Metal Thefts (Electricity Industry)

Debate between Charles Hendry and Graham P Jones

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on securing the debate and thank him for the well researched, thoughtful and constructive way in which he addressed the subject. He has undoubtedly highlighted an issue that is growing in occurrence and severity, and he is right to say that more needs to be done. I hope to set out how we intend to go about dealing with it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter today.

In my response I shall focus on three things—the risks posed by metal theft to the electricity industry, what we are currently doing to tackle metal theft in the electricity industry, and how the Government propose to tackle the problem in the future. Let me be clear that the Government fully recognise the serious consequences of metal theft. This is not a victimless crime, as the hon. Gentleman made clear. As he said, a young teenager was recently killed attempting to steal copper cable from a substation in Leeds. That is a terrible thing for all concerned to deal with, and unfortunately was just one of several fatalities that occurred over the past year, along with countless injuries to the thieves themselves and the risk to engineers who are called out in the middle of night to make safe equipment that has been damaged.

It is not only those lives that are put at risk, but those of innocent householders whose appliances can be damaged or catch fire because of a metal theft in their area. The lives of our emergency services attending fires caused by metal theft are also at risk. I, too, was shocked to see the recent footage of a gas explosion at a house fire in Castleford on 8 July. It appeared to me that it was only by pure luck that the firefighters in attendance avoided death or at least serious injury.

Lives lost are not the only consequence of metal theft, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. Across the energy sector, the main risks are disruption to electricity supplies affecting businesses, households and communities; risks to public safety, including through the loss of communications—999 calls, for example, loss of street lighting, traffic lights and safety-related equipment; and financial losses to businesses. Metal theft does not affect only the energy sector. For example, only this morning thousands of commuters from the south-east, including many from my constituency, were subjected to severe disruption when metal thieves stole 50 metres of signalling cable in the London Bridge area.

I understand that Network Rail has provisionally estimated that the cost of this incident is likely to run well into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Sadly, such thefts cause misery for thousands of commuters, cause damage to the economy and are out of all proportion to the value of the cable stolen. This evening I spoke to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), about that mindless, irresponsible and utterly foolish attack on the rail network. We are like-minded in our resolve to take action to tackle the problem, and a meeting has already been convened for Ministers across Departments next week to discuss the issue and all its ramifications.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned an incident that occurred in July 2009 in the area around Dartford in Kent, where up to 100,000 properties were left without power as a result of a suspected attempt to steal metal from four 132 kV copper cables. The extent of the damage meant that it took EDF four days to restore supplies fully, causing widespread disruption to homes and local businesses. Ironically, though this incident cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in damage, compensation and goodwill payments, it is thought that no metal was actually stolen.

Owing at least in part to increasing commodity prices, the electricity industry continues to see an increase in the number of incidents of metal thefts experienced across its networks. Figures supplied by the Energy Networks Association, which hosts the security incident reporting system, show that the average number of incidents per month for 2010 was 440. By July this year, after only seven months of data, the electricity industry is experiencing on average 627 attacks every month.

The exact cost to the United Kingdom of metal theft is difficult to ascertain. There is significant under-reporting of incidents and it is not possible to identify and record every cost associated with an incident. In 2010-11, between 80,000 and 100,000 metal theft-related offences were recorded by police. Last year, the Association of Chief Police Officers estimated that the cost of metal theft to the United Kingdom was £777 million a year. The victims cover all sectors of the community, from power and communication supplies and the rail network to local communities, with church roofs and street furniture being stolen.

As we know, and as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, metal theft is driven by a range of factors. Metal is a sought-after commodity, with prices increasing steadily. Current prices on the global exchanges put the value of copper at between £5,500 and £6,000 a tonne. The expectation is that commodity prices will continue to rise in coming years, so we can assume that the incidence of metal theft will continue to rise unless action is taken, which is what we are determined to do.

We take the issue very seriously. Through the security task force of the Energy Emergencies Executive, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the electricity network operators meet regularly to discuss a range of security issues, and metal theft is a standing item on the agenda. The chair of the task force also represents the electricity sector at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ metal theft working group. Working with the Home Office, we have secured the inclusion of metal theft in its recently published organised crime strategy “Local to Global: reducing the risk from organised crime”, which shows that we share the hon. Gentleman’s view that organised crime is involved in this activity.

The inclusion of metal theft in the organised crime strategy will help to raise the profile of this increasing problem across several critical national infrastructure sectors, including energy, and increase the priority it is given by relevant enforcement agencies. The multi-agency ACPO metal theft working group, which is chaired by British Transport police, has developed a new strategy to tackle metal theft. The working group comprises members from across law enforcement, the utilities sector and Government Departments.

The new strategy covers four objectives: increasing the effort required to steal metal; increasing the risk to offenders; reducing the ease and rewards for offenders selling stolen metal; and increasing the risk for scrap metal dealers of handling stolen material. Progress is being made on a number of actions from this strategy, ranging from developing metal alternatives and considering how to make metals more difficult to steal, which is very much a longer-term action, to developing a more co-ordinated law enforcement approach and intelligence sharing across the utilities sector and police forces on a regional basis.

Although individual progress is being made by police forces and the electricity industry to tackle metal theft, we are conscious that more effort is required if we are to address this problem seriously across all critical national infrastructure sectors. The Government are looking at what more can be done. Discussions, led by the Home Office as the lead Department for crime prevention, are under way with a number of Departments, including DECC, to identify further options for tackling metal theft.

At the recent parliamentary event to which the hon. Gentleman referred, hosted by the Energy Networks Association, my noble Friend Baroness Browning set out the Home Office’s proposals for taking this work forward. This focused on a number of key areas. First, it focused on exploring the feasibility of introducing tighter regulations on the scrap metal industry in order to tackle the ready market for stolen metals. This includes, as he has asked, looking at modernising the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964, which does not reflect the current £5.6 billion scrap metal recycling industry. It will also include looking at amending and improving the existing scrap metal dealer registration regime.

[Graham Jones]

I appreciate the Minister giving way on this point and the fact that he is looking at amending the legislation. Will he indicate when he thinks legislation might be brought in to have an impact on scrap metal dealers, or give a time frame?

[Charles Hendry]

The first priority, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands, is to decide what are the best courses of action and determine what needs primary legislation and what can be done through secondary legislation. We are at the stage before that, but I hope that I am showing him that, with the new Minister, Baroness Browning, coming in, a great sense of urgency is being given to the sort of solution he has been highlighting.

Baroness Browning also spoke about closer links to environmental legislation and the licensing requirements for waste management and the need for more stringent identification requirements when selling metal, to identify both the seller and the owner of the material. The current regime requires little more than any name written down on the dealer’s records. The power to close scrap metal yards where there is clear evidence of sustained illegal activity is being considered, as is the possibility of moving away from cash as a method of payment for this industry, thereby removing the perceived easy access to cash. We are absolutely looking at the issue the hon. Gentleman has highlighted. If there are any other issues on the list he set out, I will ensure that they are on the agenda for the meeting so that we look at the full range of possible options.