Canterbury City Council Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It shows the disproportionate impact on pedlars of their activities being restricted so they cannot operate in town centres. My earlier point took account of that, but I was also pointing out that an increasing number of people who sell from door to door are effectively found to be not authorised pedlars but rogue pedlars. In the letter from the leader of Manchester city council, Sir Richard Leese, and in an identical letter sent to different recipients by Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of that council, in which they seek the support of colleagues and invite other local authorities to put pressure on their Members of Parliament to support not only the Manchester City Council Bill, which we are obviously not considering today, but the two Bills that we are discussing, they make the point that there is a "growing problem" of illegal street trading in their areas. The analysis attached to the letter states that problems include large groups of individuals""selling goods such as balloons, flags, whistles etc from large, wheeled stalls."" The point that I have sought to make in these debates is that the problem has to do with the large wheeled stalls. If we say that it is not possible for pedlars to take such stalls into city centres, much of the mischief described in the letter from Manchester city council and other submissions would be addressed. Pedlars could still operate in town centres, but they could not use the large wheeled stalls that inevitably cause obstruction. I can understand the concerns about those stalls. The definition of pedlars includes hawkers, but history shows that they were covered by separate provisions. Hawkers rather than pedlars could be described as people who operate from large wheeled stalls, but the Bill places them all under the same umbrella. One way to deal with that would be to revert to the traditional understanding of what a pedlar is—namely, a person who carries the goods on his person. That is reflected in the consultation document that the Government have produced. It is more generous than the amendments to the Bills for Leeds and Reading that I have negotiated, in that it says that the equipment that pedlars take into town centres should be much restricted in size but not removed totally. In a sense, we are all on the same wavelength. I think the Minister agrees, and that it is why it is especially regrettable that these Bills, even though they acknowledge that the main problem lies with the people who use large wheeled stalls, make no provision to help the traditional pedlar—the person on his own or with a very small receptacle—to continue to operate in city centres.