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Leeds City Council Bill (By Order)

I commend the industry and efforts of the different local councils who have brought the Bills to the House. As hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned, the process of bringing a private Bill before the House is expensive, quite complicated, pretty time-consuming and rather arcane. It is worthy of note that these local councils have found their way through the different thickets and underbrush of parliamentary procedure to get to this point. It has been an achievement. It is also worth mentioning that a number of other local authorities may be deterred from bringing such Bills to the House because the process is so complicated and relatively expensive. That point was made by the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. My constituency has similar problems with pedlars. Every autumn, the Weston-super-Mare carnival is held—carnivals are a wonderful west country, Somerset tradition. On a Monday evening in late autumn, a colourful and loud procession will wend its way through the streets of Weston-super-Mare, with a lot of people turning up to watch. I have had repeated representations from the organisers of the carnival, who perform that task in their free time, as volunteers, to raise money for a variety of good causes. They are concerned that, for that night, Weston-super-Mare is besieged by pedlars from throughout the country who come to sell their wares. The organisers are concerned that money spent with those pedlars might otherwise be spent or donated to the various good causes that benefit from the carnival. People are deeply concerned about that lost revenue.