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Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords]

It is significant that although we are debating amendments to both Bills, we have not—if my recollection is correct—heard any comments, whether positive or negative, from anybody from Manchester about anything that has been said this afternoon. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend says that they moved the closure. Perhaps they did. I missed that point of detail. If that is true, it makes their behaviour so much more cynical. We can have a perfectly good and healthy public debate about whether we should limit the application of the Bill in Bournemouth to June, July, August, September and December. My hon. Friends have put forward perfectly reasonable arguments saying, "Well, Bournemouth is a busy town the year round, and the problems discussed are problems 24/7"—to use that colloquialism—but we have heard nothing from Manchester Members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) mentioned. That suggests that the arguments that I have deployed about limiting the provisions to June, July, August, September and December would be relevant in Manchester, where notoriously—I think one could say—the weather is much inferior to that on the sunny south coast of England. Indeed, when I was last in Manchester, during the Conservative party conference last year, it was drizzly and raining most of the time. The local people said, "That's par for the course. You're lucky it's not raining more heavily." Obviously, if one has such varying weather conditions—I am trying to provoke a response from some of the Members from Greater Manchester—it will impact significantly upon the ability of pedlars to go about their business, particularly if they are carrying the goods on their person. In dank conditions, there will be many fewer people on the streets. There will be less likelihood, therefore, of pedlars being around in very large numbers and of illegal activity about which a complaint might be made.