That is absolutely right.
It is sometimes difficult to give personal examples, but I shall give the House an example involving my daughter. Last autumn, she was in the market for her first car, and she saw one advertised on the internet, on Auto Trader. I went with her—apparently, my cheque book was needed—to view this vehicle and we went to what appeared to be a private house, although I suspect it was being used for a business.
The vehicle was parked on the street outside. It was a car advertised on the internet, parked on a residential road and, as far as I could make out, it was not causing any problems. If this had taken place inside the London area, the person trying to sell that car would have been found guilty of street trading under the terms of the provisions. For the life of me, I cannot see what was wrong with advertising that car on the Auto Trader site or with a potential purchaser looking at it, doing a test drive and visiting the residential premises where the person selling it was based. I simply do not see the problem, and by going on that sort of website, one can arguably get much better value for money. I shall not spoil my own story—or perhaps I will—by saying that we did not purchase this particular car because I found out that it had been clocked by 100,000 miles—but that is a separate story, and this Bill does not go into dealing with that. Perhaps it is a cautionary tale for people who try to buy cars in such circumstances.
I think I have exhausted my concerns about clause 9. It is an over-the-top reaction, and clause 10 has the same problems in relation to the city of Westminster. I know that other hon. Friends want to contribute to the debate, so I shall not repeat further points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. However, his arguments for removing clauses 18 and 19, which are of general application and are wholly inimical to the principles of liberty, are very strong, so I heartily endorse them.
If it is not already clear, let me say that I have grave concerns about most of the clauses we are debating this evening, and particularly about clause 9. I hope that in due course we will have the opportunity to test the will of the House on that clause.
London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]
Proceeding contribution from
Christopher Chope
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 21 February 2012.
It occurred during Debate on bills on London Local Authorities Bill [Lords].
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