City of London (Various Powers) Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, what a fascinating place the House of Lords is, with its range of issues and topics. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on introducing this matter at this stage. He gave us an excellent synopsis of the Bill and some fascinating history.

I share the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who I knew would rise to this occasion, having experienced his contributions in a previous debate on the subject of pedlary. I was tempted to declare a conflict of interest on pedlary, but my pedalling has two Ls rather than one, so I decided that it was unnecessary.

There was a point that I wanted to ask the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, to address when he replied. The Bill refers to complying with the European convention, but it is silent on whether the Bill actually complies with the European directive, which was of course the subject of the consultation document. I, too, congratulate the Government on keeping up the good work started previously. The consultation document is excellent.

The Bill is laudable and the intentions are genuine but, as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions—and the word “paved”, if noble Lords will pardon the pun, might be appropriate in these circumstances. I could not help noticing in the executive summary of the consultation document that it says that to,

“ensure the continued freedom of pedlars to trade, and to prevent re-regulation by another route, we intend to amend the current general exemption from street trading regulation for certified pedlars by clearly defining the exempted mode of trade”,

as well as withdrawing the necessity for certification. It then said,

“This should ensure that pedlars are generally free to trade and not subject to the street trading regime. It will also aid local authority enforcement of illegal street trading by enabling them to establish more quickly when traders are not trading as pedlars”.

I hope it is right in that optimistic assessment because I must admit that when you go through the responses to the consultation document, what is interesting is the variety of responses even among pedlars themselves. For instance, what constitutes a trolley, whether it has ice cream in it or not, since they vary considerably in size? There is an importance to that because in some cases, if it gets to be too large, the question is whether they are really pedlars and mobile in their trade or static street traders. Although we might be considering a somewhat arcane and obscure thing today, I am sure it will eventually have some legal interpretation.

In short, I share the enthusiasm expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and by my noble friend Lord Myners about encouraging people to provide what can be, at its best, a very valuable service and is, for many people, a first-stage entrepreneurial experience. The secret with legislation, however, is in getting the balance right because we know that there will be examples of exploitation going on. Although for many this area will perhaps seem to be of minor importance, I feel sure that the impact will be quite wide-ranging. To conclude, I broadly welcome the legislation. I would be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, could address the question of whether he feels that the proposed legislation complies with the directive—a view which seems to be doubted in the consultation document.