Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Friday 13th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Whenever a Member comes high in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, he quickly realises how popular he is, but I had no doubt about what Bill I wanted to introduce, even though today is Friday the 13th. My concern over the scourge of metal theft started on a cold January morning in 2009, when the organist at Croydon parish church made a discovery of profound consequences. Melting snow was running through the roof, into the side chapels, choir vestry and straight on to the 19th-century Hill organ, causing serious damage. Not for the first time, bloody-minded thieves had targeted the grade I-listed church. On this occasion, they had stripped 200 square metres of lead from the roofs, causing more than £150,000 of damage—for metal worth little more than £4,000.

Everybody in the House has a constituency story about scrap metal theft, and to me the assault on Croydon minster highlights a common theme: the shocking disparity between the value of the stolen metal and the financial and emotional hurt and damage that the theft causes. My constituency has been hit consistently by metal theft. Public buildings, churches, schools and telecoms cables have been repeatedly targeted, and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) had the plaque stolen from his father’s grave. There was public outrage over the theft of two plaques from the Sanderstead war memorial that bore the names of 45 local people who sacrificed their lives in world war one. Two priceless plaques are lost to us for ever. Their scrap value was probably £50 but their value to the community was beyond measure.

Croydon has had the highest rate of metal theft in London. On average, London boroughs suffer five thefts a week, but in recent years Croydon has averaged 10. Twenty eight thefts were recorded in one week in April, and in May British Transport police conducted a high-profile raid on a scrap metal yard in west Croydon, recovering hundreds of crematorium and cemetery plaques. Since that raid, the number of reported metal thefts in the borough has plummeted by 38%. This backs up what the police tell us: that the scrap metal industry is the main outlet for stolen metal. It also exposes the failings of our current legislation, which was crafted more than half a century ago.

The House will be dismayed by the theft this week of a Henry Moore sculpture from the Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham. Metal thefts are hitting people across the UK daily. Energy networks are now averaging 16 incidents a day, and last year British Telecom received 100,000 customer reports of faults that occurred as a direct result of cable theft. In the past six years, more than a third of churches have been robbed. Insurance claims connected with such thefts have gone up by 70%, and in 2011 they reached a record high of £4.5 million, with the total cost to the Church of England exceeding £10 million.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I will not delay the House; I want to make just a quick intervention. I am told that some churches have had so many thefts that they are paying to have any remaining lead on their roofs stripped and replaced with inferior materials, simply because they cannot afford to keep claiming on the insurance or having the work done. They are therefore going to the other extreme and almost becoming metal theft vandals themselves. Let me also flag up for the hon. Gentleman another problem that is affecting many ordinary folk. A constituent of mine was outside cleaning his fridge-freezer—it was almost brand new. He popped in to boil the kettle, and when he came out it had gone, on the back of a truck somewhere. That is the level that some of these people are stooping to.

[Richard Ottaway]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in his first point. Having to replace roofs causes heritage problems. The low level of much of this crime is a point I will come to shortly.

The cost of metal theft to local authorities has shot up by 26% in a year. The latest stats reveal that nearly nine out of 10 councils across England and Wales have been the victims of scrap thieves. Road signs and drain covers are regularly disappearing. The cost to the UK economy has been estimated at more than £750 million by the Association of Chief Police Officers. In all honesty, however, the real figure is probably much higher.

What cannot be overestimated, however—it is very hard to measure—is the devastating impact that a single theft can have on the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. The theft of £40 of copper can cause £500,000-worth of damage. Three times this year, thieves have taken BT copper cables from the same spot in Bexley. Each time they knocked out about 2,000 landlines for four days. An entire community of homes lost broadband, mobile signals and the internet. Pendant alarms on elderly people could not work. In an emergency, no one could call 999 or even a relative. One shudders to think of the consequences if a serious event had occurred. Llandough hospital near Cardiff suffered a similar attack in December, resulting in the postponement of more than 80 operations, including for eight cancer patients. Last August, thieves broke into a house in Hartlepool to steal copper from a gas boiler, which led to a gas leak, a fire and a huge explosion. More than 100 people were evacuated and bystanders were injured by flying shards of glass.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

The incident the hon. Gentleman mentions in Bexley occurred in my constituency. One of the companies there—an old, established company—has been in touch with me three times this year because, exactly as he says, its phone and e-mail communications were stripped out. That resulted in the company losing thousands of pounds of orders, which puts jobs at risk, and that is in one firm in an industrial area. It is therefore hard to calculate how many jobs have been put at risk or how many firms on the edge might just teeter over because of metal theft.

[Richard Ottaway]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I am sure we all share her concern about the events that took place in her constituency. She has illustrated the disparity between the scrap metal costs and the damage to society that results from such behaviour.

Metal theft has also had a serious impact in the transport sector. Last year, 36,000 rail services were delayed or cancelled in Great Britain as a result of cable theft. Two of Network Rail’s biggest delays ever were on key commuter routes from London, at Bermondsey and Woking, causing around 200 trains to be cancelled. Many thousands of passengers, including my constituents, were seriously delayed.

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

Cable theft is not only enormously disruptive to the travelling public, but incredibly dangerous to those trying to do it. Only on 27 June a man presumed to have been trying to steal electricity cables was electrocuted in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that the ease with which people can sell the metal is encouraging quite a lot of people to put their lives at risk?

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. In fact, I am reliably informed that 12 people were killed last year in the process of stealing electrified cables.

We are talking not about petty theft but about an industry, with criminals holding our society to ransom. Why? It is because they see metal theft as a soft target. The police tell us that metal theft is emerging as a new acquisitive crime. It is a low-risk enterprise, with plenty of vulnerable targets to plunder. Around 80% of people linked to cable theft live within six miles of the crime location. Clearly, they have no fear of being caught. The surge is driven partly by the low risk of detection. The lack of an effective framework to combat metal theft has a lot to answer for. We need new legislation to disrupt and then shut down the trade in stolen metal.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this important Bill. Does he agree that in rural constituencies such as Staffordshire Moorlands, police resources are being diverted to deal with metal theft in isolated areas, such as in pubs that are being renovated, as we have seen in my constituency? The police are being distracted from what they should be doing and are instead having to monitor isolated rural areas for metal thieves.

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Indeed, I will come to the question of enforcement a bit later.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the low risk of being caught is driving much of this theft. What assessment has he made of the use of SmartWater? Where it has been used by churches, Network Rail or war memorials—indeed, SmartWater provides the product to war memorials free of charge—the amount of theft has gone down considerably, because the chance of being caught goes up considerably.

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Putting SmartWater on to cables and using a UV light on materials that come into yards is acting as a deterrent. However, such is the nature of market forces that people are already beginning to find a way round that. Technology has to move on and continue to provide a deterrent—again, a point I shall come to in a minute.

The escalating problem of scrap metal theft results from the confluence of two things: the global rise in commodity prices over recent years and a badly regulated industry, which my Bill will tackle. It proposes a tough but fair regime for our scrap metal industry. It will support legitimate dealers and penalise the parasites who profit from the things we hold most sacred.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the incident at Llandough hospital, which affected the operations of very many of my constituents. Surely there is also a third aspect: what happens at the present time to those engaged in such activities who are caught. We had another incident in south Wales—a notorious incident—involving the Pontardulais town band, all of whose instruments were stolen. The leader of the band contacted the local scrap metal dealer to warn him of the theft, yet half an hour later the instruments were received by the dealer, crushed, for £61, and the court imposed a £500 compensation order. Is that not part of the problem as well?

[Richard Ottaway]

Absolutely, and those are two points that I shall be coming to. Indeed, as my hon. Friend has illustrated, in some cases half an hour can be too long. Sometimes it takes only minutes from the theft for the metal to become untraceable, it having been processed and converted into cash by thieves.

I have visited many scrap yards in recent weeks—I can assure the House that in this weather it has been a character-forming experience for me. There are more than 2,500 legal scrap yards and hundreds of illegal ones. At the bottom of the industry’s pyramid are the thousands of mobile collectors—sometimes known as “itinerants”—who collect scrap metal from houses, small businesses, plumbers, electricians and factories. We have no idea of the numbers or exactly what they get up to, which is part of the problem. Mobile collectors sell scrap metal to yards, which clean up the product, stripping cable from wires, sorting the different metals—lead, copper, brass: you name it—chopping up large bits of metal into small pieces and packaging it into lots for onward sale. The small yards feed it to the medium-size yards, which continue to process it and sell it to the large yards. The majority of the non-ferrous metal that comes out at the end is packed into 25-tonne containers and exported abroad, or sent to the 20 to 30 furnaces in the UK.

The greatest opportunity for stolen metals to get into the chain arises at the bottom of the pyramid. Some of this is done by organised criminals, and some by young kids trying to make a quick buck. Either way, we have a problem that needs to be addressed. It is the prevalence of cash transactions, together with the anonymity and lack of traceability of the stolen metals, that fosters criminal activity. It is all too easy to convert stolen metal into cash within minutes. With the world price of copper at almost £5,000 per tonne, the temptation is irresistible.

We need new legislation. The existing regulatory regime is the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964. Incidentally, that legislation was introduced as a private Member’s Bill following a spike in world commodity prices, so things do not change much. The Act is now out of date and requires wholesale reform. Under its provisions, scrap metal dealers are required to register with local authorities, but the authorities have no power to turn down or revoke a licence. Indeed, the obligation to get a licence is often ignored. There is nothing to compel accurate record keeping or to verify the ID of the seller. False names and addresses are logged with impunity—Mr M. Mouse and Mr D. Duck seem to be regular traders. Under the Act, there is a complete lack of co-ordination between the authorities, which have limited powers of inspection. Scrap metal dealers are also able to trade in cash.

Concerns have been expressed over the proposal in my Bill to outlaw cash payments altogether, and I should like to address that point directly. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, will ban cash payments except for mobile collectors and car breakers. I welcome this move, but it does not go far enough. We are still left with numerous points where stolen metal can be sold for cash and infect the pyramid.

Allowing cash payments for itinerant collectors in house-to-house collections creates a loophole. That is where most of the criminal activity takes place. Before we know where we are, businesses will be run from garages and the back gardens of people’s homes. A complication arises because those collectors also collect from businesses, and the product is mixed up. It then becomes impossible to identify which metal has come from households and which has come from businesses.

No records are kept and no taxes are paid. A mobile dealer who handles, say, three to four tonnes of scrap metal a day—which is not unusual—could earn up to £200,000 a year, which is significantly above the £77,000 VAT threshold. Once business taxes are taken into account, it is estimated that more than £1 billion is being lost to the taxman each year. This practice creates a distorted marketplace, with bona fide registered dealers paying VAT and taxes while the tax avoider gets a competitive advantage. The industry itself is crying out for a level playing field.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

That is a crucial point. The largest and most legitimate scrap metal dealer in Southampton frequently makes the point not only to me but to the police that there has to be a level playing field, and that there must be a complete ban on cash transactions so that legitimate businesses that pay their taxes are not disadvantaged by those that are using the loopholes that my hon. Friend has identified.

[Richard Ottaway]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support for this, the most controversial part of my Bill. This is the area in which the most criminality exists, and we need to tackle it head on.

[Robert Flello]

I was on one of my regular visits to parts of my constituency with the police recently, and we were sitting near a scrap metal yard that has been identified as creating a nuisance. As we watched the vans going in, the police officer I was with would frequently say, “He’s known to the police.” The drivers of many of the vehicles going into the yard were known to the police for other acts of criminality. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this reinforces his point?

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[Richard Ottaway]

Absolutely. It also reinforces my point that, although the police might have knowledge or suspicion of criminal activity, it is hard to prove when there are no records. There is often no way of pinning that criminal activity on the offenders.

My Bill will repeal the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 and addresses the cashless loophole by introducing a comprehensive ban on cash payments for scrap metal, including for mobile collectors and vehicle salvage operators. It is worth noting that when France introduced cashless payments last year, metal theft in Paris fell by 50%. My Bill will also oblige scrap metal dealers to verify the ID of all sellers of metal at the point of sale and keep records of the transaction available for inspection for a period of two years.

This will build on the notable success of Operation Tornado, a voluntary scheme led by the British Transport police under the wing of the national metal theft taskforce. It requires anyone selling scrap metal to dealers to provide photographic proof of ID. The results so far are impressive. The initial pilot scheme was in the north-east, and in the first six months, overall results showed a 50% drop in metal thefts. In the city of Durham, there was a fall of 73%. Operation Tornado is now being rolled out across the country, and we all have high hopes for its continued success.

The key feature of my Bill is the provision, in clauses 1 and 2, that no one may carry on a business as a scrap metal dealer unless they have a licence from their local authority. That will include motor salvage operators. The licence will be valid for three years, and a licence fee will be charged to cover the cost to local authorities of administering the licensing regime and ensuring compliance.

Clause 3 will give local authorities the power to turn down applicants unless they are satisfied that the applicant is a suitable person to carry on business as a scrap metal dealer. Unsuitability may be determined by a range of factors, including a criminal conviction. Clause 4 will give local authorities the power to revoke a licence. The Bill will also give the police and local authorities greater powers to take action against unregistered dealers. It contains powers to enter and inspect, and clause 9 will give the police and local authorities the power to close unlicensed premises with a court order. At long last, we will be able to ensure that any scrap metal dealer, whether mobile, on a site or a motor salvage operator will not be allowed to conduct business without a licence.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to my hon. Friend’s comments about the licensing of scrap metal dealers, but I am still at a loss to understand how we can prevent people who steal metal from war memorials—as happened in Lingfield, in my constituency—from selling it. Even a licensed dealer could still buy stolen metal.

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend makes a key point. The Bill on its own is not a silver bullet. It is part of the overall picture, and it will be necessary to work with the Home Office and the police on its enforcement. The Bill will give the authorities the necessary power to implement a much tougher regime than the one that we have now, which is manifestly not working.

Clause 7 provides for the creation of a single, national publicly available register of all licensed scrap metal dealers, which will be maintained by the Environment Agency. It will be fully transparent and accessible to the public, and will for the first time give a national picture of the industry. That is another feature that I hope will be welcomed.

The current legislation does nothing to stop metal theft. It does nothing to incentivise good trading standards. It excludes mobile collectors from rules on cash payments, and it does nothing to support the law-abiding, legitimate scrap metal dealers. I believe that my Bill will address those woeful shortcomings. The worst breaches of the provisions of my Bill, such as operating as a scrap metal dealer without a licence, trading in cash or failing to keep proper records of dealings, will attract punitive unlimited fines. Many have complained that sentences for metal thieves do not reflect the economic and emotional impact of the crime. That matter will be considered by the Sentencing Council this autumn.

As I have said, the Bill is not a silver bullet; it will not provide all the answers. It is part of a comprehensive plan to address the overall problem. Many questions have been raised about scrap metal exports. Much of that goes through our ports in containers—some legally, some illegally—and intelligence evidence suggests the majority of stolen metals that find their way into those containers have been through scrap metal dealerships first. However, I am pleased to report that excellent work is being done in this area, under the umbrella of the national metal theft taskforce, which I hope will continue to receive financial support from the Government. Analysts from the British Transport police, who co-ordinate the taskforce, have joined forces with the UK Border Agency, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the container intelligence team at Felixstowe port to help identify and intercept containers carrying stolen metals. The taskforce has also established the force intelligence unit, which brings police and the industry together to function as a central hub for all metal theft intelligence. Work is also under way to design pioneering DNA techniques to improve the traceability of stolen metals.

If I may behave out of character for a moment, I want to applaud the British media, who have been quick to highlight and condemn incidents of scrap metal theft. The stories and campaigns, such as the “lest we forget” campaign by The Sunday Telegraph to protect our war memorials, have ensured the issue is constantly topping the agenda. I also congratulate the War Memorials Trust on its worthy “In Memoriam 2014” campaign, in partnership with the SmartWater Foundation, to protect all memorials in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of world war one. Half of the £6,000 cost to replace the plaques that were stolen from my local Sanderstead war memorial is being met by the trust, and I am delighted to have its support for my Bill. I pay tribute to it for its work.

We need a holistic approach in order to tackle the problem of metal theft. My Bill will sit at the heart of the chain of reform. This is our chance to support the legitimate traders and stamp out the loopholes that are allowing a sinister criminal underworld to grow in strength and in numbers. I have been deeply encouraged by the groundswell of support for my Bill right across society. Private Members’ Bills are notoriously vulnerable to opposition, but I ask the House to give this Bill, and its cause, its unanimous support.

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A considerable cost is incurred by many organisations and by society where local communities have been left without various services and where organisations that do fantastic work in those communities are compromised in the amount they can do for them because of the cost of the theft. The Association of British Insurers has claimed that this is costing £1 million a week in insurance claims and that 300 tonnes of metal is stolen every week, which is the equivalent of 300 cars. The ABI has also said that UK metal thefts have doubled in the past five years, to about 1,000 reported incidents a week.

Metal thefts are also a problem in my constituency. In April, there was a spate of thefts of brass door handles. Inspector Tatham of the Shipley neighbourhood policing team told my local paper:

“We have had a number of reports of brass theft from homes near the A650 in Shipley so far this month and are investigating the matter. The thieves appear to be targeting older properties with brass door handles”.

In addition, 28 iron cellar grates dating back to Victorian times were stolen last year from the world heritage site at Saltaire in my constituency. Metal theft also often takes place in very dangerous locations; my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South made the point that at least 10 people died in the past year while attempting to steal metal on railway lines. So many costs, both financial and human, are involved in metal theft, which is why I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this matter to the House.

Let me deal with the current position under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964. Special regulations have applied to scrap metal dealers since at least the late 1800s in order to help tackle the theft of metal. The 1964 Act places specific controls on scrap metal dealers to discourage the trade in stolen metal; these are in addition to the general requirements under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The controls under the 1964 Act include the fact that dealers have to register with the local authority and local authorities have to maintain a list of dealers. Dealers are required to keep a variety of records, including details of the types of metal received, of the processing of that metal and of the names of those disposing of metal at their site. A failure to meet the requirements of the 1964 Act may lead to a fine of up to £1,000.

The Government have also set up the metal theft taskforce. On 29 November last year the Chancellor announced £5 million of Treasury funding to establish a multi-agency national metal theft taskforce, to be led by the British Transport police. The Home Office has said that the taskforce will

“develop intelligence, coordinate activity and target and disrupt criminal networks—both the thieves and also the criminal market, including rogue elements of the scrap metal industry.”

Last June, we also had the waste review, which was set up to consider available penalties and sentencing guidelines for scrap metal theft and there is certainly scope for increasing the penalties for and sentencing of people involved in these crimes. The Select Committee on Transport produced a report in January that made a number of recommendations for reform, including

“introducing a new offence of aggravated trespass on the railways to increase the penalties associated with cable theft.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South said, we also have the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, and last minute amendments were introduced to the Bill to make it illegal for scrap metal dealers to accept cash for transactions. I was very nervous about that. In principle, it seemed to me to be perhaps a step too far, but now we have a new Bill proposed seemingly only five minutes after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act was passed. My understanding is that the new measures will not commence until this autumn, so we seem already to be discussing a new law to replace one that has not yet even come into force. I wonder about the sense in this House introducing new legislation when the previous legislation has not even come into play.

The Bill repeals the 1964 Act and replaces it with legislation that empowers local authorities with a more robust and, I am sure my hon. Friend would say, more enforceable licence regime for all those who deal and collect scrap metal. The key features are: any individual or business who carries out business as a scrap metal dealer must complete an enhanced application process to get a licence; local authorities can refuse unsuitable applicants and have the power to revoke licences; all sellers of metal must provide verifiable ID at the point of sale, which is recorded and retained by the dealer; the cashless offence will apply to all scrap metal dealers without exception, including those who conduct house-to-house collections, and although there are a few concerns about how to protect people selling scrap metal at their house and to ensure that they get proper payment for their goods, I am sure that we can discuss that later; the police will have the power by court order to close unlicensed premises; a single national and publicly available register of all scrap metal dealers will be published; and the definition of a scrap metal dealer will include motor salvage operators, bringing that licensing scheme within one new scrap metal licensing regime. In a nutshell, the Bill seems to be suggesting an awful lot of new regulations and new offences. We need to determine not the intention behind them or how well meaning they are, but how effective they will be in tackling a problem that we all agree must be tackled.

It seems to me that a real problem has been identified with the Bill.

[Richard Ottaway]

I am listening to my hon. Friend with close interest, but, on his last point about our introducing a lot more regulations, in truth we already have a lot of regulation and it is not working. We are reforming the existing regulation rather than bringing in new regulation.

[Philip Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but we might have drawn a slightly different conclusion from the point on which we agree. My point would be that we do indeed have a lot of regulation for scrap metal, as the 1964 Act includes quite a bit of it, but, as he has identified, it has not worked and is not working. If regulating the industry has not worked, I am not entirely sure that the solution is even more regulation. I am not entirely sure where the evidence is that suggests that solution and that is the nub of my concern.

It seems to me that the only solution proposed to solve the problem is regulation, regulation, regulation. I wonder whether other measures could be a bit more successful, such as SmartWater, which I mentioned earlier and which is already having a great effect in reducing theft. Not only does it help to bring people to justice, but it acts as a deterrent to stealing the metal in the first place. Another measure might involve increasing the sentences for people who are caught. If we had more robust penalties and sentencing for this crime and if we sent people to prison and kept them there longer, that would have a much more beneficial effect on the local community and metal theft than simply tackling the scrap metal dealers.

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. We have seen many examples where a local authority is given a small amount of power, and, before we know it, it is expanding and empire-building at every possible opportunity, and increasing costs on a salami-slice basis. Before we know it, an industry that thought it worth paying a small cost to deal with a problem finds that there is still a big problem, but its costs have gone up hugely and show no sign of abating.

[Richard Ottaway]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Before this argument runs away with itself, I should confirm to the House that although the local authority would have the power to set the licence fee, a cap will be set in regulations by the Home Office.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for that clarification. Let us just hope that we always have sensible people in the Home Office. Clearly, we can have confidence at the moment: I see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), is on the Front Bench. I do not want to alarm him unduly about his career prospects, but Ministers come and go, and although we may have confidence in this Minister, I am not sure that I share the faith of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South that every future Home Office Minister, whatever their party, will show the same wisdom as this Minister in setting the regulations.

As I was saying, the Bill would affect legitimate businesses. It is worth showing the other side of the industry, because there are good operators in it, as some newspaper stories show; unlike my hon. Friend, I am a big fan of the media, so I am sure that these stories are true. Let me set out one case involving a scrap metal dealer. I am sure that this happens time and again; I am picking out just one example, as the House would not want me to go through every single newspaper report of this kind. I use this story as an illustration. A scrap metal dealer called the police when he was asked to purchase a war memorial from offenders. When Lana Jane Clitheroe and Paul David Kelly pleaded guilty to stealing from a war memorial in St Mary’s church on Lewisham High street, the district judge, Julia Newton from Bromley magistrates court, said in her sentencing remarks:

“A scrap metal dealer was approached by the Defendants; he very quickly realised what the item was and refused to accept it.”

He alerted the police to the problem, so that they were able to catch the offenders.

Many legitimate scrap metal dealers are part of the solution to the problem. They do not want to be involved in any illegal activity and to take things that have been stolen, and they play a crucial role in alerting the authorities to the problem. I feel nervous about saying to the scrap metal dealer who was involved in that case, “I will treat you as if you are potentially involved in criminal activity, and put on you a huge new burden and cost.” What has that person done wrong? What has he done to deserve that? He is part of the solution, not the problem.

Another scrap metal dealer

“donated £21,000 to replace metal plaques stolen from a war memorial in south London.

Fourteen bronze plaques bearing the names of 243 World War I servicemen were stolen from Carshalton war memorial in Sutton in September 2011.”

The scrap metal dealer

“said he was as ‘outraged as everyone else’ that it had been ‘plundered’.”

These are good people—people whom we should be trying to help, and whose side we should be on. The Bill would impose on those people huge burdens and extra costs. What have they done to deserve those extra burdens and costs? Nothing, as far as I can see. We are castigating a whole industry because of some people who are operating illegitimately in that industry. My solution is to go after the criminals. Let us pursue criminals, not a whole industry, which includes some very good people who are not criminals at all.

On bringing offenders to justice, we can use the Theft Act 1968 to charge unscrupulous scrap metal dealers with handling stolen goods. There is already a law with which to tackle the problem of people who handle stolen goods. In addition to using all the existing scrap metal legislation, we should use the Theft Act to prosecute those who accept stolen scrap metal and pass it on. It states:

“(1) A person handles stolen goods if (otherwise than in the course of the stealing) knowing or believing them to be stolen goods he dishonestly receives the goods, or dishonestly undertakes or assists in their retention, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person, or if he arranges to do so.

(2) A person guilty of handling stolen goods shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.”

That is already on the statute book. If a scrap metal dealer is found guilty of handling stolen goods—the definition in the Theft Act makes it perfectly clear that someone handling stolen metal is guilty of handling stolen goods—it is already in statute that they can be sent to prison for a term not exceeding 14 years.

If we actually gave proper sentences, and sentencing guidance was strengthened, so that the provisions in the Theft Act were invoked and a few 10-year-plus sentences were handed down by the courts to these people, we would find a vast drop in the number of scrap metal dealers handling stolen goods, without imposing any kind of extra licensing regime, bureaucracy, or cost, and without giving local authorities more police-like powers to interfere in every nook and cranny of people’s businesses. Let us just start handing down some proper sentences to these people; we will find that some people go legitimate very quickly indeed.

If someone walks off the street into a scrap metal dealer with a chunk of railway line in their hand, or a £500,000 statue or a huge great war memorial in a van, and the scrap metal dealer accepts it and pays them a few pounds for it without any questions asked, the scrap metal dealer should be prosecuted under the Theft Act. If the police and the Crown Prosecution Service cannot get a conviction for that, it says more about our criminal justice system than about anything else.