Canterbury City Council Bill

My hon. Friend is right. The other related point is that, when the Bills first came before the House, we did not have things such as the Durham university research to guide us. Things have moved on considerably. Actually, the more that we have learned about this particular industry, as time has passed, the less of a case has been made for the Bills. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) made a point about the distances that people travel. We are always trying to find ways of tackling obesity, so I would have thought that we would be trying to encourage, rather than curtail, that sort of exercise among the public. I wish to talk about the clauses dealing with the seizure of goods. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made a good point that articles can be seized when a person is reasonably suspected of committing an offence, as opposed to when they are reasonably believed to have committed an offence. That is a very soft test. He feared, as I do, that local authorities could use that rather soft test to reinforce their hassling of such people and make them aware that they do not want them in their city at all. That was a very good point; however, I am particularly concerned about what happens under the clauses following those provisions after someone's goods have been seized. The Bills allow perishable items to be seized, yet clause 8 of both Bills says that seized items would have to be returned""at the end of the period of 56 days beginning with the date of seizure,"" if""no proceedings have been instituted"." Fifty-six days is an awfully long time for someone to go without goods that have been taken from them unfairly and without good reason. Two things flow from that. First, perishable goods are of absolutely no use to anybody after 56 days and could not be sold on. However, even where goods are not perishable, a lot can happen in 56 days. Earlier speakers referred to some of the things that people sell. They could include topical things or things that, although not perishable, have a short shelf life, owing to public demand being based on events. Returning such goods to someone after 56 days, when there is no longer any market for them, is of absolutely no use to anyone.