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323WH<br />
1 DECEMBER 2010 Metal Theft<br />
324WH<br />
Metal Theft<br />
4.20 pm<br />
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab): It is a<br />
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Leigh.<br />
You remain the fastest voter I have ever seen, so if t<strong>here</strong><br />
is another Division I will attempt to keep up with you.<br />
I am <strong>here</strong> to talk about<br />
“the second biggest threat to our infrastructure after terrorism”.<br />
Those are the words that Paul Crowther, of the British<br />
Transport Police, used to describe the growing problem<br />
of metal theft in the UK. It is my contention that, if<br />
al-Qaeda or militant student demonstrators perpetrated<br />
some of the attacks to critical UK infrastructure on the<br />
scale and frequency that we are currently seeing, the<br />
Home Office would be taking this matter far more<br />
seriously than it currently appears to be taking it.<br />
4.21 pm<br />
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.<br />
4.28 pm<br />
On resuming—<br />
Mr Watson: Whether it is copper from the side of a<br />
railway line, broadband cable, a drain gully or lead<br />
flashing from a school roof, not a day goes by when<br />
metal theft does not feature in the daily crime roster for<br />
police in the UK’s towns and cities. I seek to make the<br />
case to the Minister that metal theft is a national<br />
problem needing urgent attention. It is eroding our<br />
critical infrastructure and t<strong>here</strong>fore the economic capacity<br />
of the nation. After outlining the issues, I will make the<br />
case for the need to collect more accurate data on metal<br />
theft incidents, for amending the Scrap Metal Dealers<br />
Act 1964 and for protecting uniformed British Transport<br />
police. I will also make the case for new regulations to<br />
deal with the rise of unscrupulous dealers in precious<br />
metals.<br />
The Minister has gained a reputation for being hardworking<br />
and fair-minded. I hope to convince him to<br />
focus in the coming months on the increasing problem<br />
of metal theft. Many businesses and police officers to<br />
whom I have spoken are frustrated with the progress<br />
made in the past, including—dare I say—under my own<br />
Government. Six months into the coalition Government,<br />
I hope that he has found his feet and will be able to<br />
move up a gear in that policy area.<br />
The Home Office line appears to be that the police<br />
have the necessary tools and powers to tackle metal<br />
theft: I will make the case that they do not. The problem<br />
is great for two important reasons: soaring commodity<br />
prices and the ineffectiveness of the Scrap Metal Dealers<br />
Act 1964. In the past two years, for example, the price of<br />
refined copper has more than doubled on international<br />
markets. Part of the problem faced by the Minister is<br />
that his Department has found it difficult to understand<br />
the scale of the problem because it has not collected the<br />
appropriate data.<br />
Using the Freedom of Information Act, I have<br />
undertaken a comprehensive assessment into the effects<br />
of metal theft in local authorities up and down the<br />
country in 2007, 2008 and 2009. It is not an exact<br />
picture, but it provides a more comprehensive view of<br />
the scale of misery caused by metal theft throughout<br />
the country. The results are shocking, but since a number<br />
of authorities have not responded to my FOI request, I<br />
fear that my newly compiled figures are just the tip of<br />
the iceberg.<br />
We found 1,873 reported instances of schools being<br />
targeted by metal thieves, predominantly for the lead<br />
from their roofs. We know that 185 leisure centres and<br />
156 community centres have been targeted, as have—<br />
shockingly—71 cemeteries and crematoriums. Thirty-three<br />
local authorities told me that metal theft has cost them<br />
more than £100,000 in insurance claims and repair<br />
costs. My borough of Sandwell has suffered the highest<br />
losses of any authority—more than £720,000. It is<br />
closely followed by Leicester, which lost £530,000, and<br />
Greenwich, which lost more than £470,000.<br />
Last October alone, Sandwell council lost £20,000.<br />
Such thefts have cost Sandwell, and councils in Birmingham,<br />
Wolverhampton and Walsall, nearly £1.6 million over<br />
the past three years. The scale is huge and it is getting<br />
bigger. It is not taking place just in the country’s metalbashing<br />
heartlands: the London boroughs of Greenwich,<br />
Sutton, Bexley, Bromley, Barking, Dagenham, Enfield,<br />
Havering and Redbridge estimate that between them,<br />
they have lost £1.9 million as a result of metal theft.<br />
Anything can go. Three stainless steel slides were<br />
stolen from Birmingham, and the city also lost £30,000<br />
worth of goal posts. Durham council raised 97 repair<br />
orders for its schools, and admitted that that may not<br />
even begin to dig into the problem. Sheffield lost a<br />
swimming pool roof that cost £200,000, and Thurrock<br />
council lost the eternal flame from the East Tilbury war<br />
memorial. The cost of replacement was so great that a<br />
fibreglass replica had to be made.<br />
More worryingly, I have uncovered an increasing<br />
problem of thieves targeting our key infrastructure<br />
networks. The most recent police estimate of the cost of<br />
such thefts to communication, energy, transport and<br />
water industries is £770 million per annum. This year<br />
alone has seen more than 5,000 reported thefts from the<br />
railway, gas and electricity networks. Such thefts have<br />
resulted not only in the loss of services to vulnerable<br />
customers, but have included attacks on 999 services<br />
and communication services that are provided to the<br />
various police forces and military establishments.<br />
In the past six months, BT has seen more than 900<br />
attacks on its network, which has affected more than<br />
100,000 customers. It has lost more than £5 million in<br />
the past year, and on current trends, it looks as if it will<br />
lose £6 million in the current financial year. In one<br />
attack in Scotland last week, 32 tonnes of copper cable<br />
were stolen in a single night. Energy company E.ON<br />
faces similar problems. Last year, substation theft cost<br />
the company £1.3 million, and by the end of May it had<br />
already seen 175 reported incidents. The figures speak<br />
for themselves. It is not just the monetary cost that is<br />
worrying, but the danger in which the thieves are putting<br />
both themselves and the engineers who work for companies<br />
such as BT and E.ON, through their illegal activities.<br />
Today, Gwent police superintendent Harry Gamlin,<br />
head of the taskforce that deals with metal theft in<br />
Wales, said that the problem is now so bad that it<br />
threatens to “fracture social cohesion.” He added:<br />
“T<strong>here</strong> is a common perception of metal thieves being loveable<br />
rogues, old-man-Steptoe-type characters...People need to wake<br />
up to the fact that they are in fact highly organised and skilled<br />
gangs of criminals who more than likely have links to other forms<br />
of serious and organised crime.”