Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, it might be useful if I intervene now because there are a number of misconceptions about what is going on. Perhaps I may say that I rather regret the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for whom I have the utmost respect, because he implies that whatever I say, I am out of touch and do not know what is going on. He seems to suggest that what I say will be untrue. That is not the case. What I would ask of your Lordships is that—dare I say it?—they should listen to me very carefully because I think I can allay the fears and answer the questions that have quite rightly been put by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin about the problems we are facing and where we are on this issue. I start by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, who was the first person to suggest that we should go down the cashless route. That is what we are doing, and he was the first to spot that there was a chance to do so in this legislation. It is why we are doing that and a few more things in this Bill, but the other things will have to wait until suitable legislation comes through. There is no five-year review, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, puts it. We have said that we will come to the other bits as and when we can, at which point we will resolve those matters. Again, at this stage I would ask noble Lords to listen to me very carefully as I explain what we are going to do. Your Lordships will be aware that we tabled amendments on Report proposing three legislative measures to tackle metal theft: greater fines for offences under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964; creating an offence of buying scrap metal for cash, and a revision of police entry powers to help enforce the new offence because it is important to make sure that we get the enforcement right. A similar amendment to the one we are dealing with tonight was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, but his revised amendment seeks to remove the existing exemption that allows certain itinerant collectors to be exempted from the cashless offence. I am going to deal with that in due course. I should make it clear that anyone who trades in metal, whether they are a large multinational, the local scrap metal dealer or a door-to-door collector, which includes the itinerants, must register with their local authority under Section 1 of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964. It might be that they do not register, in which case there are sanctions, but it is also why we are increasing the sanctions under an Act which I have said before is past its sell-by date. Failure to register is a criminal offence that under Clause 146 of this Bill will now be punishable by an unlimited fine. Anyone, be they an itinerant or a large multinational, who does not register can be punished with an unlimited fine. As part of its focus, the national metal theft task force, which we announced late last year, will ensure compliance with the registration requirement. I shall say a little more about enforcement later. The police are currently able to enter and inspect any commercial premises that belong to a registered scrap metal dealer, including those used by itinerant collectors. Our amendment will ensure that they can also enter and search unregistered premises with a warrant if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that metal is being traded for cash, and being unregistered may well be relevant evidence in that regard, although obviously that is for magistrates to decide when they issue a warrant. I do not suppose any of your Lordships who are in the Chamber did so, but when we debated the 1964 Act almost 50 years ago, Parliament chose not to overburden small businesses by including an exemption for door-to-door collectors from some bookkeeping. That is why the exemption was brought forward in that Act. As a result, in addition to the mandatory registration I have already mentioned, businesses can apply to their local authority for an order under Section 3(1) of the 1964 Act, to which my noble friend Lord Jenkin referred. That order would be granted by the local authority, but only in consultation with the chief officer of police for the police force area. Let me be clear: there is no blanket exemption for anyone who simply claims to be an itinerant collector. They have to be registered under Section 1 of the 1964 Act and they then have to get the exemption under Section 3(1) of the same Act, which has to be agreed by the local authority in agreement with the police. The amendment that we have put forward follows the structure of the existing Act and the exemption is for a defined and locally known group of collectors to operate. So, if an itinerant was operating in a large number of different areas, he would need a Section 3(1) exemption from each local authority area in which he was operating. It is not a question of having one exemption and then being able to use that throughout the country. If he does not have that, he will be in breach of the law and could suffer the consequences. It should also be noted that itinerant collectors who have obtained a Section 3(1) order are reliant, obviously, on selling their collected metal into the scrap metal industry. I appreciate that there are allegations that a lot of this metal goes into containers and is shipped abroad. We have no evidence of that—it does not appear to be happening—but if in the future we do see signs of metal going straight into containers and being shipped abroad, it will be easier to deal with because there are a limited number of container ports in the country compared to the vast number of scrap metal yards into which the metal is going at the moment. On enforcement as we are seeing it on a day-to-day basis, the British Transport Police, as part of Operation Tornado—which is an operation into scrap metal theft in the north-east of England at the moment but which will be expanded in due course—encounter these collectors on a daily basis. On many occasions, the police find that they are unregistered and that they do not have a waste carrier's licence, which they need if they wish to transport waste. As a result, they have had their scrap and, if it is not insured to carry waste or has not been registered to carry waste with the environment agencies, their vehicle confiscated. So there are enforcement procedures in place. Registered collectors who have a reduced record-keeping requirement under Section 3(1) will, as I have said, still have to trade into the scrap metal industry. When they do so, they will not receive cash—they cannot receive cash—and that is what our amendment does. So, to make it clear, Section 3(1) reduces the record-keeping requirements for those who only collect metal, but this is in addition to them also being registered under Section 1. It is not about signing up for one or the other, as some people imply, nor is it a matter of choice for the individual itinerant collector just to announce that he is now an itinerant collector. If he wants to be an itinerant collector he must be registered under Section 1 and under Section 3(1). If the noble Lord's amendment was to be successful and itinerant collectors with a Section 3(1) order are included, the offence of trading in cash would be more difficult to enforce for those individuals because of the nature of the work they do in travelling from street to street in the manner described by my noble friend. To evidence compliance with the new cashless offence, we have strengthened the record-keeping requirements under Section 2 of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act which apply to the vast majority of the industry registered under the Act. We require that records are kept of who the payments are made to and the method of payment, and that receipts are copied and retained. The few collectors with a Section 3(1) order will not be required to keep those records. I cannot give a precise figure on the number of Section 3(1) itinerant dealers—that would mean going to every local authority in the country—but, of necessity, that figure will be relatively few. As I have made clear, they will have to be agreed to by the local authority with the agreement of the local chief of police. To reassure the House further—