London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

I first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on another brilliant contribution to this debate. I particularly enjoyed his peroration, which was a paean of praise for liberty. It is appropriate that the people who support liberty are well represented in the Chamber tonight, whereas those who have always been in favour of restricting liberty are not well represented. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, this group of amendments was first debated on the occasion of our Prime Minister's visit to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was the first time that a Prime Minister had visited the Parliamentary Assembly for some 30 years. As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly, I was in Strasbourg rather than here. That is why I was unable to introduce the group of amendments and to move amendment 22. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has done so with tremendous expertise. He has kept his remarks succinct and to the point, and has given us an example of how we should deal with such matters in this Chamber. Amendment 22 goes to the root of the Bill and is likely to be the one in this group upon which we will have a Division, but I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) has accepted amendment 26, and I hope that in due course I will have the chance to move it formally and that the House will support it. Amendment 22 suggests leaving out clause 9, entitled ““Street trading: vehicles and the internet””. The way in which the promoters of the Bill have described the purpose of the clause is slightly disingenuous, because they state that it"““would amend the street trading provisions of the London Local Authorities Act 1990 so as to clarify that vehicles which are for ""sale in the course of a business on the internet and which are parked on the street fall within the licensing regime.””" That implies that they believe such vehicles may already be covered by that Act. Why do they not have the courage of their convictions and say that the purpose of the clause is to extend the current provisions to bring the sale of vehicles on the internet in the course of business within the ambit of that Act? They say that it"““would not apply to residents or other individuals selling their own vehicle on an occasional basis.””" We must be grateful for small mercies such as that and the fact that amendment 26 is to be incorporated into clause 10, so that it will carry a similar caveat. I have always believed that we need to examine carefully the text of Bills such as this, to ensure that they have apparent clarity. We are discussing the creation of new offences, and if people are to be charged with those offences, or find themselves losing their trade and livelihood or being otherwise punished, it is vital that they should know exactly where they stand. The exchange between my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) illustrated vividly the misunderstandings that can arise when there is ambiguous wording. Clause 9 does not state where the street in question has to be. It states that the motor vehicle has to be"““kept on a street during the period when it is so exposed or offered for sale””." There is ambiguity about the location at which an offence will be committed. Will it be where the vehicle is kept or where the owner resides? That is a significant question, because if there is a problem in Castle Point—I accept what my hon. Friend said about that—it will inevitably be made worse if we interpret clause 9 as prohibiting people who are resident in London from keeping their cars on a street in London when they are exposed or offered for sale on the internet. For how long must a vehicle be kept on a street? The clause states that it must be"““during the period when it is so exposed or offered for sale.””" As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset said, it is possible to put something on the internet and leave it there for some time. Sometimes, one looks at a property on the internet and says, ““Gosh, that's a really well priced property””, but when one looks at it in more detail, one finds that it was actually being offered at that price about five years ago and has long since been either sold or withdrawn from the market. Things can be advertised for sale on the internet without anybody being sure whether that exposure or offer for sale is current and up to date. The expression"““exposed or offered for sale””" is used in the Bill. What is the difference between being exposed for sale and offered for sale on the internet? I hope that when my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green responds to the debate he will be able to explain why it was thought necessary to include both those expressions. A lot of people buy and sell vehicles, and it is hard to know when they cross the dividing line between a purely private sale and a sale in the course of a business. How will that be defined and policed? If a person sells one vehicle on the internet, will that mean he is doing so in the course of a business, or will there need to be evidence that he has sold other vehicles on the internet, or that the internet site or advertisement used contains more than one vehicle registered in his name? Nor do we know whether the person exposing a motor vehicle for sale on the internet will have to be its owner. Many people have agents acting on their behalf who sell things without ownership having passed to them. If a sale is made, a commission payment may be due to them. We do not know whether it is intended that the clause will apply to anybody whose vehicle is advertised whether or not they are selling it in the course of a business. For example, if I were to use an intermediary to advertise my vehicle on the internet on my behalf, although I would be exposing it for sale as a private individual, the intermediary would be doing so as a business proposition. Would that mean that my private sale would contradict the provisions of clause 9? It is disingenuous in the extreme for the promoters to say that it is a clause of clarification, because it significantly extends the restrictions upon street trading by widening enormously the definition of street trading in London. A point that has already been made in the debate, but is worth making again, is that we are talking about London local authorities. If there is a real problem such as my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point described, it should surely be dealt with in a public Bill rather than in piecemeal, incremental legislation such as the Bill. Clause 9 relates specifically to the whole of London; clauses 10, 11 and 12 relate specifically to the City of Westminster; and clauses 13, 14, 15 and 16 relate to Camden. That follows a pattern that we have seen with a number of private Bills whereby the City of Westminster goes ahead first, and then the legislation that they get through is applied for by the London local authorities collectively, or perhaps by the London borough of Camden or another London authority—the idea being, I think, that nobody will take much notice if just one borough is doing it. Then the precedent is set and other boroughs follow suit, and before we know it we have a whole series of pieces of private legislation that come together and act significantly to restrict the liberties of the individual.