New Clause 9 - Revenue
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
5:15 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
No, not formally, but I will try to be brief. So that our proceedings are meaningful to outside observers and intelligible to those members of the Committee who, unaccountably, do not have in their possession copies of the relevant sections of the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978, I should emphasise that subsection (2)(1)(a) and section 3(1) are contained in that Act. Specifically, subsection (2)(1)(a) relates to penalties for unauthorised dumping, where vehicles are abandoned
on land in the open air, or on any other land forming part of a highway.
Section 3(1) refers to the removal of abandoned vehicles. I hope that that puts the matter in context.
The Bill deals with motor salvage operators, but not with what happens before the vehicles get to the salvage operator. The new clause would add to the Bill, bolster it and give effect to a Conservative party policy. We are concerned that abandoned cars are left to clutter up the countryside because they do not have enough value as scrap. There is widespread concern about that. The evidence suggests a growing problem. A recent RAC survey found that some 150 to 250 cars are abandoned every month in Islington alone. The price of scrap metal is so low that increasingly old cars are being left on the streets, not scrapped.
Mr. Bob Russell (Colchester) indicated assent—