City of London (Various Powers) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I cordially thank all colleagues in your Lordships' House who have taken part in this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on picking up the reference to 15 metres as against 11. As I deliberately handed the credit for the figures in the Bill to the corporation, by definition I cannot take any credit for the fact that this magical and instantaneous concession to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has been achieved in the course of this Second Reading, but I am sure that the corporation will be grateful. I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his speech and his observations about the Bill. I concur with his comment about the number of open spaces in the City and the fact that there are opportunities available therein to be able to expand at some stage in the future what has already been done. I well remember the campaign waged by that remarkable property developer Fred Cleary, of Haslemere Estates, who I think was chairman of the Metropolitan Water Trust Society, and who sought to quadruple the number of gardens in the City by increasing the number of flowerboxes and using the water troughs for flowers since there were no longer horses that wished to drink from them. He was successful and his efforts had a highly beneficial effect on the look of the City. One of the pleasures of the City of London is that there are plenty of people around—it is a miniature version of the big society—who want to make it a more congenial and agreeable place in which to work. I am sure that the Remembrancer of the City of London—a post which has existed since 1571—will take note of the various suggestions which my noble friend Lord Lucas made about further extensions. I will not necessarily answer the questions asked me by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, in exactly the order in which he asked them but I will deal first with parking. It is an issue with which I have some parliamentary familiarity, as one of the facets of being an inner-city MP, whereby you have only 75,000 voters but cover an area where the best part of a million people come to work every day, is that if they get into trouble with the parking authorities—in my case, in either part of my constituency—they do not know who to write to, and by definition they do not know the councillors concerned. However, what they do know is that the constituency has a Member of Parliament. Therefore, I had to handle a large number of complaints, which came in from all over the home counties, on the part of people who had been tested by the parking disciplines. A professional photographer from Norfolk took enormous care always to photograph his car, wherever he parked it, when he came to London on professional business in order to have an absolutely cast-iron defence, whichever parking authority took him to the courts. I am delighted to say that when this problem was pointed out to the Corporation of London and it was warned that some people were photographing their cars to make sure that they were not committing an offence, every single parking official in the City of London was issued with a camera so that every time they administered a charge they had physical proof that the person had parked outside the space involved. As regards the specific question that the noble Lord asked, Section 15(1) of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974 enables civil enforcement against a vehicle parked partly or wholly on the pavement in the City and elsewhere in London. Clause 10 will extend such civil enforcement to vehicles parked on city walkways that may be some distance from the highway. It does not change the position for vehicles parked on the pavement. The issue of the distance from the frontage of an establishment selling iced confectionary has already been dwelt on, unless the noble Lord wishes to press it. As to the quality of the ice cream being offered, which clearly plays a role in making the City an attractive destination to tourists—in addition those who work there, as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, mentioned—the provisions of the Bill will not directly impact on the quality of the ice cream; however, the ability to effectively enforce action against rogue traders who often overcharge for their product, together with the increased sale of ice cream by premises that fall within the remit of the City’s food safety officers, should result in standards increasing. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, who was generally friendly towards the Bill, asked about the directive. It was, of course, a subject addressed by my noble friend Lady Wilcox. I am sure that, just as with the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about further extensions to the City’s liberality, the noble Lord, Lord Young, will have taken note of what she said about the directive. Her department was consulted on the contents of the Bill before deposit and made no comments, other than to draw attention to, first, the need to ensure that any authorisation scheme complied with the services directive and, secondly, the general review that the Government are undertaking and the likely consequent need for change to some local Acts. On the basis of that, it could be said that the Government were keeping their cards fairly close to their chest, and the test may well come hereafter. At any rate, the issue has been attended to and looked at. I will bring these remarks to a conclusion. I began my opening speech by referring to the last City of London Bill that I sponsored before entering your Lordships' House. I shall end the debate by referring to the first such Bill that I dealt with in the 1978-79 Session of Parliament, now a third of a century ago, which concerned Epping Forest and the then proposed M25 motorway. The City of London Corporation, acting as conservators of the forest, fought a long campaign to protect it, as it had in the 19th century when the forest acted as the green lung for London's East End. The Bill was the culmination of the campaign and settled an agreed route, with tunnelling to preserve the natural aspect of the forest. It is perhaps worth reflection that among the greatest supporters of the City of London Corporation during the passage of the Bill were the then Members for Newham North West, Arthur Lewis—whom some noble Lords will remember—and for Harlow, Stan Newens. Noble Lords might reasonably think that such veterans of the Labour movement would not be the City of London Corporation's greatest admirers, yet great tributes were paid to the Corporation for what Arthur Lewis repeatedly described in the Official Report, 6 March 1979, cols. 1202-05, as the excellent job the City did in the public interest. For connoisseurs of the East End’s political history, I warmly commend these four columns of debate. Arthur Lewis in particular was so dedicated a constituency Member that, in order to test the security provisions on the urban transportation of irradiated fuel through his constituency, he once turned up at his local station in battle dress. His commendation of the Corporation of the City of London was particularly appreciated in the square mile. In approaching the regulation of street trading and seeking to accommodate competing needs in a measured way, I venture to observe that the City is continuing to adopt the same approach in this Bill as Arthur Lewis attributed to it in 1979. I hope that these provisions commend themselves to the House. I beg to move. Bill read a second time.