London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] (By Order)

Greg Knight Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes his point perfectly. We in this House have the privilege of the opportunity to try to introduce some common sense into these measures before they become set in law. I hope this debate will enable that to happen, certainly in relation to clauses 8 and 9, against which petitions have, for good reason, been submitted. Depressingly, the petitions were presented in the other place as well, and they did not have any impact. Nobody seems to have been listening. I hope somebody will start to listen soon because we are talking about potential threats to the viability of lots of small businesses in the ever-important hospitality industry. There is the possibility of gross injustices arising from these provisions.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

If this Bill were to be enacted, how would the provisions of clause 9 apply to a vendor who has no window to his customers and no door, such as the owner of a hot dog cart?

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[Mr Chope]

Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. The great joy for people in Christchurch is that even when they reach a certain age they can travel. They travel outside their constituency to places such as London, and they expect that in London they will find facilities similar to those that they enjoy in Christchurch. Sometimes they are disappointed, and that is where the relevance of all this lies. As they have such high standards at home, they seek them elsewhere.

I am concerned that it would be a retrograde move to allow local authorities in London to reintroduce turnstiles. Not long ago, a short debate was held in the other place in which Baroness Greengross asked Baroness Andrews, who was then an Under-Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, about extending the provisions of the Public Lavatories (Turnstiles) Act 1963 to railway premises. The answer was that it would not be desirable because a lot of railway premises were having their loos and the access to them modernised. However, it was implicit in the answer that the then Government did not believe that the law needed to be changed and that they thought it desirable that we should not need turnstiles in order to gain access to public toilet facilities. This is a particular issue for disabled people, because they find it most difficult, although others may wish to gain access to a public toilet as quickly as possible and they do not want to have their progress impeded. I do not think that we need to spell out the point at any greater length, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Greg Knight]

May I put it gently to my hon. Friend that he has the argument the wrong way round? Surely we should be applauding this measure, because if local authorities are allowed to introduce turnstiles and thereby charge people an exorbitant rate to use the lavatory, the people of London will have far more lavatories to use as more and more councils seek to tap into this revenue raising idea.

[Mr Chope]

I do not know whether my right hon. Friend had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he was making that observation, but I suspect that he did. If he did not, he is living on another planet. In the City of Westminster, for example, the council raises an enormous surplus in parking charges, many of which are paid by people who do not reside in the borough. The original idea was that those fees should be reinvested to improve public facilities in Westminster, but that has not happened in practice. The idea that if local authorities can impose more charges for access to public toilets, the quality and availability of those toilets will improve is pie in the sky.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes another very good point. I am sure that if the coalition Government are short of new policies to enact they will think seriously about my hon. Friend’s suggestion. Before they do so, however, they might look at the document produced a couple of years ago by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which set out a strategic guide, spread over the best part of 100 pages, on “Improving Public Access to Better Quality Toilets”. Nowhere in that strategic guide was anything that suggested that the answer to all the problems was to reintroduce turnstiles, which were outlawed in an enlightened moment in 1963. They should probably remain outlawed and I do not think that the case for reintroducing them has been made.

I am also very concerned about the Bill’s provisions on pedlars and street trading, to which I have already referred—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley engaged in a short exchange with me on that point. Those powers go far in excess of what is reasonable. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green did not consider them when he introduced the Bill. In a sense, this is a warning shot, because a number of us have been jealous of the rights of small groups to be able to carry on their activities and not to find themselves subject to harassment by officialdom. The wide powers that are given under the Bill to Westminster city council and to Camden borough council are a licence for harassment. They give tremendous powers to local authorities to harass the people they wish to drive out of business because it does not suit their purposes and because they find it rather difficult to try to enforce the law as it stands nationally. They want to give themselves extra powers to impose penalties on the grounds of suspicion, and I think that that is wrong.

One is left asking whether anything in the Bill is worth saving, or whether it would be much better to put the promoters out of their misery and not give it a Second Reading. My hon. Friend the Minister thinks that we should give the promoters the benefit of the doubt. For my part, I think that they have had three years in which to try to get their tackle in order and they have manifestly failed so to do. They have not really come to terms with the change in the mood out there, which is very much against interference and regulation by local authorities, pettifogging bureaucracy, penalties, putting pressure on people and making it very difficult for them to argue against penalties, which makes them have to go along and pay another fine or penalty. The promoters misunderstand the mood and there is a great demand for some consistency in our criminal law across the whole country rather than having special regimes for licensing in the London area, as proposed in clause 23, or special regimes for penalties for street trading, as found in the clauses that promote powers for Westminster and Camden.

I obviously support my hon. Friend the Minister as regards the parts of the Bill to which he is opposed. There is so much wrong with the Bill that there is a danger that if we allow it a Second Reading, an enormous amount of our colleagues’ time will be taken up in the Opposed Private Bill Committee. If the promoters are as reluctant to compromise as they appear to have been in the other place, we will end up taking up a lot of time on the Floor of the House on Report and Third Reading. It might be better to put the promoters out of their misery at this stage and force them to go back to the drawing board and propose a fresh Bill that is more in tune with current thinking.

[Mr Knight]

I hear my hon. Friend’s argument, but all what he says could be put right in Committee. If he feels that the Bill is too pettifogging in some areas, amendments could be moved in Committee to improve it to such a state that only reasonable actions could be taken by local authorities to deal with what is a very real problem. The argument he is developing is not against the Bill per se but against its current drafting. Is it not then for us to amend it in Committee?

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) on the admirable way in which he moved Second Reading. I found it very helpful.

I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who has certainly enticed me to vote against Second Reading. Many people see this whole process as a waste of time, and I think the business managers would like the Bill to go through straight away. However, we have an important role to play in examining and scrutinising private business. When I came into the House after being a local councillor, I did not expect to be worrying about turnstiles in public lavatories—I thought I had left all that behind. However, we do spend hours scrutinising private Bills, even though only a few Members come to the House to do so. That is what we are here to do, and it is definitely not a waste of time.

In deciding how to vote, we must ask whether a local borough or council has a particular need that is different from the needs of the rest of the country. If it can prove that it does, I am inclined to support it. What concerns me is the tens of thousands of pounds of council tax payers’ money that local authorities spend bringing Bills such as this to the House.

[Mr Greg Knight]

In fairness to the Bill’s promoters, is it not the case that the Bill originated when we had a Government who revelled in red tape, and that the Bill has reached this House when we now have a new Government who are committed to slashing red tape?

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I was just about to discuss that dilemma. However, I shall quickly digress, because what concerned me most was that the Minister had so many reservations. I have never heard a Minister at the Dispatch Box with so many reservations about private business, but the shadow Minister, whom I welcome to the Dispatch Box and who did exceptionally well today, welcomed every measure with great glee. As a Conservative, the principle of that position worries me.

However, to return to why we are here today, we must decide whether there is merit in the Bill proceeding and whether there are only one or two measures that need to be addressed in Committee. On Second Reading, every Member of the House can come to the Chamber, but in Committee only a few will examine the Bill. The advantage is that if the House flags up issues on Second Reading, members of the Committee can take them into account.

I was slightly encouraged by the Minister, who is a most excellent Minister, because he ruled out certain things, but I have a dilemma to do with localism. I like the idea of local boroughs and local councils making their own decisions, but there must be an overall cap on that. I am looking forward to what the Government do on localism. The more we allow councils to do, the less necessary it will be to consider Bills such as this in the House.

I am still undecided. Perhaps the Bill’s sponsor will have a few words to say and perhaps he will persuade me that because there are many good things in the Bill, I should let it go through. However, I am of the view that I will oppose it.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.