Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Lord Henley Excerpts

Friday 30th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as always, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate, particularly as he ended with remarks about the importance of the recycling industry. As a former Defra Minister, and particularly when I was a Home Office Minister with responsibility for metal theft, I always felt that it was very important that whatever we did, we maintained the success of that industry and continued to see that as much recycling of metal went on as possible but to make sure that it was legit. I think that that is what we are all trying to do.

I also thank the right reverend Prelate because I think that he was the first to come to see me after I moved to the Home Office to tell me about the problems that the church in particular was facing in terms of metal theft. I seem to remember that the day on which he came to see me also was the day when a few local difficulties were starting at St Paul’s. He might have had other matters on his mind but certainly he put his point to me forcefully. That point has been made by my noble friend Lady Browning and others as regards the problems that we are facing as a result of metal theft and the increased price of metal. We have seen an increased amount of metal theft. My noble friend made clear the problems we have been having with train delays and problems with the emergency services, hospitals losing power, loss of communications, theft from war memorials and churches, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said, we are now seeing deaths occurring as a result of metal theft.

In my time as a Home Office Minister, I made it clear that the old 1964 Act was past its sell-by date. I think that was the phrase which I used. New legislation is necessary. Therefore, I am very grateful to my honourable friend Richard Ottaway and to my noble friend Lady Browning for bringing forward legislation. However, legislation should not be the only method that we look at to help solve this problem. Therefore, I am also very grateful to my noble friend for stressing the importance of mitigation by means of design. I am very grateful for all the work that has been done in the Home Office. I hope that my noble friend will refer to that when he replies to the debate. That work involves making metals more traceable and looking for new materials which are less stealable to replace some metals. I appreciate the work that is being done on mitigation measures and that which has been done on enforcement.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for his comments on the success of Operation Tornado. I seem to remember that in the initial stages of that operation there was a decline in occurrences of this problem of something like 50% in the north-east. I would be grateful if my noble friend could give us further figures on declines in the incidence of this problem not only in the north-east but in the rest of the country.

I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for the amendment that he brought forward on the LASPO Bill. As he put it, he could not quite understand why we had to have the exemption for itinerant sellers in that Bill. I hoped that I had explained why it was necessary to have that exemption at the time, but the noble Lord obviously did not understand the explanations that I gave on that occasion. However, that problem will be dealt with in this Bill, so I hope that it will go away.

I wanted to make only a brief intervention in this debate to offer my support as a former Home Office Minister, and one who was very grateful for the fact that my honourable friend was able to introduce the Bill in the Commons. I am even more grateful for the fact that my noble friend was able to bring it forward in this House. I look forward to a very speedy passage of this Bill through this House. Given the support for it that we have had so far in this debate, and which I am sure it will continue to have, I am sure that it will be a very speedy passage. Like others, I commend it to the House.