The Scrap Metal Dealers Bill, which is set to ‘reform’ the scrap metal industry and bring in tougher measure against metal theft cleared the House of Lords Committee Stage on Friday (18 January).

The bill, which was first introduced last year by MP Richard Ottaway to help combat metal theft crimes in the UK, intends to save local authorities both time and money in dealing with damage caused by stolen metal such as manhole and drain covers, copper cabling and wiring and lead piping.

If the bill receives royal assent, all scrap dealers would have to apply for a mandatory licence from their local authority, which would also have the power to suspend or revoke the licence if any illegal activity is suspected. Police would also be given greater powers to inspect unlicensed scrap yards and charge those operating them.

Speaking on the passing of the bill through the House of Lords, Ian Hetherington, Director General of the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA) said: “It is imperative that the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill is passed as quickly as possible to improve regulation in the metals recycling industry and fight metal theft. The BMRA welcomes the revised bill’s progress because loopholes and exemptions in the LASPO Act expose legitimate businesses to a drop in trade, job losses and closures whilst allowing criminal activity to continue.

“As the legislation currently stands, some metal traders – such as motor vehicle salvage operators – are exempt from the changes brought in under the LASPO Act, which leaves an unfair playing field. This poses a serious challenge to small metal recyclers who rely on the trade of householders and businesses that sell scrap items every day and will undoubtedly take their business to collectors who continue to pay cash. The Scrap Metal Dealers Bill hopes to eradicate these issues by closing off the loopholes and putting a robust regulatory framework in place to back it up.”

Law ‘cannot be nationally prescribed’

The Local Government Association (LGA) has also welcomed the passing of the bill so far, adding that while the LGA ‘supports’ the Bill, its believes that ‘councils should have the ability to impose local conditions on the licencewhere appropriate, in a similar way that they can with other forms of licences’.

According to the LGA, these could include ‘tougher receipt and recording arrangements for certain types of metal, such as catalytic converters’ and ‘ the requirement for CCTV with automatic number plate recognition technology to be installed at the yard entrance so there is a record of vehicles visiting the site’.

The LGA goes on to say that though the conditions around record keeping and using chasless transactive are ‘sensible’ they are ‘concerned; that this would not be enough to ‘stop the behaviour of some of the worst-run dealers before they engage in criminal activity’.

‘Councils need to be able to exercise some flexibility in being able to impose local conditions. Without this flexibility, councils may refuse licences for businesses where they have concerns about the suitability of the applicant, but would feel able to grant a licence subject to appropriate locally-set conditions on the licence.

Any further conditions should be based on the situation in local areas and cannot therefore be nationally prescribed’, the association added.

The revised Scrap Metal Dealers Bill is due to return to the House of Lords for a final time in February before being sent for Royal Assent in May. If assent is given, then the law is expected to be implemented in early October.

The bill follows on from the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which passed in December 2012 and outlawed the practice of buying scrap metal with cash. It is hoped that the two new laws will increase traceability of all transactions made at scrap metal sites and help stem the rise in metal theft.

Read the Scrap Metal Dealers Bill.