THE Countryside Alliance has said that the government is ‘all talk and no action’ after MPs failed to make the recommended changes surrounding fly-tipping laws.

On April 15, the government refused recommendations from the House of Lords which would see changes to the country’s fly-tipping laws. Some, including the Countryside Alliance, have described the current system as ‘broken’, with the organisation stating that the move from the government ‘will be seen as yet further confirmation by rural communities that they are not a priority’.

Campaign groups have been pushing for change, citing that fly-tipping is one of the only crimes where the victims have to pay the cost of the damage done to them. Farmers who are victims of fly-tipping are currently legally responsible for clearing the waste that is dumped on their land - and if they fail to remove the waste, they can even be prosecuted by local authorities for having controlled waste on their land.

This is despite the fact that most local authorities refuse to prosecute the original offence of fly-tipping.

A spokesperson fro the Countryside Alliance said: “The result is a ridiculous system where the victims of the crime are further penalised by the law - and it is farmers and rural communities who bear the brunt of this and are neglected by the current system.”

A few weeks ago (February 25) the House of Lords voted for amendments that had the potential to change the broken current system, a move that was welcomed by farmers and rural people across the UK. The government opposed the changes in the Lords, but were defeated.

An alliance of rural organisations, headed by the Countryside Alliance, wrote to the government and urged it to seize the opportunity to end the rural fly-tipping injustice. The letter came after the government itself admitted, in its Waste Crime Action Plan, that the current laws are unjust.

The amendments mentioned would make convicted offenders of fly-tipping automatically liable for the cost of removal and any damage caused, and force authorities to ensure that victims of fly-tipping are not left footing the bill.

Most crucially of all, they would place the duty on local authorities to collect the fly-tipped waste and seek to recover costs from offenders – a massive change that would do a great deal to incentivise councils to properly deal with problems by investigating and prosecuting effectively, all while relieving private victims of any clean-up costs.

Following the government's refusal to accept these amendments, campaigners have now questioned whether this government is "all talk, and no action".

Johnnie Furse, a spokesperson of the Countryside Alliance, commented: "Everyone agrees that the current system is a ridiculous injustice - even the government has admitted that. And so it beggars belief that now, when the opportunity was presented to the government to fix the broken system, they refused to do so.

"It seems that this government is all talk, and no action. If those in Westminster wish to prove otherwise, urgent action is direly needed."