Consultation on changes to the enforcement and sanctions policy - including implementing new water and waste enforcement powers

We welcome your views on the proposed revised Enforcement and Sanction Policy.

About this consultation

Our Enforcement and Sanctions Policy explains how we use our enforcement and sanctioning powers in response to breaches of the legislation that we enforce. It covers the range of actions we can take when a breach or an offence has occurred.

These actions include:

• provision of advice and guidance
• use of warning letters
• provision of simple cautions 
• civil sanctions
• prosecutions

Our policy also explains how we use the notices that we have the power to issue and our approach to enforcement undertakings.

We carry out enforcement focused on achieving four outcomes:

1. Stop illegal activity from occurring or continuing.
2. Put right environmental harm or damage, also known as restoration or remediation.
3. Bring illegal activity under regulatory control, uphold the integrity of the regulatory regimes and so maintain compliance with the law.
4. Punish a person in breach and deter future offending or breaches by that person and others.

Our regulatory principles which will remain unchanged are to:

• act proportionately
• be consistent
• be transparent
• target our enforcement action
• be accountable

We will continue to have regard to the growth duty and guidance - Growth duty and will only take enforcement action or impose sanctions when necessary and in a proportionate way.

Our penalty principles will remain largely unchanged, which means when we carry out any enforcement activity we aim to:

• change the behaviour of the person in breach
• remove any financial gain or benefit arising from the breach
• consider what is appropriate for the person in breach and circumstances, including punishment and whether criminal proceedings are in the public interest
• be proportionate to the nature of the breach and the harm or risk of harm caused
• take steps to ensure any harm or damage is restored
• deter future breaches by both the person in breach and others

However, we are proposing to add in another penalty principle, which is to better protect the interests of victims as follows:

• consider victims and third parties (where they are known to us) whose interests have been negatively impacted by an environmental incident

Additionally, we have simplified our expression of the public interest factors. We have revised the section on how we make enforcement decisions to be more general and higher level. ​

We previously consulted on amendments to the Enforcement and Sanctions Policy in January 2025 - Applying Environment Act 2021 civil sanctions.

We will update our Offence Response Options document to clearly explain all the powers available to us, once the new powers are in place.

What we are consulting on

The consultation describes the changes that we are proposing to make to our Enforcement and Sanctions Policy.

We are proposing changes to some general policy principles including:

• how we assess enforcement undertakings
• an additional enforcement penalty principle to better protect the interests of victims
• simplified our public interest factors

This includes how we propose to enforce new legislation, namely:

• Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 (WSMA) - Water (Special Measures) Act 2025
• Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 - The Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026
• Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and NI) Regulations 2025- The Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025

We are also proposing to clarify our enforcement approach under the Mercury regime - The Control of Mercury (Enforcement) Regulations 2017

We will publish our response to the consultation on GOV.UK. We will also publish the revised Enforcement and Sanction Policy on GOV.UK.  Please note that the format of the Enforcement and Sanctions Policy may look different on GOV.UK compared to the document you are consulting on. This is because this consultation document is a word document, whereas the format on GOV.UK is HTML. However, the content will be the same.

What we are not consulting on

Defra have consulted on the following policy and legislative proposals:  

• Civil penalties for water: Summary of responses and government response
• Digital waste tracking: Government response
• Deposit Return Scheme: Introduction of a deposit return scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

We are not consulting further on matters addressed by these Defra consultations.

This consultation does not include any matters relating to Annex 2. We are not consulting on the structural decision to remove references to enforcement undertakings from the Annexes, which are now addressed in the main body of the Enforcement and Sanctions Policy.

We are not consulting on the minor changes needed to update and consolidate our existing policy, such as the changes we have made to the structure.