Scrap metal firms in the UK have announced that they will fight recent attempts to ban companies from purchasing scrap metal using cash, claiming that the recently proposed bill would simply make it more difficult to purchase legal scrap metal and thus redirect companies towards the black market.

Graham Jones, a member of parliament for Labour, recently proposed the changes in an effort to combat metal theft, with the bill to go to lawmakers in January. The issue is becoming so severe that George Osborne even recently pledged £5 million to combat metal theft, though there was no mention of cashless payments.

“This is our one opportunity to introduce cashless payments, and we’ve got to be ahead of the game,” commented Jones in a recent interview, however the British Metal Recycling Association oppose his ideas. Director General Ian Hetherington commented “Now if you introduced a ban on cash tomorrow, the effect of that would be that the legal trade would just siphon away into the illegal yards.”