Leeds City Council Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bilston, for introducing these Bills and for explaining them to your Lordships’ House so carefully and thoroughly. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for the points that he made. I think we all agree that we should not be where we are today and that it is time that we looked at this. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that I do not think anything in these Bills will greatly inhibit the apprentices of the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, selling sausages in Notting Hill, not least because Notting Hill is already covered by the provisions of the various London Local Authorities Acts, which some years ago covered similar ground to that now introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bilston.

I declare an interest; I am still a councillor in a London borough. Indeed, among my responsibilities on the council’s executive is the subject of licensing. This covers street trading and even pedlars. For some years we had a town centre manager who talked to me about little other than the Pedlars Act 1871. I learnt the definition of a pedlar many years ago. Should there be anybody in your Lordships’ House who is not sure exactly what a pedlar is, the definition in the 1871 Act, which I think still applies, says:

“The term ‘pedlar’ means any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs, or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden, travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men’s houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or procuring orders for goods, wares, or merchandise immediately to be delivered, or selling or offering for sale his skill in handicraft”.

If ever there was a reason for updating legislation, I think I have just read it to your Lordships. That it has survived so long—albeit with some subsequent case law to bring it into the 20th century, if not the 21st—is quite remarkable.

As I said, the London Local Authorities Act, which was the Bill promoted by Westminster on behalf of all the London boroughs to which the noble Lord, Lord Bilston, referred, has largely removed this problem in London. However, it is clearly still a major problem in several cities, including those covered by the Bills before us today. No local authority at any time, still less in the current climate, would undertake the enormous amount of work and the enormous cost of promoting private legislation unless it felt it had a real and significant problem to deal with. I looked at some of the lengthy debates on the Bill in the other place. Even the honourable Member for Christchurch, Mr Chope, was convinced when he saw photographs of the problems in, I think, Leeds. It was certainly one of these cities. If Mr Chope was convinced, I think we would all be convinced even more readily.

We are here because this is where we are, and the Bills are before us today for reasons very ably explained to us by the noble Lord, Lord Bilston. I hope that your Lordships will give them a Second Reading, but I hope still more that the Minister will tell us that these will be the last such Bills that have to come before the House, that this Government, like previous Governments, have recognised the need for legislation, and that a government Bill will be introduced to enable us properly to debate and consider the very real and important issues to which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred. Indeed, they are important issues. There may not be very many pedlars left—however they are defined—but there are some and it is important that we consider these issues. However, they need to be considered in a proper legislative process in a Bill produced by government that goes through normal and proper parliamentary procedure in one Session, so that we are all clear about it and can legislate properly. The worst way to tackle this is through private Bills that take literally years to process and cost local authorities—or more particularly their taxpayers—hundreds of thousands of pounds, and inevitably leave us with a piecemeal situation across the country.

I am happy to give our support to this Second Reading, but it is in a sense conditional support in that I hope it will not be necessary to give it again.