Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will take steps to (a) provide additional funding to help tackle illegal unlicensed operators in the metals recycling sector and (b) launch a wider campaign to tackle waste crime.

The Home Office engages at a national level with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, police forces and law enforcement agencies, and other stakeholders to understand the national picture on metal theft, and what can be done to tackle it. This includes supporting the work of the National Police Chiefs’ Council Metal Crime Steering Group led by the NPCC lead for metal theft, ACC Charlie Doyle.

The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 regulates the metal recycling sector, making it more difficult to dispose of stolen metal. A 2017 review of the 2013 Act found it provides a strong legislative foundation. We will continue to keep the Act and supporting guidance under review and update where appropriate.

To support enforcement of the 2013 Act, the Home Office provided £177,000 seed corn funding in the 2020/21 financial year to establish the National Infrastructure Crime Reduction Partnership (NICRP), ensuring co-ordination of policing and law enforcement partners to tackle metal theft. The Partnership facilitates data and intelligence sharing to partners to target offenders, understand emerging trends and implement crime prevention measures and has provided training to over 1,600 police officers and other law enforcement agencies in tackling metal theft.

Last month officers and partner agencies across the UK took part in the fourth national week of action tackling metal theft, heritage and waste crime. During the week officers visited 39 scrap metal dealers, 41 mobile collectors were stopped, and 16 offences were identified.