My Lords, I lend my support to Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and Amendment 18 in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra.
I spoke about this at Second Reading, when I was very clear that it is one of the most important issues. It is probably the reason we are considering the Bill and why it was brought forward. The operation of pedicabs undoubtedly causes a very substantial noise nuisance. If those who operate them had a self-denying ordinance and turned the music down, we probably would not be sitting here today—but the fact is that they do not.
I regularly walk in the evening from your Lordships’ House to where I stay in central London, and one sees and hears these vehicles causing a great disturbance. One is very sympathetic to those who, for example, operate businesses—a restaurant, gallery or any other business premises—in central London near where the pedicabs congregate. The sound of a collection of them competing with each other for custom with very loud, amplified music that can come from a boom box that costs £200, or something of that nature, is significant.
We have heard arguments that some of this is caught by existing regulations, and that extremely modest amounts of fines have been raised, but that has clearly not been effective, which is why we are debating the Bill today. I strongly believe that there ought to be a specific instruction in the Bill—or, at the very least, a facilitation—that allows specific regulations to be brought on the broadcasting of amplified noise in the context of these vehicles.