Lords of the Flies

Thursdays in the House of the Lords are usually debating days rather than being used for legislation. Two long debates of around 3 hours take place in the main chamber, whilst a number of short debates happen in the Moses Room, in an off-Broadway kind of way.

I had tabled for debate a question on fly-tipping, prompted by a rather good report from the Countryside Alliance. I've disagreed with the C.A. on a number issues in the past, but in this case they produced an excellent piece of work called "Fly tipping - time for action" which contains a lot of helpful suggestions.

It is a problem which is getting steadily worse, and although statistically far more of a problem in urban than rural areas, it causes great anger in the countryside where it creates more of a visible eyesore. It's becoming an expensive headache for landowners who have sole responsibility for dealing with tipping on their land because councils and The Environment Agency only have to clear up public land . Civic amenity sites vary enormously in terms of user-friendliness - some operate limited hours and may are very strict about the type of vehicles they allow in and sometimes bar quite legitimate householders because of the type of vehicle they own.

Quite a range of penalties are available to magistrates but councils are reluctant to prosecute because it is expensive for them to do so and any fines go straight to the Treasury. When they do prosecute they impose quite modest fines despite having a £50,000 penalty available to them.

In some areas an illicit market has developed where someone with a van will offer, for a fee, to dispose of your rubbish for you - and guess what? They don't take it to the tip and pay the tax on it! It ends up in a ditch somewhere and has to be removed by the council or the farmer.

The day I noticed that a new, quite legitimate, business has developed. Intrigued by a van bearing the title "Tesco Aquatic Retrieval Unit", I asked what that meant, and was told that they fish trolleys out of rivers. So now we know.