The Countryside Alliance has expressed deep disappointment at the government’s decision to abandon the core purpose of the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023. By refusing to implement the requirement for new all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to be fitted with an engine immobiliser prior to sale, ministers have stripped the law of the very measure that would have done most to prevent thefts of vital farming machinery. 

The government has published its long-awaited response to a consultation on implementing the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, a law designed to prevent thefts of machinery used on farms and make it easier to detect stolen items. Responding to a consultation that ended more than two years ago, it announced that it will not take forward provisions requiring new ATVs, or other farming vehicles, to be fitted with an immobiliser. Its decision invalidates the core purpose of the law and leaves farmers little less vulnerable to vehicle theft than they are now.

As it progressed through Parliament, the purpose of the then-Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill was to require all new ATVs to be fitted with a forensically marked engine immobiliser before sale, and for sales to be registered on a database. Requiring the immobiliser was its primary function, the aspect that would do most to prevent theft of vehicles. Requirements for forensic marking and database registration were ancillary, intended primarily to aid the detection and recovery of equipment that has already been stolen (as well as creating a minor deterrent).

The government response, however, now says it will only implement the requirement for forensic marking and database registration of vehicles and GPS equipment. Blaming “concerns about type approval regulations,” it has refused to implement the requirement for an engine immobiliser. It has also declined to extend the regulations to cover any other agricultural vehicles or tools of trade.

The Act began life as a Private Member’s Bill tabled by Greg Smith MP (Mid Buckinghamshire, Con), who set up a stakeholder group for industry, the police and other groups concerned with preventing rural crime that included the Countryside Alliance. As such, we supported the Bill at all stages and urged its passage through both Houses of Parliament. It won support across Parliament, including from the then-Conservative government and the Labour Party, achieving Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. To come into force, it required regulations from the government that could begin no sooner than six months thereafter – from 20 January 2024. That was when the delay began.

In Parliament, the understanding from all parties was that, at a minimum, the Bill would require all new ATVs to be fitted with a forensically marked engine immobiliser before sale. During the debates, however, MPs on both sides of the House of Commons argued for extending its scope to other agricultural equipment, plus tradespeople’s tools at risk of theft from vans. At the House of Commons Committee Stage, the then-Crime and Policing Minister, Chris Philp MP, said of that desire: 

“I have asked Home Office officials to work on developing the statutory instruments to address it as well as doing the work on ATVs. That work is ongoing; they are doing the technical work to look at it at the moment, so I cannot make an absolute commitment that it will be done at the same time, but my starting position is that if we are going to bring forward statutory instruments under the Bill to deal with ATVs, why not do the other tools at the same time?”

Challenged by the then-Labour MP Kevin Brennan on whether he would ensure that the wish to include other tools would not be allowed to frustrate the law’s implementation for ATVs before Christmas 2023, Mr Philp said: 

“Yes. The intention is to do it as a minimum for ATVs.”

Royal Assent coming when it did meant the Christmas 2023 deadline could not be met, but with the government’s consultation on the regulations concluding on 13 July 2023, the only slightly later 20 January 2024 seemed eminently achievable. The failure to implement regulations between then and when the General Election was called on 22 May 2024 was the previous government’s oversight, but the new Labour government had all the time since winning the election on 4 July 2024 to take action. 

 Time after time, Ministers promised jam tomorrow. In January the Security Minister, Dan Jarvis MP, said regulations were intended to be in place “by the summer;” in July, the then Policing and Crime Minister, Diana Johnson MP, said it would be “soon.” As recently as yesterday (16 October), the Lords Home Office Minister, Lord Hanson of Flint, said the government was “trying to bring the necessary regulations later this year.” It turns out he was right about the timescale, but whether he was right about the regulations being the necessary ones is another matter entirely. 

 Our assumption as to the reason for the delay had been that, contrary to Mr Philp’s intentions, efforts to extend the Act to other equipment and tools beyond ATVs had complicated matters. To discover now that not only is the government not making any such extension any time soon, but that it is not even implementing the Act’s core purpose to prevent equipment theft, is exasperating. 

 The Countryside Alliance will continue to advocate for legal frameworks that protect farmers from the blight of rural crime, as we thought we had helped achieve through the passage of the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act. We are bitterly disappointed with the government’s feeble, dithering response.