Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes a persuasive argument, but the essential difference between these Bills and much local legislation is that most local legislation applies only to local people, whereas these Bills affect people who do not live in a particular locality. They might affect some local people—there is evidence of 200-plus pedlars being certificated and resident in Manchester; probably not all of them are in the city of Manchester, but they are within the Greater Manchester police authority area—but we are talking about a regime that will apply to pedlars whether they are normally resident in Cornwall or Northumbria, and that regime needs to be clear. If we have a different regime for pedlars in every town across the country, I submit that things will be pretty chaotic. My hon. Friend is great localist, and so am I—in principle—but not when it comes to the application of national legislation. I am sure that he would be the first to concede that even when powers are given to local authorities—for example, to set up alcohol disorder zones—quite strong criteria are applied nationally to ensure no inconsistency of application between one local authority area and another. That is the point that I am trying to get across.