Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a pleasure for me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Eden, and other noble Lords who have had an opportunity to air this situation in the House. The Minister will be under no illusion that as far as parliamentarians are concerned, and having listened to all that has been said, there is a need for national action. It is therefore with dismay that I have to tell the Minister, who clearly can say nothing positive about this matter today, that he should go back to his department and reflect on the fact that the national organisations representing traders—the National Federation of Market Traders, the Association of Private Market Operators and the National Association of British Market Authorities, representing local government—have been battering at the Government’s door in one way or another for the past few years. I cannot be precise, but I would say that this matter has been growing for the past 10 years. I was grateful to see the noble Lord on his feet as the joint chairman. We had another joint chairman called Brian Iddon, and you can see the genesis of the agitation. It shows what authorities have been driven to do when faced with the insidious spread of malpractice by pedlars. The Pedlars Act is all very well, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Eden, said that it comes from a bygone age. That is right, but the situation has changed and something needs to be done about it. I have had some influence in those organisations and I am still very concerned with them. More than once the Minister’s ministerial colleagues have addressed us and been very warm. I remember that when Gerry Sutcliffe was the Minister he was very warm and friendly towards us. Eventually civil servants came to address us on the practicalities, but they were less than lukewarm on doing something about it. We were told that this matter was not strictly for the Department of Trade and Industry but also concerned local government and the Home Office. If we believe that we are the party of joined-up government, why cannot we join up the government departments and do this kind of thing? It was with dismay that I found that Newcastle, my home town, was driven into spending a great deal of ratepayers’ money. I was told earlier in the debate that 10 towns are queuing up with private Bills, including Leeds, Canterbury, Nottingham and Reading, but why should local authorities be put to this great expense and aggravation? They do not want to do it; they are driven to do it. A council—and I was once a leader of a council—would not easily or idly incur the enormous expense of legislation unless it was driven to do so. My noble friend the Minister should take this away, without commitment, and recognise that my good friend in the other place, Brian Iddon, is persistent and keeping well up on this. I dearly miss my good friend Joe Dean—Lord Dean of Beswick—who was Manchester through and through. More than once he stood up in this Chamber and said that he was proud to represent the City of Manchester because it had the two finest football teams in the land—Manchester City and Manchester City reserves. He meant it. He was fiercely Manchester, the leader of the council and he knew the area. I simply say, in the memory of my good friend Joe Dean, that I am grateful for what has been said about the needs of Manchester, which is a fine city. The point was made that when the itinerant pedlar is driven out of a large city by Bills of this kind, he will go somewhere else and eventually the Government’s hand will be forced. I know about legislative restraint and time but pegs sometimes appear. The first decision we made was to say to the Government, ““The action required is to abolish the Pedlars Act but to recognise that simply abolishing that Act will not solve the problem. You will need to do far more than that””. Legitimate traders, who pay rent, rates, insurance, lighting, heating and congestion charges, and who pay for safety at work, holidays, sick pay and pensions, are carrying the burden and, unfairly, pedlars are riding on the back of the services provided. When we had meetings with representatives of the Local Government Associations and London councils, trading standards officers and the police, they all said that there is a need for this legislation. So I say to my very good friend the Minister—I understand that he will be able to say very little positively today—will he make sure when Hansard is printed that his colleagues in other government departments are aware that there is a move and a mood that should not be ignored?