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Mr. Nicholls: It may do, but one must bear in mind the fact that when the Home Secretary was working up his policies for a new Government for a new millennium, he saw squeegee merchants as public enemy No. 1. For all I know, they may now have diversified into selling hot dogs in royal parks, but they were providing a service. I have never felt threatened by a squeegee merchant. I find it quite useful to have my windscreen cleaned when I am at a level crossing.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not sure that those merchants are the subject of the amendments before the House.
Mr. Nicholls: I accept that. As so often, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) tempts us down forbidden ways. The same thinking that made squeegee merchants a substantial public threat underlies the idea that someone who is selling economically priced burgers might also be a substantial threat.
What do amendments Nos. 22, 23, 24 and 25 do? Nothing very revolutionary or extraordinary. One might have thought that their provisions would have been contained in a Bill that sanctions the seizure and disposal of other people's property. Amendment No. 23 says:
- Proceedings arising from subsections (1) to (3) (including appeals) shall be concluded within a period of three months, after which the charges shall be withdrawn, or the appeal deemed to have succeeded.
What happens to a person's property if they are not prosecuted? Under the Bill, nothing will happen to it. The state has seized it and that is the end of it. Amendment No. 25 says:
- If the Secretary of State has retained a thing under subsection (3)(b) for the period of 60 days from the initiation of proceedings relating to the offence (including any appeal), he shall return it to the person from whom it was seized.
I would like to think well of the Minister. I have known him for a number of years and I would like to think that he has listened to the debate and will cast his mind back to the principles that he once held dear. I hope that he thinks that a Bill that he is putting through the House to seize private property might benefit from the inclusion of some provision for the return of that property. It might benefit from having some decent British lawfulness built back into it.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): Does my hon. Friend think that the Bill is getting at the wrong people? Last Wednesday, the Minister pointed out that very little cash is found on the people concerned, because there is a system of runners to take the money back to those who control them. He said later that
- the police should make every effort to get the racketeers who lie behind the trade.--[Official Report, 17 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 374.]
Mr. Nicholls: I try to wrestle with the concept of Mr. Big--the sort of person who slips £1 million to somebody for changing party policy. I understand that big money can sometimes be involved, but I do not think that there is big money involved in flogging hamburgers. Perhaps I chose the wrong trade when I went into law.
Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend is a very sophisticated fellow, but I fear that he is missing one point. Is not his advocacy of the amendments characterised by moderation and reasonableness, rather in the style of the advocacy of our hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) in support of the Bill, whereas the stance and style of the Minister, for all his other attractive qualities, has been characterised at heart by a deep-rooted and snobbish disdain for the traders?
Mr. Nicholls: There is consistency in some things, as my hon. Friend is right to point out. It is perhaps a sign of the times that those small traders--the sort of people who cannot afford to pay £500 to go to a Labour party fund-raising function--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now straying way wide of the mark. I would be grateful if he would come back specifically to the amendment.
Mr. Nicholls: I was simply trying to make the point--I accept that I did not do so appropriately--that the Bill, with all its inadequacies, says something about the attitude of the party that proposed it to people who are in as small a business as this.
I would like to think that the Minister would build back into the Bill some sense of fairness and practicality. If not, there remains the other place. We know that the other place was not thought to be a problem for a Bill of this sort. It was thought that, following the creation of a house of cronies, there would be no scrutiny. The other place
has surprised us all, and probably even itself. When it looks at this debate, I think that it will say that this is a cause worth championing. I hope the other place will see it in that way.
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): This has been an important debate. My right hon. and hon. Friends have tried to address whether the clauses as drafted have the desired effect, or whether--because there appears to be no power to seize perishable goods--there is some practical imperfection that will render the operation of the police in implementing the Bill almost impossible.
When I first read the Bill, I had a similar concern. The practical answer is that, in reality, this presents no difficulty. As the Minister has said, within the City of Westminster--where the power already exists--police officers or council officials invite the trader to have the perishable goods removed. Because the goods have value, they are, by and large, removed.
I contrast the powers given to the police under the Bill with the more general powers of the arrest of illegal traders who are, for example, causing an obstruction. I have referred to my practical experience more than 30 years ago of dealing with such traders. In those days, the police did not have a power of seizure. The practical solution was that, if a hot-dog trader was arrested for causing an obstruction somewhere in the west end of London, it was perfectly natural that he would take his cart and the perishable goods to the police station. Otherwise, the chances were that it would not be there when he came back. No power of seizure was required for that practical solution.
The power of seizure adds an important weapon to the armoury of the authorities. The hot-dog stand will be taken off to a police station while the person's arrest is properly documented, whereupon he will take the cart away with him to pursue his illegal trade further. The power of seizure means that the trader no longer has that opportunity, as the police will seize the item at the police station, and the perishable goods can be removed.
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I understand that there appears to be a practical difficulty, but the arrangements in the City of Westminster seem to work perfectly normally. The Bill will replicate those arrangements in the royal parks, and I hope that my hon. Friends will be persuaded that no substantial practical difficulty exists.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) asked why items should not be seized as they arrive in the royal parks. The answer to that splendid suggestion is that, under the royal parks regulations, traders commit no offence until they start to trade. One benefit that might emerge from tonight's debate is that the House may revisit some of the issues involved. Reframing the powers available to police, and the offences for which prosecutions may be brought, could make the campaign against illegal traders even more effective.
Mr. Chope: Schedule 1 to the Royal Parks and Gardens Act 1872 makes it an offence to
- drive or wheel into a park any vehicle, barrow, truck, or machine not admitted therein by the rules of the park.
Mr. Greenway: I do, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) said that stepping on the shrubbery or the gardens is also an offence, and I accept that, too. However, my understanding is that that is not classed as a trading offence, so the powers that the Bill gives to the Royal Parks Constabulary would not apply to that particular offence. I believe that that also applies to the point raised by my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friends have raised important, practical issues. Some of the matters that they have raised go beyond the scope of the Bill, and need to be dealt with on another occasion.
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