City of Westminster Bill [Lords]

With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have had a useful and constructive debate, but it has concerned a simple issue of procedure rather than all the aspects of the Bill. I know that my hon. Friends' appetites are whetted by the prospect of the return of a fully fledged Bill following the deliberations in the House of Lords Select Committee on 19 July. I was encouraged by the Minister's support for a national framework, and I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), for her helpful and praiseworthy comments. I am hopeful that a national framework for pedlars will be introduced. Let me try to assuage the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I do not believe we should see what is proposed for the city of Westminster, or perhaps even what is proposed in the Bills relating to Nottingham and Canterbury, as a template or precedent. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) about the importance of localism. I think it right for a framework to exist in relation to issues such as this, but local considerations should then take much more control. One of the most significant aspects of the debate is that local conditions will change in time. I speak for the centre of London, but I am sure that the same applies to the centre of Nottingham, which has changed beyond recognition in the last generation, and which I hope—as, no doubt, many of its residents hope—will change significantly in the decades to come. We should always be strongly aware of local conditions, and I hope that that will emerge in the detailed debates in which we will no doubt engage in the months ahead when the Bill returns to the House of Commons. I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions, and wish the Bill a fast journey to the other place for 19 July. Question put and agreed to. Resolved"That this House concurs with the Lords in their Resolution."