Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords]

I rise to support amendments 5 and 6. In a sense, the House of Commons is beginning to make itself look rather ridiculous, if it is getting down to the level of detail of whether peddling should take place in the wider Bournemouth area or in the area bounded by Wessex way to the north, the sea to the south and Durley Chine to the west. I am not as familiar with Bournemouth as I should be, but this underlines the point I tried to make earlier—that it is probably a mistake for the House to get down to this level of detail. It would be much better to have a broadly based Bill to regulate peddling and ensure that pedlars operate generally in the way they are traditionally supposed to operate. I accept that there may be a problem nationally in that the nature of peddling is changing and the old-fashioned traditional pedlar with whom we are familiar is perhaps being replaced by a species of person who might come from abroad and who might try to displace urban traders. As I have said, I accept that there may be a problem with that nationally, but if that is true, the Government need to get their act together and bring in a national Bill. Here we are talking about a level of detail applying to pedlars that determines whether or not they can trade in a particular location. These are people who move around the entire country. Questions were raised earlier about whether these people do or do not have enough local knowledge, whether they use their BlackBerrys, whether they go to the town hall or whether leaflets are issued nationally. That shows some of the problems that will be imposed on these people. Generally speaking, it is bad for the House to create more and more prescriptive rules and regulations that make it more and more difficult to be law abiding. Why do we assume that these people are not law abiding? Why do we assume that they do not want to carry on their traditional trade? Why are we telling them that it is perfectly lawful to trade in a certain area of Bournemouth, but not in another area of Bournemouth. If we move on to amendment 6, it becomes even more absurd, as it deals with times of the year, making it very difficult to know what is going on. Our debate about place and time, led so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), is an important one: it is not just a narrow issue; it goes to the heart of the Bill. To what extent are we prepared to start interfering with what has traditionally been seen as a lawful activity? If the number of complaints were huge, I would accept that there was a problem. However, the information I have received is that one authority complains once a month. That is hardly a great issue that should be debated on the Floor of the House. I wish that we were not discussing the Bill at all, but my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is trying to restrict the area of Bournemouth to which it applies. Apart from him and my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) and for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill), I doubt that anyone in the Chamber, including you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is familiar in any detail with what constitutes the area bounded by Wessex way, the sea to the south and so on. Why are we debating it? We must take the word of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that the area is a sensible one to define.