ago, moving from a waste transfer site to a waste processing site. The management of this site is unacceptable, and my constituents-the residents-have long...
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this important debate. As she strongly articulated, she has had significant issues with sites in her constituency. This debate is an excellent opportunity for her to share her concerns with the Minister. We have heard powerful contributions from across the House and from places across the country-urban, rural and, as ever, in Northern Ireland-about the important health and human impacts. The hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) talked about fire issues related to batteries. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) discussed the health impacts affecting people young and old. The hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) also discussed the fire issue. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell) discussed odour and wellbeing issues. The hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) also discussed odour issues, as well as the hazards posed by plastics to wildlife and the environment. The hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) discussed access issues in terms of traffic build-up at sites. The hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) powerfully articulated the mental health impacts of some of these sites. The hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) discussed issues relating to flies. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)...
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Countryside Alliance. The Countryside Alliance is, of course, a country sports organisation, but it is a very credible and influential organisation that highlights things such as rural crime and waste sites as well. Does he recognise that it has an important role to play in the countryside and that should be commended for doing so?
It is always a huge pleasure to be intervened on by the hon. Gentleman. He has been very kind to me over the years. After my maiden speech, he came across the Chamber to speak to me and was very kind, so I will always take an intervention from him, as I am sure everyone else will. I totally agree. The Countryside Alliance is a powerful organisation. The report that I cited earlier shows that it is a powerful voice and that it does its research. The rural voice does need to be listened to in this debate; the report highlighted some of the key issues across the country such as waste crime and fly-tipping, including in the constituency of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. The issue affects the whole country-urban, suburban and rural-and we need to recognise that. Finally, the Government should look hard at what can be done before waste ever reaches these sites. Above all, they should listen to local residents and take seriously the effect that these sites have on people’s mental and physical health. The Government must, through all their authorities, keep monitoring health data closely and act to help people in their daily lives.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I begin by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) and to the rest of the House for my late arrival to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. She may have noticed that I am not the Minister for Nature, my hon. Friend for Coventry East (Mary Creagh), but I hope to do her justice in responding to this debate because I know how hard she has worked on this issue and how seriously she takes it. I thank hon. Members from across the House, who have made valuable points today. This debate reminds me why it is so important to deal properly with rubbish and why all Members of the House support bins, whether they are Counts or not-sorry for my throwaway comment. People rightly expect their community to be a safe, clean and pleasant place to live. They expect clean air, thriving natural spaces and confidence that waste is being managed responsibly. Most importantly, they expect environmental regulation and waste management to be working in the interests of local people. I absolutely agree, and so do the Government. I will quickly summarise some of the actions that the Government have taken, led by my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature, and the achievements of the waste crime action plan commitments. My hon. Friend has already reformed the carriers, brokers and dealers regime, which was debated in the House of Commons just last week. She introduced...
Could the Minister say a few words about a plastics tax, or a tax on single-use plastics, to make the recycling of plastics economic?
I am conscious that I am speaking outside my brief in responding to this debate, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature hears the hon. Member’s comment and gets back to him with her thoughts on that one. I do not want to miss anyone out. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) raised the work that the Environment Agency is doing and-again-the problems that people have with flies. I totally agree with her point about putting people before profit-it should never be the other way round. A land remediation pathfinder scheme is launching this autumn, and support is available for local authorities’ work if needed. That will fund additional local authority resources, so additional money is coming in for some local authorities. I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood time to respond, so I will speed up. I say to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that although waste policy is devolved and the Northern Irish circumstances are unique, we enjoy a strong relationship with our colleagues in Northern Ireland. We are soon to commission new research on the drivers and regulatory factors underpinning waste crime, and are actively working with Northern Ireland colleagues on the design of that research. I hope I have responded to most of the comments made by hon. Members. I know that they will continue to speak to my hon. Friend the Minister for Nature where necessary and make sure that the issue continues to...
Thank you for your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I also thank all hon. Members who have spoken and intervened, and the Minister for her response. I again pay tribute to the tireless campaigners who have never given up in their struggle against Transwaste’s disdain for our community. Over the coming months, I will keep pushing in Parliament for the closure of that site once and for all, and for the enforcement needed to tackle the epidemic of waste crime across this country. I will work with the new Prime Minister to ensure that working-class communities such as mine and his are no longer an afterthought for those in Westminster. Delivering on issues as fundamental as this is a mission of the Labour Government; it is a test of our ability to change things for the better. I came into politics to fight for justice at every level. Social and environmental justice are part of the same struggle, and I will not stop fighting until we deliver both for the British people. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the impact of waste management sites on local communities.