ID will be required from anyone selling scrap metal A Home Office spokesman said:"This is an operational issue for British Transport Police, but it is something we would like to see." Yesterday the Government unveiled measures which see rogue scrapyards involved in trading in stolen metal being put out of business. This will be done by allowing the Environment Agency to revoke their licences. Until now the purpose of the licences was to prevent pollution. But now the Agency will be able to use the same powers to bar any yard embroiled in metal theft. The new laws will also apply to 820 scrapyards, 1,000 smaller sites who currently have an exemption and 2,500 car crushing businesses. Lord Taylor, the environment minister responsible for the latest move, said this was intended to make stolen metal too hot to handle. Other measures announced by the Government in recent weeks include banning scrapyards paying cash for metals and lifting the £1,000 ceiling on fines for anyone convicted of metal theft. As the latest measures was being unveiled, police in Kent made a series of arrests in Margate following a raid on a yard in which large amounts of stolen cabling had been stripped with the valuable metal extracted ready to be melted down or sold on. Earlier this week at Westminster, MPs laid bare the havoc being wrought by metal thieves during a Commons debate. According to Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn, lifeboat stations have been left without communication and operations were cancelled at Llandough hospital following raids by cable thieves. War memorials have been stripped of their metal and last year saw 2,500 lead thefts from church roofs. Another MP described how a fridge freezer, which had just been cleaned, was whisked away from his constituents" back door as they went to fetch a cup of tea from the kitchen.