Canterbury City Council Bill

I support the Nottingham City Council Bill, primarily because illegal street trading is a considerable problem in our city centre. The Bill is designed not in any way to prevent legitimate pedlars, but to deal with the problem of illegal street trading. To provide a flavour of the situation, I should say that in Nottingham city centre there are suitable places for legitimate street trading and legitimate street traders pay fees for the location of their stands. They pay between £1,775 and £7,657 per year, depending on the pitch size, the location and the range of goods. Rightly, those people want to ensure that they do not pay such fees only to find that people who are not legitimate street traders, and have not paid for licences, are taking over their pitches or significantly obstructing the streets and taking trade away from them and from the shops in our marvellous retail area. Pedlars, by nature, are pedlars: they are meant to be on the move, not sited on stalls that are fixed or fixed for periods. Their phrase should be, "Stop me and buy one," and they should stop only when they sell their goods. In contrast with the amount that street traders pay, which is in the thousands, the cost of obtaining a pedlar's certificate is just £12.25. Many Government Members have talked about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurialism, and pedlary is an opportunity for people who want to make money or get back into work. We do not want to detract from that opportunity to become a pedlar and travel either door to door or around the streets; we want to give people the opportunity to stop and trade, but not in a fixed position.