Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for initiating this debate. I agree with everything he has said.

I will concentrate on heritage metal crime. You have only to think objectively for a few seconds and you realise that dealing in scrap metal is an extraordinarily important recycling initiative. It is a green project and therefore an activity that should be held in the highest regard by the public. It is a great shame that the old stereotype still to an extent prevails, although this has been admirably countered by organisations such as the BMRA.

It has to be stressed that we are talking about a small minority of criminals who have a significant effect. It is good that the Government are happy that the 2013 Act remains in place. There are, however, clearly reasons why the Act should be strengthened. If a number of firms are trying to get round the Act and are successfully doing so, for instance by providing cheque-cashing facilities on-site, it is essential that these loopholes be closed, most obviously because it is important that all companies should adhere to the spirit of the law, which is to stop theft. However, every company in this industry also has a responsibility to promote trust, whether or not it is breaking the law. This is not just in the country’s interests, but in the interests of the industry that there should be a better perception of it, not least because it will affect its own business. Another thing that can be done, and which the BMRA is in favour of, is a national licensing scheme, which could be administered by the Environment Agency rather than by local authorities.

I notice that the review lists the number of offences for particular years, but we do not get a detailed sense of the nature of the crimes committed, although there is a general sense that offences are individually of greater value than they used to be, with, for example, whole roofs of churches being taken, and even drones being used to locate them. There are a number of issues around this. Historic England is very keen that heritage crime is perceived as such. I understand that sentencing can now include a heritage element, which can increase the severity of the sentence—but there is not the accompanying consistent input through the system to that point, either in the charge made, or, going further back, in the way that crimes are currently recorded by the police, which does not specify heritage metal crime. Is this something the Minister could look at?

There needs to be a proper differentiation between heritage and infrastructure crime, such as the theft of railway copper cables. We need a better understanding of the kind of crime, its location and its prevalence to build up a more precise picture of what is going on, both geographically and historically. Scrap metal, of course, by definition a metal that can be further worked, is not a heritage asset—which scrap metal dealers should then not normally be in contact with.

This brings me to my second point, which is the need to involve dealers and work more closely with them. Again, Historic England’s team, led by Mark Harrison, head of heritage crime and policing advice, alongside others, very much favours this, as do the dealers themselves. Such an initiative involves dealers becoming heritage “watch yards” and becoming actively participatory, as we should all be in the protection of our shared cultural heritage. While good work is being done and progress is being made with these new initiatives around intelligence and awareness, better police resources would be extremely welcome. It is important that heritage crime is seen as just that. Thieves need to be made more aware that the crime they are committing is not just the stealing of an object, but has much greater ramifications in terms of cultural damage and destruction. Sometimes it is not only the theft of a church’s roof tiles, but the further damage that may be done inside the church, through exposure to the elements, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, pointed out.

Taking a longer-term view, one reason why this is a modern crime is that our society has lost respect for establishment and authority. That contract has been broken. This has had some good effects on our society in that we are more questioning, but also bad ones, as shown by the concerns raised in this debate. What needs to replace that contract in part is one where respect is held throughout society for our shared culture and heritage, which means better education about our cultural environment in schools and improving maintenance of our shared public spaces—both things that, I am afraid to say, are going in the opposite direction to how they should. The recognition of heritage crime as a specific crime of which we are all victims, including heritage itself, would be a step in the right direction.