Canterbury City Council Bill

Let me reassure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and I, and many right hon. and hon. Friends across the coalition, do not seek to burden the statute book with unnecessary legislation. As I said in response to a previous intervention, if we are careful in how we shape our response to the consultation and those genuine issues, we might see some deregulation and actually make it easier for local authorities to manage existing regulation. There are some difficult judgments to make and some of the issues are clearly not as well understood as they might be, so it is the Government's job to give a lead and greater clarification. The consultation deals with many practical issues. For example, is it sensible that pedlar certificates are available from individual police stations and that it falls to the police to manage the system? If not, then perhaps as discussed in the consultation document the local authorities are better placed, as many of them already license static street traders. Bringing together the systems might assist in reducing some of the burden. Not all local authorities take up the option to regulate street trading, so is it fair on local authorities that have no desire to regulate street trading that we should ask them to certify pedlars, given that we would not want to limit the availability of pedlars certificates geographically? These are the issues with which we are struggling.