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14 Jan 2010 : Column 904

I wish to put a couple of brief points to the House. First, I want to deal with the Government's consultation. Like other supporters of these Bills, I strongly support the Government's steps in the direction of achieving a national structure. Indeed, I think that the position of those on all three Front Benches is that it would be better to have national legislation, but that does not yet exist, and it is likely to be some time away. That eventuality should not prevent the citizens of Canterbury, Nottingham and, indeed, other cities, from thinking that legitimate procedures still exist in this House to protect their interests. The consultation is very unlikely to produce legislation, certainly this side of a general election. Even if we look beyond that election and envisage a Labour Government returned to power with a strong majority, and even if my hon. Friend the Minister is still in the same ministerial role, although I think he is probably destined for much greater things, it is unlikely to be a priority in the early moments of the post-election period. That is why it is important for Canterbury and for Nottingham that this legislation moves forward in the House under procedures that are open and legitimate.

My second point relates to the interesting comments by the hon. Member for Wellingborough about increases in unemployment. Of course, unemployment has gone up, including in cities such as my own. However, I assure him that the employment-destroying capacity of the bogus trader is a reality. That applies to legitimate businesses in my constituency and in those of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East and the hon. Member for Canterbury. That point must be taken on board as part of the equation.

I have never said, nor would I ever say, that every pedlar is a rogue; that is simply not the case. Neither would I want to say that every pedlar is, in some sense, of marginal economic or social value. The right to peddle is not put at risk in the six Bills, of which these two are the most restrictive, nor by the other Bills that will, I hope, come before the House on another occasion. The right of people to operate under a pedlar's licence will remain intact. However, the legislation places legitimate restrictions on pedlars who use, and on occasion abuse, their position to the detriment of the ordinary passing traffic in our cities. That is inimical to legitimate businesses that face unfair competition of a kind that we should not allow in situations where there is a local interest, even if it has not yet been translated into a national issue.

I think that that is the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East would want to have put forward in his name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). I want to put that case strongly on behalf of Members from across the House and many different parts of the country. I associate myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East with the remarks of the hon. Member for Canterbury, which I strongly endorse. This is not a party political debate; in fact, the different political parties have, overwhelmingly, a common view. On that basis, I hope that we can proceed with the Third Reading of these Bills.

3.13 pm

John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): We have already had a wide range of contributions from my hon. Friends the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier)
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and for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), the Minister, and the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd), illustrating the fact that this is the latest movement in a multi-act drama.

As has been ably explained, these Bills, and the associated Bills put forward by other local authorities around the country, have come before the House many times under many different stages of the parliamentary process. I expect that the others in the convoy will be with us in due course. There has been a great amount of debate, and I do not intend to detain the House for long by going over ground that has already been covered in some detail by Members on both sides of the House during those earlier stages.

Mr. Bone: The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) described what the position would be if Labour were returned with a majority, but would a Conservative Government pick this sensible legislation up and proceed with it as the Minister outlined?

John Penrose: I thank my hon. Friend for leading me nicely to my next point. However, I should mention briefly that I have a small local interest in this matter. My constituency, Weston-super-Mare has a carnival every year-it is a grand west country tradition-and a large number of pedlars arrive for the evening. They add to the streetscape and create a wonderful buzz around the town, but they create a great deal of ill-feeling among some of the carnival organisers, because they feel that the pedlars-some licensed, some not-take money out of the town that they might otherwise be able to give to good causes and charity. I must confess to that element of local interest.

Mr. Brazier: Can my hon. Friend imagine what it must be like to operate in a city where that is going on not as a result of a carnival, but every single day from the middle of April through to the early autumn?

John Penrose: I completely take my hon. Friend's point. In fact, my local authority has examined whether it wishes to introduce a private Bill of the kind we are discussing. It has decided not to do so thus far because of the expense and difficulty, but in earlier rounds of debate, the House has discussed the fact that many local authorities that are similarly affected have considered introducing private Bills.

That is one reason why other Conservative Members have said in previous versions of this debate that we support the idea of some kind of national approach. Clearly, the matter is not efficiently dealt with by multiple local authorities taking the private Bill route. That is not necessarily the most effective way of dealing with the matter, and some kind of national approach should be seriously considered. That was why we were delighted that the Government produced a consultation document-we are part way through the process at the moment. I am sure the Minister would not expect me to offer a legislative blank cheque: what we do depends first of all on the results of the consultation, and secondly on what proposals this Government or any future Conservative Government make. I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that it is a good thing that the process has been started, because we need to uncover in more detail what people in different parts of the country feel about the matter.


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Mr. Chope: Before my hon. Friend allows the impression to be given that all pedlars operate against the interests of charity, will he accept that one particular pedlar with whom I have been in contact, Frankie Fernando, has under his pedlar certificate raised significant sums of money for charity?

John Penrose: I am happy to accept my hon. Friend's point. A number of hon. Members, on both sides of the House, have made the point that there are sharp and important distinctions to be made between legitimate pedlars, street traders and rogues. Those are distinct categories, and we need to continue to make the distinction. Of course, as he says, within those categories, there are people who make money for themselves and their families, and people who make money for a variety of worthy causes. He is quite right to make that point.

Philip Davies rose-

John Penrose: I am trying to get to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, but I am happy to give way once more before I do so.

Philip Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that the benefit of going for a national route following the consultation document that the Government produced, as opposed to this piecemeal approach, is that pedlars by nature are not a very powerful lobbying group? They are not well organised and do not have expensive lobbyists at their disposal, so legislation such as this Bill could go through without the voice of the pedlars being heard. Had it not been for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), the other side of the argument would never have been heard in these debates.

John Penrose: I agree with my hon. Friend that it requires Members of Parliament such as him, and my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), to raise their voices and put both sides of the debate, which they have done ably. In fact, I believe that now my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has spoken, more hon. Members have spoken in opposition to the Bill than in favour. He is right to make that point, but he is doing down some of our colleagues who are doing a good job of making their arguments.

To come back to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, the Conservative party's view, as we have said on previous occasions, is that it is not sensible to make a party-political issue out of an individual local Bill. We are trying to ensure an entirely free vote for Conservative Members on individual Bills from local authorities-whether from Canterbury, Nottingham or anywhere else. We do think that it is sensible to start looking, as the Government have, at whether a national position on the issue can be reached. However, the point made from both sides of the House earlier-that no matter who wins the general election, it will be difficult to find parliamentary time to take through a Bill on this issue in the early stages of any Government's life-is true. Therefore it would be a mistake for me or any other shadow Minister or Minister to promise national legislation in the near future, and I would not wish to use that as an excuse to guide colleagues to vote in one way or the other on this Bill. I am trying to "park" that issue.


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Mr. Chope: Does my hon. Friend accept that this is a two-stage process? First, the Government need to have a settled opinion on the changes that they would like to see made to the law. Secondly, they need to find the parliamentary time to implement those conclusions. I see the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who promoted a private Member's Bill on this issue, in his place. If the Government had a settled opinion, given a fair wind, it could be expressed in statute sooner than my hon. Friend thinks.

John Penrose: If my hon. Friend is volunteering to help the process along, he or anyone else who did well in the private Member's Bill ballot would find themselves with very many friends soon after the ballot results were published. He is right to describe the process in that way, and I am sure that it would expedite matters if that happened. Of course, we cannot tell this afternoon whether that will happen, but I completely agree that the first step must be for any Government to develop a considered position and work through the detailed and important issues of how to distinguish between rogues, street traders and pedlars, and how one governs and enforces the laws that might be introduced in each case.

I hope that I have clarified the Conservative party's position on this and that we are not urging our colleagues to vote either way on these specific Bills, but to make their own personal decisions.

Mr. Chope: Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Conservative party has found the paper produced by Paul Bradford, from St. Chad's college, Durham university, helpful? It is about selling in the street and pedlary as an entry route to entrepreneurship.

John Penrose: I can confirm that my hon. Friend kindly handed me the paper about 10 minutes ago and I have made a determined effort to get through it. I have covered the letter, but I have not got beyond page 2 or 3 of the 10-page detailed addendum. Based on what I have read so far, it is tremendously helpful, although I am not sure that it is a complete statement or indeed the last word on the subject. It should certainly be taken into account by all sides, and it makes some of the same points about entry into employment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. I am sure that we will return to this issue when we consider some of the other Bills that are attempting to achieve the same ends in the near future.

3.24 pm

Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD): I rise to make a few brief remarks to confirm that the Liberal Democrats support the measure. The debate about the national framework will command wide support across the House. However, hon. Members have made the point that waiting for the framework might be like waiting for Godot. It is therefore important to press ahead with this measure not only for that reason, but because it could be used as a test, so that when the next Government, whomever they may be, get around to drafting legislation following the consultation, they will have an example of such legislation working in practice. They would then be able to build on that example and use it as best practice, or, if it did not work, to learn lessons from it.


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Mr. Bone: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the time that it would take for national legislation to be introduced, but has he considered what will happen if we pass this private Bill today and then find that the national legislation, when it comes, is significantly different? How would we reconcile the two?

Mr. Davey: The national legislation could make the necessary reconciliation in the Act, so I do not see any problem there whatever. Indeed, a key point on which I hope to command support across the House, is that the national legislation, when it comes, should respect the needs of individual local authorities to legislate through byelaws in a way that suits their areas, towns and city centres. I would hope that a one-size-fits-all approach would not emerge. That is very important.

We have heard about the differences between circumstances in Canterbury and in Weston-super-Mare. I can confirm that the situation in the town centre of Kingston, in my constituency, is probably very different from that in Canterbury or in Weston-super-Mare. In Kingston, there are regularly street traders and pedlars-probably not as regularly as in Canterbury, but on most weekends and some weekdays. It would be a welcome new freedom for the local authority to be able to decide whether to take action on this matter, as long as that ability was not killed by some overarching, over-prescriptive, over-bureaucratic national framework; it must be an enabling framework. That could be advantageous.

In Kingston, we had the experiment of first business improvement district in the country. There are now many other BIDs, but Kingston First was the first. I sat on the Committee that considered the Government Bill that introduced BIDs. The resulting legislation has enabled, with a number of different local authorities going ahead with measures, other authorities to work out what is right for them. One size has not fitted all with the BID approach to local economic management and development, and neither should one size fit all with this type of measure. The success of those initiatives suggests that we must be as flexible as possible if we go down the national framework route.

Philip Davies: I take the hon. Gentleman's point about localism being broadly a good thing, but under the measures a pedlar's certificate would entitle the holder to act under its authority anywhere in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Given that the two Bills on which we are concentrating today differ from each other and from the other Bills that we will be considering later, it would be difficult for any pedlar who wished to use a certificate that he has obtained legitimately to do his work in different parts of the United Kingdom, because he would have to look through clauses such as those in the Bill to see what they could or could not do in each local area. Is that not a difficult thing to expect them to do?

Mr. Davey: The hon. Gentleman is in grave danger of over-egging the pudding. Pedlars are, as he and his colleagues have argued, entrepreneurial by nature. I think that they are quite capable of finding out what is going on in different towns and city centres, and he is quite wrong to make that point. Some of his colleagues appear to accept the notion of a flexible national framework,
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and no doubt if that were implemented, there would be differences in different town centres under that approach. I do not see the force of his argument in practice or in relation to what is likely to be the legal reality.

In conclusion, the work that has been put into the Bills by different city councils and the hon. Members who have sponsored and led on those Bills is to be commended. I hope that that work can act as a spur, a catalyst and an example for future legislation in this area.

3.30 pm

Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con): For reasons that have been made clear on a number of occasions, I am not yet convinced of the merits of either Bill. I should like to cover a number of aspects of their contents, but first I wish to consider the European convention on human rights.

In the explanatory memorandums to both the Canterbury and Nottingham Bills, there is a statement that in the view of the respective councils the provision of the Bills are

You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that issue was referred to in the deliberations of the Unopposed Bill Committee that took place to examine these Bills and the Leeds City Council and Reading Borough Council Bills. There was one Committee for all those Bills. A representative of the solicitors Sharpe Pritchard, Mr. Alastair Lewis, appeared as agent for all four councils. Quite rightly and properly, he went into whether the Bills were compatible with the convention. He drew attention to the view taken by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was that it should be for the Unopposed Bill Committee to ensure that the Bills were compatible, as the councils had asserted on the front of them. He reported that the Minister had said that he was

and saw no reason to dispute their conclusions. However, he continued that the Minister had not seen the evidence that the promoters relied on to justify a restriction as being in the general interest. It was for that reason that he went into detail about how he felt the evidence justified the conclusion that it was in the general interest to introduce the restrictions in the Bills.

As confirmed and conceded by the agent from Sharpe Pritchard, article 1 of protocol 1 to the European convention is relevant because the economic benefit deriving from the licence, which in this case would include a pedlar's certificate,

of that article. He spelled out the three rules contained in the article: first, that the control of the use of property must be in accordance with the law; secondly, that it must be in accordance with the general interest; and thirdly-this is the issue that should cause us to pay careful attention-that it must be proportionate to the aim. We are talking about restrictions upon a person holding a pedlar's licence exercising their right throughout the length and breadth of the country.

In setting out his view to the Unopposed Bill Committee members, Mr. Lewis said that-


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