Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate Bournemouth and Manchester on obtaining Third Readings of their Private Bills. I commend the words of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, who has done a very powerful job tonight for the many local authorities up and down this land. They are crying out for national legislation to deal with many problems, some of which have been enumerated by the noble Lord. I speak as the joint chairman of the All-Party Group on Markets Industry. I am privileged to share that chairmanship with the noble Lord, Lord Wade. I assure noble Lords that we have toiled endlessly for several years under the great tutelage of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who was our worthy secretary for several years and the founder of the group. Both Houses have worked together to assemble the evidence, which was produced by the National Association of British Market Authorities, the National Market Traders Federation, the Association of Private Market Operators and others. We have had endless meetings with Ministers. All the issues debated today were raised with Ministers. As has been said, the previous Minister for the Department of Trade and Industry, Mr Ian McCartney, was made well aware of the situation. He was very sympathetic, but he has moved on. Now we have to deal with the new Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. I hope that the message from this House, given by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, will assist us in bringing this matter forward. The right honourable Brian Iddon will bring forward his Private Member’s Bill again. I appeal to the Minister to take from this House the message that we need a national plan and that we need to repeal the Pedlars Act. We need to bring forward legislation that will give the support and protection so desperately needed by all local authorities, which is being achieved tonight in these two Bills for Bournemouth and Manchester. There are many Bills in the pipeline, and if we have to go through an endless process of dealing with them in this way, it will be a very long time before towns and cities up and down the country get the support and protection they need from Parliament. So I beg the Minister to take our message back to his department and the other departments of state that are involved. Their representatives have come to our meetings, we have discussed the issues and produced the blueprint; in fact, we produced a Bill that will allow them to give us the response that is so desperately needed. I therefore ask the Minister to bring forward national legislation.