Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Debate between Jeremy Browne and Richard Ottaway

Friday 9th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

It looks like lazy drafting to me. Certain things should be carried out by district councils and others by county councils. The point of legislation is to deem which is the most appropriate. I would venture, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has done, that the matter should be dealt with by county councils, but we will see what others think.

Amendment 141 would be significant. With regard to mobile collectors, it would replace the term “regularly engages” with

“engages on more than 300 days in a calendar year”.

This gets at whether mobile collecting is somebody’s full-time occupation. The Bill states that the mobile collector must be regularly engaged in door-to-door sales to be registered, but what constitutes “regularly” is surely open to dispute. My amendment would make sense of that. Does the measure regularise the “Steptoe and Son” people who might be out there? I do not know what the Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South mean by “regularly”, so some clarity on that would help.

Amendments 145 and 146 relate to the offence of recklessly making a statement after being requested to provide further evidence. It is one thing to have an offence of knowingly making a false statement, but adding the word “recklessly” gets us into dangerous territory. I am not entirely sure what the definition of “reckless” is in this regard. Perhaps the Minister could help, or perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, who is usually an expert in this field, could tell us what “recklessly” means. It would be best to leave the word out and leave it at “knowingly”.

That relates to my amendments in this group. I am not too happy with one or two others, and I intended to talk about those, but given that time is pressing and we have other matters to discuss, I will leave my comments there. I do so in the hope that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South will accept that my amendments have been tabled in an attempt to help the Bill and provide the scrutiny that it deserves, so that we end up with legislation that we are all happy with—that is the whole point of the Report stage of a Bill.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I have to confess, having listened to my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) for the past hour or two, that I have quite a lot of affection for both of them. The contribution that they make to scrutinising private Members’ Bills should not be ignored. To that extent, they do the House a service. I call them friends in the political sense, and in the opposition years we worked closely together on the 1922 Committee. I do not therefore dismiss their arguments lightly. But given that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, in an interview with Materials Recycling World, said that he would not talk out the Bill, I do not want to do his job for him. I shall simply say that I support the new clause moved by the Minister, but I am not persuaded by the force of the arguments for the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends.

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) for the brevity of his contribution. I will not match it entirely, but I will be brief. To a degree, I too commend my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) on the rigour with which they scrutinise Government and non-Government legislation. I by no means wish to imply that that is an inappropriate role for them to play in the House, but this is a fairly uncontroversial Bill. It has been supported by all parties and there was a collegiate spirit in Committee, where we sought collectively to try to ensure that the Bill is as successful as possible. Some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends would not add to the Bill, and I shall give a couple of examples.

The question of whether it was appropriate to include the site manager in the relevant document was discussed at length. The Government have consulted on this issue with relevant authorities and it was felt appropriate to include the site manager, for reasons that Members will understand. The site manager is responsible for managing the site, and so ultimately what happens on the site is for him or her to oversee, so we regard him or her as an appropriate person.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley mentioned the period of 300 days for people who collect door to door. In earlier stages of the Bill, we were criticised for being arbitrary about figures, but we have sought to make the legislation workable in practice. It would be very hard to determine precisely which days a person was collecting and which they were not. I think most people would still regard that person as being a full-time metal collector, so we have sought to amend the Bill to work in practice, with the agreement of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley talked about 28 days’ notice and whether that was an appropriate amount of time. His amendment suggested three months. We do regard 28 days as appropriate, but one can argue for another number. We want the register to be up to date, both with the local authority and the Environment Agency, which is why we want notification of those who have ceased to trade. Therefore, 28 days strikes us as an appropriate figure.

Rather than going on at greater length, not least because my cough is making my voice momentarily fail, I will just say that, as I said at the beginning, the Government new clause and amendments strengthen the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South. The other amendments do not have that effect, so we urge the House to agree to the Government new clause and amendments and reject the others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Ottaway]

I am afraid that I cannot offer much comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) either. Although I support the Government’s new clause and their amendments, I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the amendments tabled by him and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

I will engage briefly with the points raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope).

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley spoke to amendment 66 on financial penalties. Of course, we can always believe that such penalties should be higher or lower, but we believe that those in the Bill are proportionate. He also tabled amendment 73, on proper records, and amendment 74, on the requirement to keep paperwork for three years. A desire to regulate the industry effectively goes to the heart of the Bill. Obviously, we need scrap metal dealers to keep proper, orderly records; otherwise it is not possible for local authorities or the police to check that they are buying and selling the metal that they claim to be buying and selling. We cannot have a Bill in which there is no requirement to keep proper records, because that would mean that we would have to be satisfied with improper, sloppy or inadequate records instead. We are seeking to be consistent and to make the Bill sufficiently onerous in order for it to be effective.

In amendment 66, my hon. Friend seems to be concerned that the fines are too onerous. It is a difficult situation, because my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch thinks that the Government are too worried about punishing transgressors, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley seems to have adopted a whole new approach, namely that the Government’s attitude is overly tough and that they fine at a level that is, in his view, inappropriately high. We think that we have struck the right balance.

On amendment 132, I am reliably informed that most metal salvage operators are scrap metal dealers. We do not want two overlapping schemes. The way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) has framed the Bill should reduce the regulatory burden on motor salvage operators.

There has been considerable discussion of what constitutes scrap metal and a scrap metal dealer. We are satisfied with the definition in the Bill. It does not specify every single item that could be construed as being scrap metal, but we think that the definition encompasses them, to the satisfaction of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). On the difference between old and used, as I understand it, if I have an old car that has reached the end of its life—this is the crucial point—it might be suitable to be turned into scrap metal. Under the definition provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, if I had bought a car yesterday and had driven it back from the showroom and it was then turned into scrap metal by someone on my behalf, it would also be regarded as scrap metal, but I think that most people would understand the distinction that it would not be old and, therefore, not scrap metal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Browne and Richard Ottaway

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to tackle metal theft.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

The Government are delivering a coherent package of measures to tackle metal theft, which includes: banning cash payments for scrap metal; enhancing law enforcement through the national metal theft taskforce; and improving the traceability of stolen metal. We are also working with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) to support his private Member’s Bill to reform the scrap metal industry.

[Mr Browne]

I will make two brief points on that. First, we are keen to encourage people to report wrongdoing in this sector, where there has been widespread abuse, as it is important that that is addressed. Secondly, I hope that one of the main benefits of the measures that have been introduced is that legitimate scrap metal dealers, whose businesses have been hampered by having to compete with people who are breaking the law, will now be able to operate in a culture where it will be easier for their businesses to be profitable

[Richard Ottaway]

In the light of the Government’s laudable decision to commemorate the centenary of the first world war, does the Minister agree that my Scrap Metal Dealers Bill will do much to counter the vandalism of graveyards and war memorials? Does he also agree that to support the Bill is to recognise the significance of the first world war, a legacy that future generations should never forget?

[Mr Browne]

The House will not be surprised to learn that I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Scrap metal theft is a serious crime that can have serious and expensive consequences, but Members in all parties will feel that when it involves the desecration of war memorials, particularly those relating to the two great wars of the past century, in which so many British and Commonwealth soldiers died, that is particularly offensive to our sensibilities. I very much hope that his private Member’s Bill, and other measures being taken by the Government, will help to address that appalling behaviour.