Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his extensive introduction to this debate. The contribution from my noble friend Lady Randerson has raised some interesting questions; I look forward to the answers.

The Bill seeks to help with the prevention of theft of agricultural equipment and assist with recovery when it has been stolen. The main targets of theft from rural and farm buildings are all-terrain vehicles. The ATV is a vital assistant to the modern farmer, helping him or her to get around, feed and check on stock, often in otherwise inaccessible areas of farms and holdings. Farmers have come to depend on ATVs as an essential time-saving device. Shepherds on uplands use ATVs to help both feed their flocks in winter and gather in their sheep in the spring. The Government estimate that between 900 and 1,200 ATVs are stolen each year. Where are all these going? The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seems to indicate that they are going overseas. It is not just ATVs—farm tractors have also been stolen, along with essential tools. Direct Line estimates that some £46 million-worth of tools were stolen in the six months to April 2021. The NFU similarly estimates that the cost resulting from the theft of quad bikes and ATVs was £2.2 million for its customers in 2021.

The solution to help prevent these thefts and return property to their owners is suggested in the Bill to be fitting immobilisers during manufacture or retrofitting, coupled with forensic marking and a register of who owns what and the identifying number from the forensic mark. This latter would assist the police to identify stolen goods.

I turn to the loss of other equipment and tools. The building industry is also a target, with the Federation of Master Builders saying that eight in 10 builders have had their tools stolen. Again, Direct Line estimates that £245,893-worth—a very precise sum for an estimate—of tools are stolen from vehicles every day. Direct Line also reports that a third of UK consumers had bought second-hand tools at some point.

I declare an interest, in that my husband is a great fan of second-hand tool stalls at markets and has often bought something that he claims he has been looking for some time and will “come in handy” in the future—a phrase often used in our household. There is an app called The Tool Register where tradespeople and agricultural workers can record details of their tools and equipment and report if they have been stolen. The stolen goods then appear on a search engine aptly named Dodgy Gear. The app allows people to check whether the goods they are proposing to buy have been stolen.

The Countryside Alliance found in its 2022 rural crime survey that 35% of respondents said they had been victims of agricultural machinery theft—the second most reported crime, just 3% behind fly-tipping, the other scourge of the countryside and farmland. Wildlife crime, including hare poaching and animal rights activism, was also on the list. There are few prosecutions but, where they do occur and are successful, the penalties can be high—in one case, over six years in prison.

The Countryside Alliance supports the fitting of a marked engine immobiliser. That view is shared by the NFU, which provided a similar brief to that of the Countryside Alliance. They have indicated that the direct effects of the Bill will be on product and sales standards, trading standards authorities and local authorities. I was hearing only last week of the desperate shortage of trading standards officers, and we all know that local authorities are cash-strapped, with little or no room for manoeuvre, so we must be careful about putting extra unfunded burdens on local authorities.

There is no doubt that this is a real problem that affects primarily farmers, but it also affects other industries. I have been contacted by the National Caravan Council, which is concerned about industries involved in the leisure business and believes that the scope of the Bill is too broad. It also believes that the fitting of immobilisers could compromise the safety or use of the vehicle. As every law enforcement body across the world, including in the UK, uses the vehicle identification number—VIN—system, the NCC asks why that is not being used to identify vehicles. Perhaps the Minister can provide some clarification.

The Explanatory Notes accompanying the Bill indicate that the cost of retrofitting an immobiliser to an ATV is £150, but there is no mention of what the cost of compliance might be for other industries outside agriculture. This is a Private Member’s Bill, but I would like to ask the Minister whether he knows what consultation, if any, has taken place outside the agriculture sector. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, indicates that the consultation has not so far taken place. I mention that because I believe there is some concern that the Bill might have a detrimental impact on the financial viability of those sectors involved in the leisure industry. My noble friend Lady Randerson has raised the issue of consultation and extending the scope of the Bill.

That said, I am supportive of the aims of the Bill. I know from having lived in a lively farming community that the theft of ATVs and other farming equipment happens on a fairly regular basis and can have a devasting financial effect on the small farms often found in rural villages. Theft of any sort affects the victims. If that theft affects the way in which a victim carries out the activities that provide their livelihood, that raises the crime much higher up the scale, and something should be done to both prevent the crime in the first place and deal with returning the stolen property afterwards. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, raised the issue of personal and property safety. The Bill, while not being a panacea for all rural crimes, would certainly help towards addressing some of the issues that farmers face. We support it, and we look forward to the Minister’s response.