London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] (By Order)

The Bill is deeply disagreeable and it is remarkable that the House of Commons should spend so much time considering something that would take freedoms from law-abiding people in London, particularly in the City of Westminster. What is the purpose of the Bill's opening part? It is to give to borough officials powers that are normally reserved for policemen. One might go out of this House and some person employed by Westminster city council, with or without a peaked cap, might come up and say that he does not like what one is doing because one is selling a car over the internet or doing some other desperately evil activity. That employee will then levy a fine and will levy a second fine if the person does not tell him their name and address. I thought it was no right of anybody's to demand the names and addresses of people going about their lawful business, but, under the Bill, someone who refuses to give it to some official from Westminster city council will commit an offence. I do not want to tell officials from Westminster city council my address—they could look it up on the electoral register, which would not take them very long. That is an initial intrusion on freedoms that we ought to value and that ought to be at the forefront of what the House does. Having dealt with clauses 4 and 5, let me address clause 8, which is one of the meanest-minded measures we have seen recently. A few years ago, Westminster city council was all for a café culture: ““Let's have people putting chairs out on the pavement and have people drinking in the street””, it said. ““Let's have them pretending they are in Venice or Florence; in spite of the weather, they can think that the sun is shining because they are out on the street.”” Now, having persuaded a few restaurants and cafés to put out some tables and chairs, the self-same council wants to say, ““You've done what we asked and we are very pleased with this charming and delightful café culture””—otherwise known as binge drinking—““and because of that we want to charge you for it.”” Does that seem a reasonable way for a council to behave, and is it proper for us as a Parliament to give it a special bit of law to make itself obnoxious to a free people? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has gone through the hygiene aspects, but I thought I was elected on a platform of deregulation. The Labour Government, for all their virtues, were great ones for regulating and for insisting that everything should be signed, sealed and delivered. Even in a church, there has to be a sign saying that people are not allowed to smoke to deter all those who used to go into a church just to roll a cigarette, light up and smoke away. There are signs everywhere and the mass of bureaucracy is upon us. Now, the Conservative Government want to ensure that when someone wanders into a café for a small cup of coffee, tea or whatever his preference happens to be, there must be a sign saying the café is hygienic. Otherwise, he might be poisoned by whatever desperate thing it is that the café puts in its tea. Is this necessary? Is it proportionate? Is it a sensible use of the money of business to spend it on putting up signs when people who go into restaurants know that there are forms of regulation and whether the food is any good. If they do not like it, they can have an argument with the restaurateur, say that they are not paying and tell all their friends not to go there. The free market copes here much more adequately than increased regulation. I am glad to say that the Minister is against all the stuff on housing. Those proposals concern me because they are broadly an attack on private property, which is one of the mainstays of our constitutional settlement. The rights of private property are that which underpins a free society—the right for people to own their own home or to let it out to somebody else—as opposed to what is in clause 21, whereby the self-same peaked-capped man who was fining me for refusing to tell him my name and address then barges into somebody's house just to check that they are complying with regulations. As I understood it, the aim of Her Majesty's Government was to ensure that the right to enter houses applied only when a warrant had been issued—a warrant duly signed by a magistrate—so as to protect us from aggressive officialdom. On the one hand, there will be warrants; on the other, officials from particular and peculiar councils will barge in on people in their homes or in houses that have been let out, telling them what they may or may not do. I shall finish by referring to the trading of cars on the internet. The absurdity here is palpable. Why can I not put a little sticker in my car, offering to sell it? If somebody wanders past and says, ““That's worth £100,”” and I accept it, surely that is commerce at its most basic and simple level. Surely it is what gets people into the culture of trading and activity, and leads to the prosperity of a capitalist society.