Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords]

Amendment 75 would remove clause 4. The other amendments relate to clauses 10 to 14. Some would remove all those clauses in toto, and some are more modest, aiming to taking out the most toxic part of those clauses. I am delighted that, in an e-mail sent to me first thing this morning, the promoters of the two Bills expressed their agreement to amendments 75, 77, 78, 80 and 81, which would, in effect, remove clauses 10 to 14 from the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill and the equivalent clauses from the Manchester City Council Bill. Those clauses cover three full pages of the Bill's 10 as printed. To remove three pages at one stroke represents pretty good progress as far as I am concerned, so I am very grateful to the Bills' sponsors, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) and the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd), for conceding those amendments, which will result in a better and fairer Bill. I am sure that it has not escaped your notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the consequence of removing clauses 10 to 14 is that the references to fixed penalties in clauses 7 and 9 will need to be amended in due course with technical and consequential amendments. We do not have such amendments on the amendment paper today, and it is not appropriate to try to move manuscript amendments, but I understand that it will be possible to make those consequential amendments when the Bills are considered in the other place. The promoters of the Bill have also made it clear to me that, in clarifying the contents of the Bill, those amendments in the other place will include the amendment that I previously sought to make to clause 5 by adding to "another person" the phrase "trading with the authority of a pedlars' certificate", so that the provision is clearer. Everybody agrees that that is the intention of the clause, but it will be better when, in the House of Lords, it is technically amended to make that objective clear. We have made enormous progress over a short space of time—since the early hours of this morning when my hard-working secretary said at five minutes past 8 that she had been in receipt of an e-mail. Since then I have been in discussions about the implications of the amendments. I have spoken to a significant pedlar, the agents for the promoters, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and the hon. Member for Manchester, Central, and I must put on the record that, notwithstanding these amendments, the pedlar to whom I spoke still feels that there is a venality in the Bills. However, I am sure that he would be the first to concede that we are making progress by removing these clauses.