Canterbury City Council Bill

I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but after that rather long point of order I wonder whether we should reprise what we have covered so far, perhaps for half an hour or so, to get us back into the swing of our debate about pedlars. Time is short, however, and we want to reach a conclusion tonight. I want to put on the record that if it were not for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), we would not be here tonight. His forceful and persistent standing up for the right of a minority of people in this country is to be welcomed. The decision the House has to make tonight is whether to support the revival of these Bills. In principle, I am against reviving Bills. I start from that basis, because if a Bill's promoters have not been able to get it through since 2007, perhaps there is something wrong with it. That is where I start from, therefore, but there are other issues. First, I believe we should listen to the Members who represent the constituencies where the Bills are being promoted. I commend in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) because he has attended every debate I have been at on the pedlar issue, and he has always represented his constituents with great zeal. I appreciate that, and I note that he has made it clear to the House that the promoters have listened and will remove clause 11 from the Canterbury Bill. Although I have some concerns about clause 5, at least there has been some movement, and I understand that the Bill still has to be discussed in the other place. I am therefore inclined to say we should support the Canterbury Bill because of the local input and that movement. That is the way things should happen, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has done. I cannot, however, say the same about the Nottingham Bill. The two new Members, the hon. Members for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), have done their best tonight, but in the previous Parliament I sat through many hours of silence from Nottingham Members, and I am not entirely convinced that I know enough to say that the people of Nottingham want this Bill. I intervened on the hon. Member for Nottingham South when she was making her speech to ask what the feeling is in the city. Is there great demand for this in Nottingham? Which organisations want it? Does the council want it? Are people marching in the street demanding that pedlars be removed? I was also a little concerned that it sounded slightly as if this was a money-making exercise for the council, with huge fees for sites. There is another issue that worries me about the revival of these Bills. My hon. Friend the Minister has made it clear that there may well be a national framework in a number of months, and it seems that if we stop the Nottingham Bill no more money will be spent by that council—no more taxpayers' money will be wasted. Also, if the European Union, that wonderful organisation for which I only have praise on so many occasions, is actually ahead of the game, then that is good. We have to weigh these issues up in our minds in deciding on these matters.