Canterbury City Council Bill
Debate between Christopher Chope and Julian Brazier(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Nuttall
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hope we have a chance to hear from the Minister on the points that have been raised. I am sure she will have read what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said in opening the debate last Thursday.
I rise to speak to this group of Lords amendments and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend for debate in the House last Thursday. I thank him for the comprehensive way he set out the amendments in that debate and in his concluding remarks today. Let me also say how grateful I am for the work undertaken in the other place by the noble Lords. They have thoroughly and efficiently considered all the issues involved in these Bills. Their noble lordships were not prepared simply to nod these Bills through, as some might have feared, including—I have to say, with much regret—myself. One could well have forgiven their lordships for thinking that as these Bills had been trundling along the parliamentary legislative pathway for some time—albeit at the pace of a rather arthritic snail—there could not possibly be any purpose in subjecting them to further detailed scrutiny.
As it is, their noble lordships recognised the importance of pedlars in our society, as those of us who take an interest in these matters in this place do too. The place of pedlars in the life of our nation dates back to the time of Chaucer. Their noble lordships considered the general principles behind the introduction of these Bills and how the detail of the new proposed laws would operate in practice. Pedlars are the ultimate in micro-businesses. The ability for someone with a relatively small amount of capital to start a business travelling from place to place buying and selling goods has been the starting point for many of our great businesses, including some household names.
It would seem that the local authorities promoting the four private Bills before us today were at least partly motivated by a wish to protect the revenue they received from licensed street traders. As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, it was suggested in the other place that these Bills were seeking to achieve the “total eradication of pedlars” from the streets of the cities of Canterbury, Leeds and Nottingham and the borough of Reading. As hon. Members will be aware, there is a great deal of difference between a pedlar and a street trader. It was submitted that the reason why it was thought necessary to try to remove pedlars from those three cities and one borough was to prevent the streets from being obstructed by pedlars as they stopped to sell their wares. Their lordships did not accept that it was appropriate to remove pedlars completely, but they did think it appropriate that the size of the trolley used by pedlars should be limited. Amendment C9 seeks to do just that. It is worth noting the words used by Baroness Knight of Collingtree, who chaired the Select Committee established in the other place to consider the Bills, to justify amendment C9. Referring to the fact that counsel for the local authorities promoting the Bills had produced photographs supporting their contention that the pedlars were causing unacceptable congestion, she said:
“The members of the committee asked for evidence and they produced photographs of their streets, which of course were very crowded. We scrutinised them carefully and asked questions.”
The crucial sentence follows:
“We concluded that nothing we had been shown, or told, proved the case that the local authorities were making.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 December 2012; Vol. 741, c. 445.]
That is a most telling statement. I submit that it provides proof to the House of what my hon. Friends and I have been trying to establish from the outset—namely, that the Bills are far from straightforward. It should not be taken for granted that the case for the legislation has been proven, or that the Bills should simply be nodded through the House without detailed scrutiny. What has happened in the other place has largely justified the stance taken by my hon. Friends when the Bills were previously considered in this House.
We have already seen how, as a result of the first group of amendments, clauses 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, which deal with seizure, forfeiture and the payment of compensation, were all taken out of the Bill completely. They were not amended, or even slightly modified; they were removed in their entirety. In this group, amendment C8 deletes clause 4 completely and amendment C9 deletes clause 5 altogether and replaces it with an entirely new clause whose purpose is completely different from the original one.
It is worth noting the details of the proposed new clause. It sets out in great detail the nature of the trolley that a pedlar would be permitted to use. It gives overall dimensions for the trolley when it is being used, but it also—rather unnecessarily, in my opinion—gives details of the size of the trolley when empty. I am not sure what the relevance of that could be. Surely the overall dimensions set out in proposed new paragraph (2C) would be sufficient. Provided the trolley did not exceed a width of 0.88 metres, a depth of 0.83 metres or a height of 1.63 metres, I fail to see how it could be prejudicial to the council or to the users of the highway. I also fail to see how it would prevent an obstruction from being caused if the trolley were of a different size from that set out in proposed new paragraph (2B), which specifically states that it should not exceed a width of 0.75 metres, a depth of 0.5 metres and a height of 1.25 metres.
There is no explanation of why those precise, detailed figures have been chosen. What is the special significance of a width of 0.88 metres? Why not a width of—
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36)
Mr Brazier
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is always courteous in debate. He will recall that these amendments were promised by me in the Commons because he asked for them, and introduced in the Lords exactly as we promised, so I am very surprised that he wants to debate them again.
Mr Chope
We now have, after a bit of pressure, an admission from my hon. Friend that he has done exactly what he said he would do by ensuring that the amendments would be moved successfully in their lordships House. I and my parliamentary colleagues who have fought so valiantly to remove the most pernicious parts of these Bills can now say that, because of the work that we have been doing in this House over many years, the Bills are much improved as a result of these Lords amendments.
As my hon. Friend has said, he promised Lords amendment C15 to this House when these Bills were given their Third Reading. He has honoured that undertaking by ensuring that it was tabled in the other place. It is fair to say that we both think that the other place’s debate took a lot longer than expected. On the basis of the proposed amendments, we had expected the Bills to go through the other place relatively quickly but they did not because their lordships decided to look at them in a lot more detail. As a result, we received a series of Lords amendments, some of which we discussed earlier, that made a significant difference to the Bills—not just to the touting provision, but to the definition of pedlars. Therefore, when I seek the indulgence of the House, it is in order to ensure that my hon. and right hon. Friends and the Opposition realise that this has been a very worthwhile exercise. Although a lot of colleagues have consistently voted against the ideas that I and a number of my hon. Friends have suggested—[Interruption.]
Canterbury City Council Bill
Debate between Christopher Chope and Julian Brazier
Mr Brazier
On the first point, my hon. Friend has of course seen a copy of the letter from the Bill’s promoters confirming that they will immediately strike out clause 11, as originally proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On the second point, I am afraid I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) no such assurance, because of the simple practical fact that, given the circumstances in which we in Canterbury find ourselves, making the same amendment would not leave us with workable legislation. At the end of the process, the situation would be as unworkable as it is at the moment.
Mr Chope
I am disappointed at my hon. Friend’s response, but not surprised; a lot of time has been spent in this House trying to tease this matter out. If his Bill is revived, goes before a Select Committee in the other place and the petitions against it are heard, I hope that Members there hearing them will take into account the compromise that has been reached by other councils—including, of course, on slightly different areas, Bournemouth borough and Manchester city councils. Obviously, my hon. Friend—and I, for that matter—will have to accept whatever verdict is reached in the other place when it considers the petitions’ merits.
One thing that emerged from what the Minister said in the previous short debate is that the Government will come forward in two or three months with their response to the consultation. I strongly urge Members of the other place to defer convening a Committee to look at the detail of these Bills and the petitions until after they have the Government’s response, because the information may be very helpful in enabling them to consider the petitions in detail. So I hope that, for the sake of a month or two, the Bills will be put on hold and that priority will be given in the other place to the Bills that were the subject of the constructive compromise to which I referred. If it is not possible to hear petitions against all the Bills at once in the other place, I hope that the Reading and Leeds cases will be dealt with before the Canterbury and Nottingham ones. That is another reason why I thought it would be helpful to put them on a different time frame by ensuring that we had this debate and that the other ones would already have gone through the other House with the revival motions unopposed.
So that is the background. We, in this House, no longer have any control over what happens to the contents of the Canterbury City Council Bill and the Nottingham City Council Bill. For that reason, the pertinent question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in the earlier debate is more pertinent in respect of these two Bills—he asked whether the Bills are worth reviving. It remains open to this House to consider the contents of the City of Westminster Bill, but the Canterbury and Nottingham Bills are outwith our control. We have no opportunity to propose further amendments in the light of any suggestions that the Government may make, so we are at the mercy of the good sense of their lordships. To look on the bright side, I should mention that last week I met one of their lordships who is very interested in and concerned about these issues relating to pedlars. He spoke as warmly in support of the principle of pedlary as the Minister has just done, and I am sure that if that noble Lord is involved in the Committee, as I hope he will make it his business to be, the pedlars will receive a good hearing in the other place.