Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [HL]

My Lords, as chairman of the Opposed Bill Committee I start by thanking my four colleagues who sat with me for two days and all the officers who so ably helped us. I also thank the two sponsors of the Bills, who have explained the problems so well from their own experience of their towns. I am pleased to see the noble Lords, Lord Graham and Lord Turner, who will no doubt tell us that as members of the All-Party Group on the Markets Industry they have wide knowledge on this issue. I also thank the opponents of the Bill and the agents, Mr McGerr and Mr Robert Campbell-Lloyd, for sending information on the Bill even at this late hour. We listened to them carefully, but neither I nor my committee was persuaded by their opposition. One minor recommendation we made was that local authorities should be minded in implementing the legislation to ensure that the officers are well and properly trained in how to advise street traders and in particular pedlars who wish to ply their trade. The problem, which has been put before us so well, is the consequence of outdated legislation and concerns the distinction between a pedlar and a street trader. The pedlars’ legislation is ancient, dating from 1871 and 1881, and addresses the simple idea of someone plying their trade from door to door, hence carrying their wares; whereas a street trader has a pitch with a licence and typically has a stall from which he or she offers goods or services. The definition is now being abused. Street traders are using the cheaper pedlars’ licences. These licences are not only cheaper but can be issued in one town and used, in a portable way, across the length and breadth of Britain. Genuine street traders, who pay a lot more for their licences, are restricted in where they can obtain a licence and can set up their pitch only in that one town or city. The regulation of these two different kinds of trader is enormously difficult not only for local authorities but for the police. I might add that responsibility for licensing pedlars falls to the police but for street traders to the local authorities. That also causes confusion. Alex Chadd, a member of South Wales Police, speaking on behalf of ACPO, believes that there should be reform. The police certainly want to offset their current charge of having to deal with pedlars’ licences. The law is in confusion. I could give your Lordships many of the examples that are so well set out in Street Traders and Pedlars Legislation—The Case for Reform, which was published by the All-Party Group on the Markets Industry. I am sure that colleagues from the group will speak tellingly of that report. However, I shall give one example in which street traders observed a pedlar essentially setting up as a street trader and called in the police. The policeman concerned was so confused by the law he had to enforce that he said to the pedlar, ““Don’t move! You stay on that pitch so that when I come back in an hour I can check that you’re still there and not doing anything unlawful””. At a stroke of the law he changed him from a pedlar into a street trader, much to the chagrin of the genuine street traders. There are in this unhappy situation numerous associated problems which have been partly described by the noble Lords sponsoring the legislation. These problems include the issue of faulty or illegal goods and how to acquire a refund. A street trader who has the same pitch from week to week can respond to a dissatisfied consumer or trading standards officer whereas the pedlar is gone the next week and there is no recourse for the consumer seeking fair play. We have countless examples of local authorities such as Portsmouth saying that anything that is done to repeal the 1871 Act will be well received. Attempts to move pedlars on can be labour intensive, and that is an important point. The current system of dealing with pedlars in Birkenhead is so long-winded that it is ineffective. In Southampton, because of the outdated pedlars Act, a considerable amount of the time of police and city centre staff is occupied in bringing offenders to court. In Winchester, pedlars contribute nothing to the local economy but often pass on shabby inferior goods to the unsuspecting public. The law is ineffective because, as a result of these ancient laws, the fines are too small to inhibit pedlars trading as street traders. There is seldom an opportunity to confiscate goods, a practice which could otherwise be a route to salvation. It is interesting to note that the London Local Authorities Act 2004, which sought to remedy the problem, included provision for confiscation and higher fines that have largely solved the problem. Danger is also an issue because of the potential for public disorder concerns. Many noble Lords will be acquainted with the lovely town of York and the narrow street called the Shambles which boasts properly licensed street traders. But it occasionally is a shambles because other pedlars come along to fill the street and make it much more difficult to pass. We sometimes have to be concerned about overloading such streets where markets ought to be operating vibrantly. As for the current position, there have been a series of Private Bills from local authorities. I chaired the committee considering the eighth and ninth—so that is nine down. Today, however, I have received information that four more cities—Canterbury, Leeds and Nottingham city councils and Reading Borough Council—now want private legislation on street trading. I read out the names to emphasise the fact that major councils feel that they are dealing with a major problem. The letters that I have received from the Government imply that this is not a matter of great moment. However, on 16 May, our colleague from the other end of the Palace of Westminster, Dr Brian Iddon MP, attended a meeting specifically called to deal with the pedlar problem in London. Some 40 local authorities attended. I shall furnish the Minister with a list of them if he has not already got one. People do not come down to London for a single-item agenda if they are not already sensitised to a problem which needs to be dealt with. So far we have had piecemeal legislation. One fact that was borne in upon the committee is that it is absurd for committees to sit and deal with this type of legislation again and again only to arrive at the same conclusion. There is a further problem on which the House might like to reflect. The four new cities I mentioned above are large ones, but when the legislation goes through the pedlars will have to move on as they will be prevented from imitating street traders. The effect will be to displace them to smaller market towns. My wife and I rejoice in the market town of Garstang, in Lancashire, and we love to go there on Thursdays. It is only a small town of some 8,000 people, but I can see that the pedlar problem will arise there too. It will have consequences for the police, for instance, who will not necessarily have the opportunities and facilities to reconnoitre the markets, and consequences for trading standards officers. That is why it is imperative that we get on and do something about this. The committee I chaired recognised not only that the law is in confusion but that costs are involved. We understood that the cost of obtaining an Act for Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the first local authorities to institute legislation, was £200,000. That legislation has been successful in that the pedlars in Newcastle upon Tyne have moved over to Gateshead—what a waste of public money. The additional costs for the police and the local authority have been well explained by my noble friend Lord Bradley and by the noble Lord, Lord Eden. There are also costs in bureaucracy and as a result of filling the courts that must, with great difficulty, deal with these matters. There is also the cost of Opposed Bill Committees in your Lordships’ House. Quite frankly we have better things to do than spend two days summoning QCs to address these issues, especially when we always come out with the same result. The committee had a reply to its decision from Gareth Thomas MP, on behalf of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The Government allow that there is a problem particularly with pedlars. It is good that we have that understanding. They say that ““some”” authorities are concerned about this matter. However, I contend that the list I read out, and the growing list of those who wish to seek Private Bill legislation, shows that this is not about ““some”” authorities but is a nationwide problem. We are told that there are existing powers. However, as the all-party group, noble Lords who have already spoken and I have demonstrated, the existing powers are confused, not well understood by those who are supposed to enforce them and need some clearing up. This is not just about counterfeit and illegal goods, which are a concern, but about the unfairness of having two types of street trader: the pedlar and the genuine street trader. Astonishingly, the Government tell us that the department needs evidence of these matters on which to base concerns and to bring forward legislation. Surely the series of Bills that comes streaming into the House is evidence enough. The fact that an all-party group is producing well-researched papers on street trading also demonstrates the need, as does the fact that the street traders and the associations that represent them—NABMA, the NMTF and APMO; I will translate those acronyms for the Minister if he wishes—have spoken on this, as have ACPO and the ATCM, the Association of Town Centre Management, and the LGA itself. When the Minister says in his letter that there is an absence of evidence and that the case has not been properly made, I contest that all the way. The Minister also invokes the Rogers review, which supposedly looked at these matters. I suggest, however, that the review deals with enforcement, not with the real problem—the defunct definition of pedlars and street traders in modern market conditions. I am also surprised that the Rogers review says that the problem, if it is one—this is what it implies—has only a low impact on the community. That is wholly understandable, because until there is a calamity of the shambles-in-the-Shambles sort, where things begin to go wrong and there is public disorder, there is not going to be anything else. The case of those consumers who bought something one week at the market and returned the following week to find the bird has flown comes to the attention of the local authority, but all consumers see are market traders of one description or another. It falls to the police, the local authorities and TSOs to ensure that the market is operating properly. The invocation of the Rogers review therefore does not work. We are now told that the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill will help with this problem. I ask the Minister to demonstrate how the Bill will change out-of-date legislation. It seeks only to sweeten the pill that, through the ages, has become a placebo. Mr Ian McCartney, a previous Minister for the DTI, was clearly sympathetic to the cause of having national legislation. He wrote to Pat McFadden MP in the Cabinet Office, who replied that there was a lack of parliamentary time. We are taking two weeks off in addition to our usual work next year. Perhaps we can deal with this legislation in April. That would be successful. Finally, I make a plea to the Minister. Next week, on 6 December, Dr Brian Iddon will repeat a presentation Bill, as I understand it is called, which follows up the 10-Minute Rule Bill that he offered to the House on a previous occasion. The Minister has argued the case well in the past, and doubtless he will bring fresh information and fresh arguments to the debate in your Lordships’ House tonight, but my plea is this: if the Government were to listen, they would allow the presentation Bill in another place to go to a Committee where these matters can be properly debated and all the objections raised in Gareth Thomas’s letter can be addressed. Clear legislation, based on the existing nine examples of legislation which are already having some success, can then be devised and brought forward, and we could do something not only for consumers and market traders, but for the well-being of market towns up and down this country.