City of Westminster Bill [Lords]

Mike Freer Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

First, may I declare an interest as a former leader of a London borough council that had to deal with street trading on a day-to-day basis? My postbag on street trading was far bigger than my postbags on many other areas of council activity.

I should like to address a few of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I understand the law of supply and demand and the effect of regulation, and that if people are selling things that people want to buy, we should not get in the way. That is fine, but if it were true, we ought to allow drug trading and prostitution to be completely unregulated. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is quite right that a revival of the City of Westminster Bill does not stop subsequent detailed scrutiny.

I have risen to support a revival of the Bill because I feel strongly about localism, which is not an à la carte concept. We cannot say that local councils should have the rights and powers to do what they think is right for their areas only as long as we agree with them.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, but the crux of the argument is that we want national legislation to allow local authorities to introduce the right pedlar laws for their areas, and not for councils to have to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds on private Bills. We may be on the same side in that respect.

[Mike Freer]

That is quite right. It would be helpful if we could get the Department for Communities and Local Government or whichever is the correct Department to regulate on a national framework. However, in the absence of that, I shall support the city of Westminster in its promotion of the Bill. Those who have to deal with the scourge of street trading know that it is not simply a matter of the touting and the pedlars. The high streets of many major cities—especially the London boroughs—are virtually obstacle courses. One has to dodge not only the normal street furniture, but the goods and services being peddled on the pavements.

I am pleased to see that clause 18(e) deals with disabled access, because many people in wheelchairs or who use zimmer frames—or even families with pushchairs—find it difficult to manoeuvre around the variety of plastic tubs or greengrocery in the high streets. It may sound trivial, but it is not when we are trying to maintain our high streets as vibrant economies. They have to encourage trade while also retaining their attractiveness for local people. If families or disabled people feel that they cannot manoeuvre along their high street, they will go to the major shopping centres, which are regulated. On that basis alone, I support the Bill.

Importantly, the Bill also deals with the detritus of smoking. Many councils spend tens of thousands of pounds cleaning up after smokers. I expect that hon. Members were keen to ban smoking in public places, but they may not have realised the cost that was pushed on to local councils.

The fundamental issue is that if we support localism, we must allow the democratically elected councillors of Westminster to bring forward what they believe is right for their people.

[Philip Davies]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point about localism, but if we were to take it to the lengths that he seems to be suggesting, we need not bother having a national Parliament. Does he accept that the duty of Members of a national Parliament is to preserve our freedoms and not just to give carte blanche to any local authority to follow an authoritarian route and ban things that it does not like? We have a duty to defend people’s freedoms as well as to defend the principle of localism.

[Mike Freer]

I accept entirely that this House acts as a check and balance on the powers of local governance, but I also look forward to my hon. Friend tabling a private Member’s Bill to legalise or deregulate prostitution and drug dealing on our streets. We cannot pick and choose which freedoms should be traded on our streets.

The City of Westminster and other areas need these powers, not to regulate in a heavy-handed manner, but to revoke the licences of those who seek to cause an obstruction or damage to our local environment. On that basis, I support the revival of the Bill.