September 2011 – Letter to BIS re Minister’s letter

BIS response to pedlars pre-legislative scrutiny of the Executive Summary on Street Trading and Pedlary Laws – URN11/542

The substantive issue has not been addressed by your reply.

It concerns not just the few pedlars who actively write to you, nor the silent majority of those in the professional practice of pedlary. More importantly, it concerns “any person” above the age of 17. If that body of people understood what the civil service was doing to a particular civil liberty then the voice of the people may be louder than those of us who try to respectfully engage in consultation in the general interest. Your lack of serious engagement with our concerns must be founded on your frail hope that such issues attract little public interest and media scrutiny.

Your letter lacks any respect by way of defence of the civil provisions contained in the Pedlars Act. Those civil provisions have endured for 314 years under the protection of HMG but your new BIS posting seems intent on destroying that cultural heritage.

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