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.