Canterbury City Council Bill

This is part of the problem with these two Bills. If a council seizes flowers and keeps them for 48 hours, after which there is an obligation on it to secure the best possible price, I doubt whether the price obtainable would be particularly high because of the condition the flowers would then be in. Pedlars have expressed such concerns to me. There is, perhaps, one good consequence of these Bills, however. At least pedlars—of whom, according to the latest Government information, there may be 4,000 in the country—are a lot better organised than they used to be. Indeed, the Government refer readers of their latest consultation paper to the pedlars' website for information. That resource is increasingly used by pedlars across the country. Some pedlars are concerned that the impact on them of clause 7 will be disproportionate. I shall not go through all the concerns that have been expressed, because some would be better dealt with in the form of amendments or the petitions that I understand a number of pedlars will bring against these Bills when they reach the other place. However, one issue raised on Second Reading with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) was why the Canterbury Bill makes provision to allow police community support officers to have powers that are not available to them in other Bills that seek to control illegal street trading and pedlary. I receive a lot of representations from people saying that they are worried about the extent to which PCSOs seem to be able to go around acting as though they are policemen, but they are not policemen. The essence of the setting up of a system of PCSOs was that they should play a supportive role, rather than be substitute police officers. Many people would think that the powers for PCSOs set out in clause 18 go too far. It is regrettable that when this matter was raised on Second Reading we heard no answer from the promoters to the questions asked and that no reference was made to this in the Unopposed Bill Committee. My concerns are not limited to clause 5 of the two Bills, although it would be fair to say that that is where my main concerns are centred. Clause 5 in effect restricts the right of pedlars within the Canterbury city council area and the Nottingham city council area to carry on as lawful pedlars trading in the street and selling their wares to passers-by. That is a major restriction on the long-established freedoms and liberties of pedlars in this country. I was pleased to hear the Minister and the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) conceding points that had not always been apparent in earlier stages of these debates in respect of lawful pedlars playing a legitimate role in this country. One of the important messages that emerged from the research that the Government commissioned, which was carried out by Durham university, is that pedlars in general command a lot of popular support. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who spoke from our Front Bench, described how pedlars add colour to the street scene during the fairs in Weston-super-Mare and are regarded as an asset by people engaging in the festivities. That is a common experience up and down the country and was, in a sense, a finding of fact by Durham university.