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Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge): I may be able to help my hon. Friend. I understand that the Bill will require an arresting officer to separate the imperishable machine from its perishable contents. He may have to remove the boiling fat to impound a vendor's machine.
Mr. Chope: I am sure that my hon. Friend's reading of the Bill is correct, and I suggest that the Government rethink the proposal. They should amend the Bill before it goes to the other place to enable the parks police to seize perishable goods as well, or the lacuna will defeat the object.
In the past month, I dealt with a constituency case relating to gypsies. The police on the ground have to deal with the legislation passed by the House; and passing legislation raises people's expectations--in this example, those of people affected by gypsies. As soon as the gypsies arrive, the police say, "There are all sorts of practical constraints on what we are able to do. We need hundreds of officers. Where shall we move the vehicles to? What shall we do about the women and children and access for the emergency services?" When I visited my local police station I was told, "Unfortunately, the legislation that you passed in the House of Commons is not much practical use in this situation." I fear that we are entering the same territory with these provisions.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): How can the Minister guesstimate the daily turnover of the average trader in a royal park when he is unable to tell us the prices of their products or the volume of their daily sales?
Mr. Chope: I hope that the Minister can answer my hon. Friend. Government spokesmen have been quick to say that rip-offs take place, but I cannot understand whether the general public are deterred from buying goods from authorised vendors because of the price or because there are too few such vendors in the parks. Both explanations are possible, but people seem to choose to buy from illegal vendors despite unclean conditions and what the Minister would describe as rip-off prices.
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): In this week of the Chelsea flower show, when the prices of hamburgers and hot dogs at Chelsea are higher than those charged by vendors in the royal parks, who is committing the rip-off? Might it not appear that those selling the hot dogs and hamburgers have a rather competitive commodity?
12.15 am
Mr. Chope: My right hon. Friend makes a good point.
One of the problems may well be that the royal parks must recover from the licence fees that they charge their authorised vendors sufficient money to be able to continue
their other responsibilities. If we burden the parks police with the extra expense involved in having to look after the goods that have been seized, and storing them so that they can be restored if the courts make an order in due course, how will the additional costs be recovered other than by the imposition of increased fees on authorised and licensed vendors? I suspect that one of the biggest rip-offs in the royal parks now is caused by the fact that the licence fee that authorised vendors must pay is far higher than it should be, and that, if it were lower, charges to customers could be reduced.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying rather wide of the amendment.
Mr. Chope: I accept your reprimand, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings): Nevertheless, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend is right, in the strict terms of the amendment, to draw attention to the issue of enforceability. As you will know, that issue has punctuated consideration of our governance of the royal parks throughout our dealings with the subject. I refer again to the 1872 and 1926 Acts that I mentioned earlier, and, in particular, would ask my hon. Friend to recall Second Reading of the Bill, when precisely this issue was raised.
Mr. Chope: I shall leave my hon. Friend to make his own speech, which he is extremely well qualified to do. I observe that he has brought some thick tomes into the Chamber. My point is limited to the practicality of what the Government propose. I fear that, in due course, there will be a demand for fresh, amended legislation, because the Bill in its current form will not achieve the purpose that the Government intend.
What could be simpler than this? Anyone who is a potential illegal vendor takes his cart into the park; as soon as he enters the gates, he should be arrested. It should be possible for both the cart and the perishable items on it to be seized and taken away. If that happens regularly, it will not be long before people do not even bring their carts in.
I suspect that the parks police will be inhibited about seizing the property as soon as it enters the park, because they will not know what to do with the perishable items. If the vendor sells some of those items, there will be less of a problem for the parks police to pick up later. As a consequence, the parks police will not be so quick to make seizures and the illegal trading will continue, as will the £1,200 a day that these people can make.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): I am at a loss to understand what all the fuss is about. I pass these vendors hundreds of times, and I have never been tempted to buy the disgusting, revolting, smelly rubbish that they sell. Why on earth do we need legislation?
Mr. Maclean: Very tasty, I think.
Mr. Chope: I am confining my remarks to the context of this group of amendments. I know that engaging in a Second Reading debate would not find favour with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker; that is why I am not challenging the
principle of the Bill. However, like my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), I am a great believer in the marketplace. I suspect that at present there is insufficient legitimate provision of hamburgers and--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is about to do what he said he was not going to do.
Mr. Chope: I am sorry that my hon. Friend tempted me in that direction, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Chope: No, I will accept the responsibility.
I know that many of my hon. Friends are keen to speak, but let me tell them that I think it would be worth while if, in this curtailed debate, we allowed the Minister sufficient time to answer some of the points that have been made.
Mr. Nicholls: We were told earlier that we do not need to have this debate as this matter is uncontentious. We can do no better than look at the headings on Madam Speaker's selection list of amendments to realise that nothing could be further from the truth. The first is:
- Powers of seizure, retention and disposal of property.
The amendments deal with the legislative brutality of the Bill. Clause 4 could be straight out of Monty Python. It states:
- A park constable who reasonably suspects that a person has committed a park trading offence may, subject to subsection (2), seize anything of a non-perishable nature.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, consider what might happen if you were a special constable and you went into the park to try to seize goods of an non-perishable nature. That may seem unlikely, but it makes the point. You may be confronted by a hot-dog van. I have never prepared hot dogs in a royal park--it has never come to that--but I assume that it requires a vat of boiled fat. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) seems to think that hot dogs are greasy. What is a policeman supposed to do? Is he supposed to say that he will seize the vat but not the fat? Is he supposed to require the fat to be emptied out of the container before he can seize it? Is he supposed to do that himself? Is he supposed to require the person to whom it belongs to empty the fat for him?
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): Under the new schedule that my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) has tabled, is the policeman required to ask the vendor to remove the fat in a western variant of Serbo-Croat?
Mr. Nicholls: I knew my hon. Friend was going to ask me that, and I am grateful to him--I will see him
afterwards. I shall deal with new schedule 2 later. Although it is the inspiration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), I am not sure that it is as good as the other amendments in the group.
Mr. Bercow: Amendment No. 28(c) refers to
- an assessment under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations.
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