here - United Kingdom Parliament

325WH
Metal Theft
1 DECEMBER 2010
Metal Theft
326WH
The taskforce in Wales is a welcome step, but tougher
laws are needed.
It is not just the seasonal “wrong type of snow” and
leaves on the track that are holding up our train network:
commuters now have to contend with the regular misery
of year-round signalling thefts. Network Rail tells me
that commuters and operators have lost 19,417 hours in
delays since 2006-07. Overall, it estimates that it has
spent £35 million since then on metal theft-related
crime. That includes £25 million of schedule 8 costs.
That is £25 million that could have been spent on
improving the railway network that has been diverted to
essential maintenance because of metal theft alone.
I travel to Westminster from Sandwell and Dudley
station every week. Between September 2009 and this
October there have been five serious incidents of cable
theft in the Tipton area alone and I have been late for
meetings and nearly missed votes. These incidents in
Tipton caused £485,000 worth of damage to the rail
network causing hundreds of hours of delays for
commuters. I find these figures staggering. Across the
whole of the west midlands in the last 18 months there
have been 52 cable thefts on the railway causing 1,500
trains to be cancelled. I am told by Network Rail that
the route between London and Scotland up the east
coast is by the far the worst affected, especially in
Yorkshire and the north-east. That route has recorded
days on which up to 40 thefts have taken place. Commuters
and British business are the people who are really losing
out as metal theft soars.
I have unearthed other examples that are shocking in
their scale and audacity. There are the thieves who cut a
heavy copper cable used to link an MRI scanner to the
main electricity supply in Northamptonshire. Thieves
stole cable twice in a week meaning 70 patients had to
have their diagnostic appointments rearranged. Lives
could have been lost. I have been told of the sick thieves
who stole two brass plaques listing the names of the
Blackley men who fell during the first world war in
Manchester. The community had to unite to make sure
that the 215 war heroes could be honoured on
Remembrance Sunday.
Just as sickening was Linda Smith’s story. Linda
contacted me to tell me about the theft of metal containers
for holding flowers from graves from Abney park in
Stoke Newington. The Minister may not be aware that
the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, the leading church
insurers, report that they have received more than 7,000
claims for metal theft since the start of 2007 at an
estimated total cost of £23 million.
Councillor David Sheard of Kirklees council has
been in touch. He told me about the £18,000 worth of
litter bins that the council had stolen in a single week.
The case of Tom Berge who escaped a jail sentence for
stealing lead worth £100,000 from some of the most
historic properties in Sutton in Croydon has also been
brought to my attention. He used Google Earth to
identify listed buildings, churches and schools that he
could target. In Sandwell, two people have already lost
their lives trying to steal cabling from a disused factory
after an explosion.
Five-year-old Keanu Jones of Dudley road in Tipton
could so nearly have been the third life lost last week.
He fell down an exposed drain when out with his mum.
The cover had been stolen. It left him shaken and
covered in bruises. Keanu’s case is important. It highlights
the fact that thieves do not just target high-value, precious
and commodity metals. The resale value of what can be
stolen can often be minimal. To quote Tony Glover,
spokesman of the Energy Networks Association:
“It is pathetic, quite frankly. As a crime it is sometimes as little
as £5, £10 or £20… But its impact is enormous—it’s almost like
an act of vandalism. Some of our equipment is oil-insulated and
a £5 brass valve—that’s all they stole— resulted in 30,000 litres of
oil coming out of some equipment.”
Just to illustrate the point, this week I was visited by
my constituent Ravi Kumar who told me that thieves
had stolen his old, rusty metal table from his front
garden. Ravi had put the table out for collection by
Sandwell council. Thieves looking to make a quick cash
return made off with the table before the council van
arrived. There is a black market price list for this
stuff—£10 for Ravi’s table, £20 for a stolen manhole
cover, £80 for a catalytic converter. These items are
being stolen because they are easy prey to thieves to sell
on to rogue scrap metal dealers.
More worryingly, West Midlands police and the Black
Country chamber of commerce continue to alert me to
the rise in the number of burglary dwelling offences
across the country in which the offenders are stealing
the victim’s gold or silver jewellery. There is currently no
legislation covering the buying and selling of gold and
silver by independent retailers, which are becoming
increasingly common in most towns and cities. Despite
some franchises still following good practice, in which
no transaction can take place without a series of identity
checks, some of the rogues are beginning to make an
impact on communities.
I would like to see two minor changes to the law to
tackle the problems that I have outlined. One change
would deal with commodity metals such as copper, lead
and brass, and the second change would deal with
precious metals such as gold and silver. The Scrap
Metal Dealers Act 1964 needs to be made fit for the
modern age. It is outdated, it is not well understood,
and, in its current form, it simply fails in its purpose.
Many hon. Members may not be aware of the legislation
to which I refer. As it stands, the Act requires dealers to
keep a simple book detailing all scrap metal received at
the place of purchase. The book must also show that all
scrap metal is either processed at or dispatched from
that place. That is inadequate.
In the Sandwell area, and across the country, I repeatedly
hear stories of some unscrupulous scrap metal dealers
opening as early as 5 am. Cash in hand is given to the
seller, and it is not unusual for them to turn up with a
wheelie bin full of manhole covers. The unscrupulous
scrap metal dealer, who does not check too closely
where the metal has come from or who the seller is, then
sells it on to legitimate dealers, who have no idea that
they are buying stolen metal. In some cases, the metal is
exported to the far east due to global demand. Some
dealers will let sellers get away with giving their name as
Joe Bloggs or Mr Smith. Scrap metal is big business,
and the record keeping among rogue dealers can be very
poor or even non-existent. One police force has told me
that records kept by metal merchants do not always
provide them with a good enough audit trail to track
back such thieves, and I know police forces across the
country feel the same.
Although I appreciate that recent dialogue between
the British Metals Recycling Association and ACPO
has resulted in the development of a code of practice,