Scrap Metal Theft

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is wonderful that so many Members are here for this important debate. Scrap metal theft is destructive, distressing and expensive. It is poorly legislated for, and we need to put that right.

Every MP has their own stories about metal theft and its impact. Mine are about, among other things, the desecration of war memorials; the destruction of phone services, church roofs and park benches; a school in Nottinghamshire remaining closed today, affecting 500 children aged three to 11, following thieves stripping lead from the roofs, which then collapsed into a classroom overnight, as the Priestsic primary school in Sutton-in-Ashfield bears witness to—there could have been a tragedy; the theft last week of the lead from the St Leodegarius church in my constituency, where my great grandfather was married; and my waiting at St Pancras station with hundreds of others the other week because of train cancellations caused by theft of trackside cabling not so long ago.

This even followed me on holiday to the Isle of Skye in Scotland last week, where cable thieves stupidly targeted fibre optic cables, leaving 9,000 homes and business in the north-west highlands not only without broadband and phone lines, but cut off from emergency services; a whole community was deprived of ambulance, fire and police services. These thieves are not the brightest buttons in the box; sadly for them, nine of them have died in commissioning this sort of crime in the past year.

In my city of Nottingham, 590 offences were recorded in the past 12 months; some 48% of all reported metal thefts come from people’s homes and 45% were thefts of lead from buildings. That is why I was asked by my city to convene two meetings with Ministers, for which I am most grateful. One was with the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice in October 2011 and the other was with Lord Henley, the Minister in the other place, in December 2011. I went with local crime reduction officers and Councillor Alex Norris from Nottingham to put forward our proposals, some of which are now coming to fruition in this Chamber. What all this demonstrates is that the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 is woefully insufficient to regulate this crime.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about thefts from the home, and he is, of course, concentrating on metal theft. May I just tell the House that in Leicester the theft of gold is particularly affecting many Asian families and Asian businesses? I do not think that gold is covered by the legislation to which he just referred, so if the Minister is going to introduce proposals and take steps—I know he has been examining this—I hope they will deal with the theft of gold.

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes his point in his normal astute way, remaining well within the bounds of order, as we would expect.