Knee-jerk proposals to license UK scrap dealers could lead to black market
Metal theft has plagued the demolition industry for just about as long as there has been a demolition industry. For every honest and loyal company employee, there is always someone intent on squirreling away a secret stash for sale to often less-than-scrupulous scrap dealers in an illegal attempt to bolster their wages.
Aside from setting demolition site managers on an evolutionary path that will one day equip them with eyes in the back of their heads, precious little has been done to combat metal theft.
But with the escalating price of scrap, the issue of metal theft has spilled over into the mainstream. It now seems that every new day brings with it a local or national news story of a hospital being left without power, a train being stranded, or a busy road grinding to a standstill because of the theft of wire, cables or manhole covers.
In typical knee-jerk style, the Government is now forcing through a new legislative bill that, if passed, could require scrap dealers to be licensed and that all future scrap transactions should be cashless. The Metal Theft (Prevention) Bill 2010-11 – which is scheduled to receive a second hearing on 20 January – would also give police officers powers to search properties owned by scrap metal dealerships; to provide that scrap metal proven to have been obtained through theft may be classified as criminal assets; and to introduce criminal charges for theft of scrap metal which take into account aspects of the crime other than the value of the scrap metal stolen.
All of which sounds just dandy on paper. But, by its very nature, the scrap metal sector is a back-alley business. And despite the advent of some large, professional companies at the very top of the scrap metal sector, there are still a considerable number for whom the unexpected arrival of a half dozen manhole covers in the back of a battered Transit van are greeted not as a cause for suspicion but as a cash delivery.
Estimates suggest that the UK scrap business is worth somewhere in the region of £5.0 billion, but that almost certainly doesn’t take into account the metals with no discernible point of origin.
Setting aside the question over who would police the Metal Theft (Prevention) Bill if it were passed, does the Government honestly think that an individual (or, increasingly, an organised gang) that has happily stripped copper wire from a hospital in the past is suddenly going to contract a nasty case of law abidingness?
It is far more likely that while the scrap industry’s big boys – those that are easy to find on a map – will be forced to embrace these new rules while the sector’s existing underclass will simply expand to cope with the demand for black market scrap.
One thing’s for sure: those bundles of scrap and wire that appear unexplained round the back of the site cabin far away from the skips and prying eyes are unlikely to vanish anytime soon.
