Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Debate between Teresa Pearce and Richard Ottaway

Friday 13th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.