26 March 2013 – BIS departmental fiasco
This is an email reply by pedlars.info to BIS Onikosi communication 21 March 2013 (scroll to bottom):
From: Pedlars Admin Pedlars.admin@gmail.com
Subject: Fwd: pedlars alert 32 – URN12/605 & 606
Date: 26 March 2013 09:53:14 GMT
To: Onikosi Rachel (CCP) rachel.onikosi@bis.gsi.gov.uk
The same email from 2 different addresses stating that “only one will be monitored and used for further correspondence on this topic” provides pedlars.info with a 50/50 chance of further communication.
Clarification please?
Please provide a link to the said notification on BIS website?
Today March 26 2013 is not a happy day for pedlars.
Last week signatories to pedlars.info response to URN were updated with pedlars alert 32 inviting comment.
Copy below for dissemination.
Please confirm that pedlars.info can expect replies to all outstanding issues listed on page 5 Briefing120113-5BIS.pdf as attached before 5 April?
Please clarify the inference that minister Jo Swinson will not reply to any email “correspondence on this topic”?
Please confirm that preparations are being made for the meeting outlined 13 March to the minister?
Please confirm that the minister is addressing the issue of BIS discrimination and malfeasance?
Please confirm that BIS Complaints will respond before April 5?
Please confirm what Team BIS considers may restore pedlars.info Trust and Confidence?
yours sincerely
Pedlars.info
Begin forwarded message:
From: Pedlars Admin pedlars.admin@gmail.com
Date: 23 March 2013 13:06:55 GMT
To: robert@pedlars.info
Subject: pedlars alert 32 – URN12/605 & 606
To only those who gave authority to join with pedlars.info reply to the BIS consultation.
Further to our reply 15 March to the BIS consultation we emailed the minister Jo Swinson several times without reply except for an auto-thanks to each of the following:
On 10 March we sent the pedlars alert 31.
On 13 March we sent:
Dear Jo [Swinson]
Pedlary Law & URN12/605 & 606
The nominated BIS point of contact for stakeholders has written that because she will not read our communications she cannot report the content to you as minister.
The nominated BIS complaints person will not respond to complaints.
The BIS Ministerial Correspondence Unit is authoring your letters with a delusional notion that HMG is justifying HMG policy on behalf of French pedlars.
Please be aware that there are no pedlars in France or any other EEA Member State except the UK.
The UK Pedlars Act is unique in Europe and enshrines a public liberty to exercise lawful private business in public without any interference whatsoever.
Under the European Services Directive HMG has authority to preserve its cultural heritage of the Pedlars Act.
In 2009 BIS made a terrible error in interpretation of the Services Directive and the mischief has become law in the PSRA2009 Section 45 that discriminates against some pedlars.
Your department is in denial of failure and prefers to destroy a UK civil liberty as a cover-up of gross misconduct.
Your department admits that it is not fit for purpose to understand the national picture but we who live with the consequences of street trading & pedlary law do understand.
Your department has argued both sides of this debate – for amendment and lately for repeal.
You & Vince are responsible for the socio-economic care of a nation and this email informs you that your BIS department is failing in its duty to the general interest.
I await your invitation to understand why and through BIS Counsel to engage with pedlars’ Third Option policy & its justification in the general interest.
I live in Ireland and am happy to travel to a meeting or to skype conference with you & BIS Counsel.
Pedlars.info has done the work for BIS pro bono and with respect ask that you give good direction to your department to engage.
You are aware that time is of the essence.
Yours sincerely
On 18 March we then sent:
Dear Jo
FORMAL COMPLAINT: URN12/605 & 606 consultation on pedlary & street trading law
DISCRIMINATION & MALFEASANCE BY BIS OPERATIVES
It will become obvious why this letter is not directed to stakeholder’s point of contact at BIS.
Pedlars response to the consultation URN12/605 & 606 awaited a BIS response to written points, questions and concerns.
The BIS point of contact was not short of regular reassurances that pedlars may expect a reply before the consultation period ended.
During this last week pedlars anxiety and concern escalated but still no reply from BIS.
My request for extension of time to allow for receipt of government reply was ignored.
My complaint to John Conway Friday 16:45 confirmed that you had been alerted to my concern that Rachel Onikosi was not responding as promised.
Under duress and possible procedural threat that any consultation reply arriving later than the deadline may not be accepted I emailed a response on behalf of some 50 pedlars at 22:13.
During the weekend I was reliably informed that BIS had sent the anticipated government response to other parties during the week but not to me.
Why did your department not send the government response to me?
Why was my direct request ignored?
Are you aware of how your department is mistreating stakeholders?
I had informed you directly of pedlars alert about BIS stone-walling.
I consider that BIS has acted with malicious intent to discriminate with malfeasance.
Not for the first time.
This consultation has has gone terribly wrong and pedlars have lost all trust that BIS understands the principles involved and its function to act in the general interest.
I understand that the government response makes no mention or consideration of the Third Option submitted to BIS as long ago as June 2012.
I ask you again to use your authority to implement a frank and open meeting between the authors of the Third Option and the authors of the government policy & Counsel for the draft legislation to slog out some degree of common ground upon which good policy can begin to evolve as an alternative to government ignoring stakeholders warnings and forcing such a mischievous agenda. You must acknowledge that it is pedlars who will carry the burden of changed government policy and as some more liberal thinking politicians now accept it is a duty and responsibility of practitioners to provide legislators with workable solutions. This we have done on the basis that your own department acknowledges it does not have a clear national picture… we do because since 2007 pedlars.info has done your work for you.
Please engage in kindness & goodness, listening & caring with those who carry the burden.
Only your moral leadership can offer some hope of lowering defensive positioning.
Yours sincerely
On 18 March we also sent:
Dear Jo
your letter to Simon Kirby MP re constituent pedlar
A pedlar has sent pedlars.info copy of your letter to Simon Kirby in response to a list of concerns raised by his constituent about pedlary and the consultation and asks why your reply does not address his concerns and what he might do to get BIS to engage with his genuine concerns.
Having read your letter it is apparent that you remain misguided by operatives at BIS and are repeating a wrong justification that pedlars will be better off under the BIS policy when by the BIS draft legislative proposals a UK pedlar will be less free than currently; burdened with potential criminal sanction; discriminated against by being obliged to maintain contemporaneous evidence of each and every moment of trading activity in case of the need to defend against allegations by zealous councils wishfully seeking prohibition to monopolise control of all trading activity and the lucrative licensing revenue stream from approved traders; limited in time and place that they can trade; subject to undue monitoring of trading activity verging on intimidation and harassment; prohibited geographically from all current trading locations that councils deem designated; effectively prohibited from local economic and cultural life.
You repeat the fallacious French pedlar argument that we have previously informed you about… that there is no such person as a French pedlar in French Law.
Your submission is that a UK pedlar will face no restrictions in selling their services in other EU countries.
Please provide evidence that all EU member states have ratified and harmonised that policy.
Please confirm that HMG will defend the rights of UK pedlars to trade without restriction in all member states.
Please provide evidence that each member state has approved designation of streets as per Clause 5 such that all persons of that state are subject to prohibition, consent or licensed designations except service providers from another EEA state.
With this evidence and reassurance pedlars may potentially see some virtue in contemplating further the BIS policy.
Sincerely
On 19 March we then sent:
Dear Jo
YOUR URN
The silence from BIS is deafening.
We have been struggling to understand the lack of continuity in BIS policy and conclude that by intent nobody has such responsibility.
We note the regular turnover of personalities whose disconnect is bizarre, whose lack of knowledge profound, whose justifications are watery.
Civil servants by their own admission do not have a national picture but claim a national resolution in the URN… bizarre?
The latest red-herring about French pedlars must have come from a casual glance at an image on www.pedlars.info showing a bicycle onion trader… bizarre?
The spin that pedlars will have less regulation & be better off has been dismissed by common-sense.
That HMG has identified a minor discrimination in the Pedlars Act means only that the discrimination be removed but please… not a civil liberty!… not a statute for the people!
We the people will not let our government through ignorance repeal a statutory unfettered right to pedestrian trade in public!
No matter what spin is presented.
Last year it came to my attention that Spain & Portugal no longer control traders on the streets – they accept that the market self-regulates in consumers best interests.
I am not able to produce the law supporting this but I offer it as real on-the-ground evidence of what may be the intention of the Services Directive.
To remove all barriers to trade in member states… some say a form of European protectionism.
The URN Annex E provides evidence of who is sponsoring government policy… councils seeking total control – in other words protectionism.
So what is being protected?
Sue Burgess at Leeds City Council gave the insight last Friday on BBC:
What we [councils & BIS] are trying to do is:
control quality
control the offer
in all fairness to other business
not to prevent pedlars from coming
but not in areas creating a hazard
health & safety issues
BIS needs to instruct Local Authorities that civil servants agree or not with Baroness Knight’s committee on street trading and pedlary law that what is fair or not fair competition is not the remit of local authorities.
Her Lords committee heard evidence that the clear motive for the private bills was to introduce restrictions and sanctions that were out of proportion to legitimate problems.
In regard to obstruction the committee rejected city wide designations limiting such to particular areas on the justification only to ensure road safety and the prevention of obstruction.
The Services Directive principle is free trade without barriers.
The Pedlars Act principle is free trade without barriers… and it already exists in UK Statute.
product quality is not for council to control
the service offer is not for council to control – it is a private contract
competition between businesses is not for council to control
preventing some traders and not others is not the remit of councils
alleging hazards without evidence is fallacious
Article 23 of the Services Directive – “health & safety” means, in relation to a recipient or a third person, the prevention of death or serious personal injury
it is not pedestrian traders but static traders who are the only cause of health & safety concern from their obstacles and obstruction otherwise pedestrians must also be considered a health & safety concern
It is wholly disproportionate that a pedlar will be required to monitor 420 local authority resolutions as and when raised to enable any challenge to arbitrary designation of areas especially when “area” is a subjective judgment open to interpretation.
This consultation is yet to begin and I expect you to desist ignoring public concern.
On 19 March we also sent evidence of “discrimination & malfeasance” by BIS to the minister and to the Secretary of State for BIS.
On 21 March we then received two emails from Onikosi Rachel (CCP) rachel.onikosi@bis.gsi.gov.uk; and from Street Trading and Services Directive Compliance Consultation stcompliance@bis.gsi.gov.uk;
Dear Mr Campbell Lloyd
Street Trading and Pedlary Laws – compliance with the European Services Directive
Please see the attached response to the questions you sent BIS on the consultation on street trading and pedlary. This response has now been cleared by the Consumer Minister and used to response to letters sent to her.
The consultation has now closed but we will accept further responses received by 5pm on 5 April. This decision will be posted on the website together with the attached response shortly.
Please note that this email address is the only one that will be monitored and used for further correspondence on this topic.
Yours sincerely
Consultation Team
For your ease of reference we have copied the responses into the original document at this link:
When you scroll to page 5 you will see a bullet-point list of communications that BIS continues to ignore.
We will keep you informed of further communications.
Your comments will be appreciated.
sincerely
admin