Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 2nd December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), who has shared some of his insight and expertise, having clearly spent a great deal of time working on a farm in a previous life—I am curious about the notion of Fabergé egg farms and the potential for expansion there. In all sincerity, I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill and on comprehensively and convincingly setting out the case for it today.

Having considered the hon. Gentleman’s Bill and having listened carefully to his arguments, the Opposition are inclined to agree that his proposals would have a strong impact on mitigating against quad bike and all-terrain vehicle theft. That form of criminality has blighted rural and more urban communities for too long, either because of the initial theft or the illicit and antisocial use of such vehicles thereafter in constituencies across the UK.

As outlined, the Bill seeks to mandate the fitting of forensic markings and an immobiliser on all quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles sold in the UK, which would solve a specific problem. If enacted, the Bill provides the scope for those measures to be expanded further. It would be a welcome tool to support the police in deterring such thefts, finding stolen goods and supporting agricultural and land workers who need that kit to do their jobs and undertake the incredibly valued work that has been discussed.

Rural crime has been a priority. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who is a fellow shadow Home Affairs Minister with responsibility for policing, has visited a number of rural crime initiatives, such as Operation Hawkeye in Northumberland, where efforts to disrupt poaching recovered £850,000-worth of property and arrested 65 people. From my experience of my Halifax constituency, which takes in urban and rural areas, quad bike and all-terrain vehicle theft and subsequent misuse is a massive and sustained challenge.

Last month, I was frustrated to hear that Todmorden junior football club, just down the Calder valley, was subject to a serious act of vandalism. One of its pitches was left badly scarred and unplayable by someone repeatedly driving a quad bike over it. Louise Leeming, the club’s welfare officer, said:

“They’ve completely trashed it, you can’t play on it. The council spent an absolute fortune repairing it and they”—

the vandals—

have just destroyed it.”

At a time when council funding is, frankly, being decimated, it is reprehensible that an individual would flagrantly seek to damage a much-needed facility for local children.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, however. Locally, in October, as part of Operation Heelfield, officers executed a section 26 warrant to arrest a Halifax man on suspicion of burglary after a recently stolen Yamaha Kodiak quad bike was found in his garage. In March, two quad bikes were seized by police after two males, who had been involved in using them antisocially, had abandoned them. That formed part of Operation Hedgeson, which was carried out by the Halifax neighbourhood policing team to pursue, catch and convict those responsible for causing a nuisance in our communities through their antisocial and dangerous behaviour on and off the roads with such quad bikes and ATVs.

Unfortunately, such stories are not surprising and occur far too often. According to statistics released by NFU Mutual, in 2021, West Yorkshire had the third-largest number of quad bike thefts in the country. As the hon. Gentleman said, estimates suggest that nationwide, between 900 and 1,200 quad bikes are stolen every year, and many end up circulating back on to the market in some way. An NFU Mutual crime report estimated that in 2021, rural theft cost the UK £40.5 million.

I am sure that hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to our local policing teams, who work incredibly hard to try to get ahead of the criminals in getting a grip on and tackling this problem, but they simply do not have the requisite resources or toolkit to completely clamp down on such crime. The Bill, if introduced, would be a formidable starting point, but there are no two ways about it: the underfunding and under-resourcing of our police forces have undermined their capabilities for more than a decade. Analysis carried out by the Labour party, which studied the budgets of all 43 police forces in England and Wales, found that, in 2021, police budgets were £1.6 billion down in real terms on when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. In August this year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said in a statement that crime detection and charge rates had dropped following austerity measures and a fall in police numbers since 2010. Its spokesperson said:

“Detection and charge rates for a range of crimes have fallen over the past five years.”

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

The shadow Minister is talking about policing figures and theft. Would she like to join me in welcoming the fact that, since March 2010—when Labour left office—theft figures have fallen by 46%, according to the crime survey for England and Wales, from 4.99 million theft offences to 2.69 million?

[Holly Lynch]

I would be really interested to see the details of those figures. I am sorry to say that detection rates, charge rates and prosecution rates are all going in the wrong direction under this Government. I gave a quote from the National Police Chiefs’ Council. If the Minister wants to take that up with the council, he can certainly do that. Its spokesperson said:

“Detection and charge rates for a range of crimes have fallen over the past five years…This has been impacted by austerity and the loss of thousands of police officers and staff, increasing complexity of policing and crime, growing demand related to mental ill health and impact of backlogs in the court system.”

[Chris Philp]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way again. I suppose she will not get many interventions from her own side, looking at the empty Opposition Benches, so I am happy to fill the gap. She mentioned police officer numbers. Would she like to join me in welcoming the fact that, come March next year—just four months’ time—when the police uplift programme is completed and 20,000 extra officers have been recruited, we will have about 149,000 police officers, which is more than at any time in the country’s history?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I thank Members on this side of the House for joining us today—the Benches opposite are disappointingly empty, I must say—to discuss this extremely important Bill. Let me begin by congratulating, strongly and warmly, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) on the eloquent way in which he presented it and on the persistent manner in which he developed it, over a long period—indeed, as some Members have pointed out, during the time spent by several of my predecessors in this role. He has made a compelling case for it today, and I can confirm straightaway that the Government fully support it. We will do all we can do ensure that it is on the statute book as quickly as possible, and is then implemented in full.

We believe that the Bill will provide an important additional tool to help the police to drive down crime, but of course this is by no means the only action we are taking in that regard. As I said earlier in an intervention on the shadow Minister, we are on track to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers by March next year—in just a few months’ time—when we will have about 149,000, a record number. Never in our country’s history will we have seen more police officers serving our constituents. As I also said earlier, the crime of theft has fallen by 46% since Labour left office. That is a track record of which I think Conservative Members, and the Government more widely, can be extremely proud.

This is a well-constructed Bill. It covers the theft of agricultural ATVs and equipment but also, potentially, wider categories, as a number of Members have pointed out. We expect it to lead to a significant decrease in the theft of such vehicles and equipment, as a result of, for instance, the requirement for immobilisers to be installed in newly sold ATVs and the requirement for forensic markings to be made standard. Those measures will make it much harder for criminals to sell on stolen material, and we believe they will serve as a strong deterrent.

As we have heard during the debate, the theft of agricultural vehicles from farmers can cause severe disruption to their work—work that is important not only to them, their families and their livelihoods but to the whole country, because it feeds us, our families and our constituents as well. It is therefore essential to ensure that they are protected. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham describe the widespread support that the Bill has received from interested parties, including the National Farmers Union and NFU Mutual.

The principle of the Bill is very important. The Government expect manufacturers to play their full part in protecting items from theft. Unfortunately, my predecessors did not have as much assistance as they would have wanted from parts of the manufacturing sector, which is why the Bill is so important.

The Bill will help to mitigate the significant effects felt by the agricultural community. As we have heard, about 900 quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles are stolen every year, which is simply unacceptable. NFU Mutual’s 2022 rural crime report said that the total cost of insurance claims due to the theft of agricultural vehicles—of course, that includes more than just ATVs—last year was £9.1 million. It is therefore extremely important that we take action in this area.

My hon. Friend said in his excellent speech that despite the technological advancements made across the ATV market, the inclusion of basic security features such as those that we have discussed has been much slower, despite the exhortations of some of my predecessors. The fitting of immobilisers and forensic markings as standard is an inexpensive and straightforward measure. We have assessed the cost of those two things and it is very reasonable at under £200 per machine, which is a small fraction of the typical cost of such machines. That modest cost is far outweighed by the benefits of reducing the thefts that we are tragically seeing.

I would like to spend a moment talking to some of the points raised in the various excellent speeches made by Government Members. I should say that the shadow Minister’s speech was excellent as well, apart from the slightly incomplete comments on crime, which has of course been going down, as the crime survey for England and Wales points out, to say nothing of the record police numbers that we will soon receive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) talked about expanding the Bill’s provisions not just to other agricultural equipment but to other equipment used by tradespeople, builders, craftsmen and so on. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) also made that point eloquently, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Tom Randall) and for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes).

I draw the House’s attention to clause 1(2), which sets out the kind of equipment that might be subject to the provisions that we have been discussing. In subsection (2)(a), we have mechanically propelled vehicles for use off-road. Subsection (2)(b) talks about

“other equipment designed or adapted primarily for use in agricultural or commercial activities.”

Of course, working as a builder or tradesperson would qualify as commercial activity. It will be open to the Secretary of State to make regulations in due course covering not just agricultural vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and so on, but the equipment used by builders and tradespeople that hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), have talked about.

Having heard what hon. Members said, what I can take back to the Department is that we should be looking at making regulations in those areas as well, certainly at some point. We may start with ATVs and agricultural vehicles and then move on. Those points were extremely well made, and they have certainly been heard by me and the Department.

A number of hon. Members made other good points, not least my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt)—he spoke second from the Back Benches—and for Southend West. There was also an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight)—who I do not think is in his place at the moment—about recording and ensuring that proper databases hold information on serial numbers and so on.

Again, I draw the House’s attention to clause 2, in particular subsections (2) and (3). The regulations that the Secretary of State can make may specify the kind of information that must be recorded. Subsection (2)(c) makes it clear that that includes the markings with a unique identifier. Subsection (3) specifies not just when the information is recorded and how long it must be kept, but the form in which it must be kept. Reference was made to storing that information online, so that it survives even if the business does not or it moves on. Subsection (3)(c) is very specific that that may include an online system—that is on line 25 of page 2 of the Bill.

Having listened to what Members have said today, I can say that making sure that the regulations also specify online information storage is a particularly important point. A few points have come out of this debate that will, genuinely, influence and change the way that we think about the regulations implementing the Bill once it becomes law, which I hope will happen as quickly as possible.

I also thank my hon. Friends the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and the Member for Leigh (James Grundy)—who talked about his family farm, the Grundy farm—for their extremely vivid descriptions of the impact that these crimes have on rural communities.

This is an extremely well-constructed piece of legislation. It clearly commands the support of everyone who has spoken on it and of the Opposition. I thank the shadow Minister for expressing her support for the Bill. Most of all, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to conclude by thanking, once again, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham for the work that he has done in developing the Bill so carefully and so thoughtfully, through so many different Ministers in recent months. He is doing the House, his constituents and the whole country a great service by bringing this Bill forward, and I put on record my thanks to him for everything that he has done.

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, for the second time in two days. I will keep this brief, but I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Buckingham on securing so much cross-party support for his private Member’s Bill and on getting it to Committee. We very much hope that the Bill will successfully play a part in clamping down on ATV and quad bike theft.

As other Members have outlined, this issue has long been prevalent in rural communities, afflicting those involved in agricultural work in particular, but as we have heard, the impact is felt in all our constituencies across the country in different ways. According to NFU Mutual, around 900 to 1,200 quad bikes are stolen every year. NFU Mutual’s most recent crime report, published in August 2022, found that rural theft had risen by 40% from the previous year, with the overall cost to the UK economy estimated at £40.5 million.

Quad bikes are predominantly manufactured by just two companies, with little technological development to the same basic key system they have had for over 35 years. I am reliably informed that it is possible to start up one of the most common makes and models of quad bike with just a screwdriver, and a quick Google search provides detailed instructions as to how to start these quad bikes without a key.

The theft of ATVs has a significant financial impact on both customers and insurers. As well as the financial impact, quad bike theft perpetuates further and wider criminal activity. On Second Reading, I spoke of a recent spate of quad bike theft-related crimes in my own constituency of Halifax. That includes their use in antisocial behaviour and vandalism. A number of hon. Members from all parties have made the point about vehicles, after their theft, being used in a variety of types of vandalism and antisocial behaviour afflicting communities, whether they are rural or urban.

As outlined, the Bill seeks to mandate the fitting of an immobiliser and forensic markings on all quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles sold in the UK. The Bill is relatively tight in scope, which is often the winning formula for a successful private Member’s Bill. However, it will also allow for the enactment of secondary legislation that could expand the Bill’s remit to cover other agricultural and construction equipment. Again, on Second Reading I spoke of the problem of theft from commercial vans—a point made by the right hon. Member for Chelmsford and others. According to research carried out by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in 2021, 27% of van drivers had fallen victim to tool theft in the previous 12 months. The total cost of all lost tools and equipment is estimated to be about £15 million a year. Volkswagen estimates that the associated downtime for drivers who must replace those tools costs £550 a day per van.

In conclusion, we very much welcome the opportunity to support the Bill through its passage on to the statute book. We hope that it makes the difference that we would all like to see, and we very much hope that there is a further opportunity to consider and evaluate its impact with regard to what other types of kit it might be appropriate to extend these protections to.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure once again to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Let me start by expressing my very warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham on the work that he has done in developing and bringing forward this Bill with a great deal of conscientiousness, perseverance and, most important of all, charm. That is a quality not universally present, I have to say—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] But it is certainly well represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. He has done a very good job of talking the Committee through the operative provisions of the Bill, so I do not propose to repeat what he has already said so eloquently, other than to make it clear that the Government very strongly support these measures, for the reasons that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have eloquently and powerfully set out. Clearly, agricultural communities the length and breadth of the United Kingdom are affected by ATV theft, and the provisions in the Bill will help us to combat that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said, the operative provisions of the Bill will be enacted via secondary legislation, so the principal thing that I would like to say is that work on preparing those regulations is happening at the moment. It is happening in parallel with the preparation of the Bill, so, as quickly as possible after commencement of the Bill, we will be able to bring forward the relevant statutory instruments to enact the provisions that we have been debating. That work is happening.

What I would mostly like to say, however, is that I have certainly heard the powerful opinions expressed on Second Reading, and again this morning in Committee, about a strong desire on both sides of the House to consider expanding the scope of the statutory instruments beyond just all-terrain vehicles to look at other agricultural equipment and also tradespeople’s tools. We have all had reports of often quite valuable tools being stolen from tradespeople’s vans. As hon. Members have said, that is not just a financial loss; it prevents tradespeople from working, sometimes for a number of days, which disrupts building projects and causes loss of earnings at a time when people obviously are struggling to make ends meet, so I am very powerfully seized of the need to look at that. I have asked Home Office officials to work on developing the statutory instruments to address it as well as doing the work on ATVs. That work is ongoing; they are doing the technical work to look at it at the moment, so I cannot make an absolute commitment that it will be done at the same time, but my starting position is that if we are going to bring forward statutory instruments under the Bill to deal with ATVs, why not do the other tools at the same time?

There may be some technical reason that I am not aware of why that is very difficult, but my starting position is that we should do both of them, or all of them, at the same time, later on this calendar year, so I will do whatever I can, as Minister, to try to make sure we do all of that. As I said, I am due to get some further advice on it, so there may be some technical elements that I am not aware of or some other arguments that get brought forward, but that is my intention, and it sounds like it has support on both sides of the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

It is extremely helpful that the Minister has put that on the record. However, will he confirm that if it proves that there are any technical obstacles to his being able to include that other equipment in the regulations, he will nevertheless stick to the timetable he just set and bring forward regulations on quad bikes and so on before Christmas?

[Chris Philp]

Yes. The intention is to do it as a minimum for ATVs. As I said, given how strong feelings are on both sides of the House, as expressed on Second Reading and in Committee this morning, I would like us to try to find a way to make it work. I know that Home Office officials are working on that at the moment. When my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and I spoke to the police superintendent responsible for fighting crime in this area, he was also supportive of going further.

[Grahame Morris]

Tackling the antisocial behaviour of individuals using quad bikes and all-terrain vehicles needs enormous police resource, including specialist equipment and specially trained officers, because those involved ride them in a reckless fashion, endangering themselves and others. If, as was suggested, we can do an early intervention, that would save a great deal of police resource that could be redeployed elsewhere.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The murmurs of assent that rippled around the Committee Room as he spoke indicate that Members on both sides of the Committee agree, and so do I.

I do not want to detain the Committee any further. This is a good Bill. The clauses were eloquently explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and it gives me great pleasure to add my support to that of other hon. Members.

[Greg Smith]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members on the Committee for their support. The last Committee I sat on was for the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which did not enjoy quite so much unanimity of belief and support. I am grateful to all Members and to the two principal parties for the cross-party support that the Bill has enjoyed.

Let me address the remarks made in the debate. I agree with the hon. Member for North Antrim that we need to find a way to ensure that the Bill’s provisions can be applied in Northern Ireland, and indeed Scotland. Hopefully, the Scottish Government as well as the Executive in Northern Ireland—when it is back up and running—will look at the provisions and find a way of ensuring that they apply to the whole of our United Kingdom and not just to England and Wales.

I absolutely agree with my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, as well as the many interventions on how the Bill’s scope must be extended as soon as is humanly possible. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister not only for his commitment on that but for having actively asked Home Office officials to start looking at exactly how it can be achieved. Just as the Bill will make a huge difference to farmers, landowners and those who rely on quad bikes, particularly for farming and land management, it would make a huge difference if the provisions could be extended to builders, plumbers, carpenters and all the other trades who lose so much money and time as well as often their businesses’ reputations when thieves rob them of the tools of their trade.

It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Once again, I thank not only all right hon. and hon. Members on the Committee for their support but the various bodies out there in the country including the NFU, NFU Mutual and all the manufacturers as well as the police and, in particular, Superintendent Andrew Huddleston, the Northumbria officer who is the national lead on rural crime, for everything that they have done to get the Bill to where it is. I look forward to taking it to its next stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 to 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is a great pleasure to speak on this important Third Reading debate. I begin by thanking hon. Members for joining us, particularly those who may have been elsewhere yesterday and perhaps, in some cases, may have had quite a late night.

I extend a particularly warm thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for taking the initiative and pursuing this private Member’s Bill with such eloquence, tenacity and ability. I congratulate him on corralling cross-party support from the Government, from Opposition Front Benchers and from hon. Members across the House, and I add my birthday felicitations to those that have been expressed. He has made a very good job of the Bill, which the Government have supported from the outset and which has received resounding support across the House on Second Reading, in Committee and today on Third Reading. It is a great example of Back Benchers, Government and law enforcement working together to protect hard-working people from various forms of theft.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), mentioned enforcement. A couple of days ago, I met Superintendent Huddleston, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s rural crime co-ordinator, and David Exwood, vice-president of the National Farmers Union, to discuss the significant impact that the Bill will have on protecting farmers from the effects of such thefts on individuals and businesses. The theft of agricultural vehicles from a farmer can cause severe disruption to essential cultivation work, as well as risking animal welfare and putting livelihoods on the line.

We are almost at the end of our programme to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers. When the programme concludes in just a few weeks’ time, we will have more police officers across England and Wales than at any point in our country’s history. We will substantially exceed the previous peak under the last Labour Government and deliver record numbers of officers, including in rural areas, where they will be able to police laws such as the Bill. It is a Conservative Government who have delivered those record numbers.

As a result of the Bill, we expect a real decrease in the theft of all-terrain vehicles. The introduction of the extremely effective technology of immobilisers and forensic marking will certainly help to prevent and deter theft and, in the case of forensic marking, to enable detection. It will make it harder for criminals to sell on stolen machinery, which will have an important deterrent effect. We have heard about how the theft of agricultural machinery, particularly all-terrain vehicles, is of great concern, and we recognise the distress caused when such property is stolen.

As hon. Members including the shadow Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) have said, there is a strong desire on both sides of the House to ensure that the statutory instruments made under the Bill go beyond all-terrain vehicles to include larger agricultural equipment and the tools used by tradespeople. To answer the shadow Minister’s question, I can confirm that my intention is to make statutory instruments under the Bill that deal not just with ATVs, but with other agricultural machinery and with tradespeople’s high-value tools. We will need to consult to ensure that we get the details right, but I would like us to cover all such equipment.

This excellent Bill will confer that flexibility. It may initially have been conceived with ATVs in mind, but its scope is far wider. Clause 1(2) will provide a statutory basis for secondary legislation to cover not just ATVs, but

“mechanically propelled vehicles that…have an engine capacity of at least 250 cubic centimeters”

and are designed for off-road use, which includes a whole load of other agricultural machinery. Clause 1(2)(b) clearly covers

“other equipment designed or adapted primarily for use in agricultural or commercial activities”,

including for builders and tradespeople. It strikes me as sensible to use the powers in the Bill to address that equipment as well.

[Jane Hunt]

I thank the Minister very much for what he has just said. It is an amazing thing, and lots of small businesses out there will be very grateful for it.

[Chris Philp]

This is a good example of parliamentary scrutiny delivering improvements. Those issues were raised forcefully by my hon. Friend and others on Second Reading and in Committee. The Government can, should and will respond. We need proper consultations with industry groups and others to ensure that we get the details right, but it strikes me as an important thing to do, as Members on both sides of the House have pointed out. Without question, it will benefit the entire economy by reducing theft—I am happy to make that clear once again on Third Reading.

Those consultations are very important. We need to get the details right, as I have said. We will work with industry groups, the police-led national business crime centre and the combined industries theft solutions group to help us understand the details. We are grateful for the expertise that those bodies bring to bear in this area.

I would like to conclude—often the most popular line in my speeches—by putting on record my thanks to the National Farmers Union and the National Police Chiefs Council lead for construction and agricultural machinery theft, Superintendent Andy Huddleston, who I met just a few days ago, for their work developing the measures in the Bill. Most of all, I thank the birthday boy, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, for the initiative he has shown in introducing the Bill.

[Greg Smith]

With the leave of the House, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions, not least their kind words in wishing me a happy birthday. I recommend to all right hon. and hon. Members a sitting Friday as the perfect definition of what a good birthday looks like. In particular, I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), who has supported this Bill throughout. He pointed out that the demand right now is outstripping supply, which is giving a far greater urgency to the need for the provisions of the Bill.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), who like me is a fan of “Clarkson’s Farm,” which has done more to bring the British public closer to the realities of British farming than “Countryfile” has managed in decades. He pointed out that GPS units are a particularly targeted item of equipment at the moment, particularly as farms have moved to a reliance on GPS units for spraying, drilling and bringing the harvest in with the combine. The loss of that equipment has a massive impact on yields and on the ability to feed the nation.

The hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) made a very valid point about hill farmers’ reliance on quad bikes and ATVs. I do not have many hill farms in my constituency, but in many parts of the country that is incredibly important. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) referenced the Pig & Abbot pub rural crime survey. He highlighted that all 30 of the farmers he spoke to had been a victim of rural crime, underlying the necessity for the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) pointed out that we need to ensure that rural crime is a priority for the additional police officers that the Government are recruiting.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for her support and for being one of the voices to push for the extension of the Bill into many other sectors, including tool theft. I have to give special thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) for supporting me in the original iteration of this Bill as a ten-minute rule Bill a couple of years ago, all the way through Second Reading and in Committee, and now on Third Reading. I am very grateful for her support and her voice, as acknowledged by my right hon. Friend the Minister a few moments ago, to ensure that we got the Bill beyond just quad bikes and ATVs, to protect all our trades up and down the land from tool theft.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), another constituency neighbour, made a very valid point on the stress that equipment theft brings to farmers and tradespeople. When that equipment is gone, people cannot do their jobs and earn their living. Their livelihoods are brought under question, particularly in agriculture, because when the crops need to come in, they have to come in. If people have lost that equipment, it has a huge impact on food production and on animal welfare; the equipment is vital to ensuring that our farmers are able to deliver.

I am grateful once again to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). He may not have many combine or tractor thefts in his constituency, but I assure him that when a combine or other agricultural machinery is stolen, it has an impact on us all, because it affects the food production that farmers up and down the land are able to deliver. We will all go hungry if farmers are not able to do the work they want to do. I offer my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Opposition for supporting the Bill and enabling its smooth passage thus far.

My right hon. Friend the Minister has been a great support throughout the process. I have been grateful for our conversations outside the Chamber as well as those inside it and in Committee. I am grateful for the Government’s support and particularly grateful for his comments this afternoon that the Bill can go further and that the provisions in the Bill to enable him and the Home Secretary to bring in secondary legislation to expand its scope will make a huge difference in defending our farms, our tradespeople and everybody who depends on such equipment to go about their day-to-day lives. I am confident that the Bill will make a huge difference and I am grateful to the Minister for his enthusiasm and support in making it happen.

Finally, an enormous number of people have contributed to getting the Bill to where it is now. I once more place on record my thanks and gratitude to Superintendent Andy Huddleston and to Inspector Hutchings of the Thames Valley Police rural crime taskforce. I thank Anna Dawson and the whole office team at the Home Office for the support they have given throughout the process, from sitting with me in one of the first roundtables with manufacturers, at Yamaha in Reading, to getting the Bill to this point. I thank the NFU vice president David Exwood and the whole team at the National Farmers Union and NFU Mutual for their support.

I also put on record my thanks for the expert advice and efficiency of the Public Bill Office, particularly Anne-Marie Griffiths, who has supported me so ably in getting all the details and the right procedures in place for this Bill. I thank my senior parliamentary assistant, Ian Kelly, who has done an enormous amount of heavy lifting to support me in getting us to where we are today.

Finally, as hopefully the Bill leaves this House and goes to the other place, I thank my noble friend, Lord Blencathra. When he was a Member of this House, he specialised in talking out private Members’ Bills, but I am delighted that he has agreed to pilot this one through the House of Lords. I am very confident that he will do so with great skill and ability and ensure that this Bill, which can do so much for rural Britain, for our farmers and for our tradespeople, whichever trade they are in, can make a huge and lasting difference.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.