Railways: Theft

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 3rd October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord in expressing regret at the departure of my noble friend. We will all miss her very much on these Benches and I only hope that I can perform even half as well as she did, although I hope that I can get majorities larger than the equality that she got on the last Division that she took through this House. We will certainly miss her on this Front Bench.

The noble Lord is right to point to the problems of metal theft. There is not just the direct cost but the cost to the transport industry, to the power transmission industry and to others. We will look at all possible changes that we can make. The noble Lord is right to draw attention to the 1964 Act and possible changes to bring in a cashless model. Whether that would necessarily improve matters needs looking at, but it would certainly improve the traceability of metals and might make it harder for criminals to dispose of them for cash. That is why we want to look at it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that we are still legally in the age of Steptoe and Son and that it really is now time to bring the legislation up to date, in particular to give the police stronger powers to intervene to close down illicit scrap merchants who trade in stolen property and make absolutely no effort to discover where it has come from?

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is quite right to draw attention to the problems, but it is not just the police who have a role in this; I am thinking of the previous department which I had the honour to serve in. The Environment Agency also has a role, although, admittedly, that role is reserved purely for environmental matters. There is no reason why that role should not be extended to deal with those who are trading in an irresponsible or criminal manner. Having said that, one should always be aware of the danger that one just shifts the problems on to illegal sites and it is therefore very important that we look very carefully at anything we do and what the consequences of any action are likely to be.