Metal Theft

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

As we have heard, the explosion of metal theft in recent years has affected churches, railways lines, war memorials and countless public sector buildings, ranging from schools to hospitals, up and down the country. Criminals are hitting our city centres as well as many rural villages, making this a truly national crime. The growing problem of metal theft is costing the British economy more than £770 million a year, although the suspected number of unreported metal theft cases means that it could be argued that the overall cost to the economy is actually even higher. It is therefore right that the Government tackle this issue as a matter of urgency. As such, I am pleased to see that they are prohibiting the use of cash to pay for scrap metal. A cashless system will bring greater transparency to the scrap metal industry and will reduce the often anonymous transactions that enable criminals to sell on much of their stolen metal before disappearing without trace. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), I wish to use this opportunity to welcome the Government’s £5 million funding, as outlined last November, to establish a dedicated metal theft taskforce.

Although I commend the Government’s recent actions on this issue, I wish to focus the rest of my contribution on how we must now keep the momentum going. It would be foolish for us to believe that a cashless system alone will adequately stem the tide of metal theft. After all, as with all robust reforms, there is always a danger that clamping down on illegal activity within a specific sector will drive the activity further underground and into a deeper and more dangerous black market. So I urge Ministers to commit to a fundamental review of the situation in six months’ time, when I believe that the Government’s timely reforms will have had time to take hold. It is imperative that we do not simply introduce such reforms and then sit back, because there is a real chance that the scale of the problem will require even more measures to be implemented in due course. For example, should the first draft of the robust reforms fail to cut it, will the Government also consider providing police officers with new powers to enter and inspect registered and non-registered scrap metal sites, as suggested by the Select Committee on Transport? Likewise, should metal theft be plunged into a deeper black market, will Ministers consider implementing the sensible measures proposed in today’s motion? I will not go into all of these radical suggestions in detail, but they could all play a vital role in a strong second phase of the fight against metal theft.

I urge the ministerial team not to take their eye off the ball on this issue. Metal theft is a hugely expensive and disruptive crime, which has offered criminals a high return in recent years because of the rise in global commodity prices. After a suitable period of time I hope that the Secretary of State will update the House on progress and, if necessary, introduce further measures to penetrate the core of this damaging criminal activity, which cannot continue to go unchecked.