London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

Clause 9 makes further provision about street trading in relation to the sale of vehicles over the internet. Under the existing street trading legislation in London, street trading is defined, broadly speaking, as the selling, or the exposure or offer for sale, of any article, and the supplying of, or offering to supply, any service in a street for gain or reward, whether or not the gain or reward accrues to the person actually carrying out the trade. It is unclear whether the sale of motor vehicles on the internet when the vehicle is kept on the highway is covered by that definition, but clause 9 will ensure that it is. That is my answer to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). It was an important and relevant intervention, because my concern has been about the criminalising of people who put their car outside their front door with a little label on it saying ““For sale””, and of those who do not even put a little label on it but just list it on the internet and say that it is for sale and that it can be found outside No. 22 Acacia avenue. Some bossy bureaucrat may come round and say, ““This is absolutely outrageous. You are not allowed to sell your car outside No. 22 Acacia avenue because that is a residential street, so we are fining you and we are going to put all sorts of fierce penalties on you.”” That is why I added my name to amendment 22, which proposes to abolish the whole of clause 9—