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The Treasury has been consulting over the past couple of months on plans to transition to transition to a single (higher) rate of landfill tax by 2030, removing the qualifying fines regime from April 2027 and remove the exemption for filling quarries from 2027.

The Mineral Products Association, (MPA) which represents quarry companies, has responded to the consultation with a warning that the proposals would have a devastating impact on one of the UK鈥檚 key foundation industries, with a knock-on impact for UK construction and nature conservation.

The increased waste disposal costs would also add up to 拢28,000 to the cost of building a new house, MPA has calculated.

The MPA 聽says the reforms risk triggering a nationwide shortage of aggregates, threatening quarry restoration plans and hitting construction with a double-whammy cost increase.

MPA has alerted ministers to the consequences of removing the quarry exemption, whereby inert waste materials that cannot be used in construction are exempt from landfill tax when used in the restoration of quarried land to create new areas of nature conservation or to bring agricultural land back into use.

Bringing in inert materials that have no other economic use such as chalk, clays and soils is important for operators to fulfil their quarry restoration commitments, the MPA says.

Coupled with the proposal to transition to a single rate of landfill tax from 2030, the removal of the quarry exemption would add billions of pounds onto the cost of operating many of the UK鈥檚 quarries and delivering their restoration plans. That would render sites no longer economically viable either to operate or to restore. More than 50 active quarries in England operated by MPA members are estimated to be at risk under the current Treasury proposals, threatening availability of essential materials and potentially leaving quarries unrestored for decades.

The UK consumes around 200 million tonnes of aggregates each year for use in construction. Replenishment rates of mineral products are already at an all-time low; for every 100 tonnes of sand and gravel sold in the last 10 years, only 61 tonnes of new permissions have been granted.

The removal of the quarry exemption would result in reduction in overall national production capacity, given the added costs of operation and restoration, the MPA says. It adds that costs would invariably have to be passed on, doubling the blow to construction companies and house-builders who would also be faced with increased costs of disposing of their own inert waste.

The MPA calculates that the current proposals would add between 拢22,000 and 28,000 to the cost of building a new house, based solely on the additional cost of waste disposal. Some infrastructure schemes would face increased costs running into tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds.

聽According to the MPA, the transitional solutions proposed in the landfill tax consultation for sites to transfer to the 鈥榙eposit for recovery鈥� regime are not possible under current rules. The association warns that trying to resolve permitting at each of the affected quarries individually is likely to overwhelm the Environment Agency given the short timescales, and the current rate of issuing new permits.

The MPA proposes an alternative solution: that quarries currently operating under the exemption, which was introduced in the late 1990s, should be allowed to continue, while new applications to support restoration activity would have to be permitted as 鈥榬ecovery鈥� sites.聽

Mark Russell, the MPA鈥檚 executive director for planning and mineral resources at MPA, said: 鈥淲e can all agree that the landfill tax is in need of reform, but the Treasury鈥檚 proposals risk shutting down much of our sector and must be revised urgently. Quarries have strict planning conditions to ensure land can be restored to good use after extraction 鈥� this relies on bringing in inert materials with no other use, such as chalk, clay or soils. Taxing these materials at over 拢125 per tonne is as damaging as it is absurd, and will result in worse environmental outcomes while adding significant costs to the delivery of infrastructure and housing.

鈥淥ur members already faces long-term challenges to ensure a steady and adequate supply of essential minerals, but this reform risks triggering a serious materials crisis in this parliamentary term. Our industry recycle more materials per capita than almost anywhere else in Europe, and make good use of materials that cannot be recycled to restore land back to use. Not only does this enable the production of essential materials that the whole economy relies on, but also delivers more new areas for nature than any other industry. The government鈥檚 landfill tax reform proposals would make our sector鈥檚 contribution unviable in many cases, and we urge ministers to look at the sensible solutions we鈥檙e proposing, which include exemptions and regulatory fixes.鈥�

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