Conservative “backwoodsmen” MPs finally dropped their opposition to a Bill sponsored by Reading Borough Council and supported by Thames Valley Police and town centre businesses and street traders aimed at regulating the activities of pedlars who were undermining the legitimate traders in the town. Currently, pedlars are able to operate under the 1871 Pedlars’ Act on the purchase of a £12.50 annual pedlars’ licence. Police and council officials had reported widespread abuses with the selling of counterfeit goods and the arrest of a number of pedlars for a variety of offences including illegal immigration.

The Bill received its second reading on Wednesday 3^rd June in the Commons, along with similar Bills from Nottingham and Leeds. The Bournemouth, Manchester, and Canterbury Bills received second readings earlier in the year following a lengthy “filibuster” from a handful of Conservatives.

Reading West MP Martin Salter, who had supported the Bills all the way along, made another short speech in favour of the Reading Bill. Mr Salter noted that it was ridiculous to be using legislation that was over 130 years old to regulate what had become a serious problem in the town. He read out to the Commons the formal definition of “pedlar” under the 1871 Act as being:-

“…  any hawker, pedlar, pretty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden, travels and trades on foot, and goes from town to town or to other men’s houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares or merchandise or procuring orders for goods, wares or merchandise immediately to be delivered, or selling or offering for sale their skill in handicraft.”

Mr Salter said:-

“It has become clear that the outdated Pedlars’ Certificate is being used as a flag of convenience for bogus street traders resulting in unfair competition against the authorised Reading street traders who pay some £5,425 per annum for their stalls as opposed to the £12.50 paid by pedlars per year. In any case many of the pedlars’ stalls were anything other than mobile and incapable of being moved around by any less than three fully grown men. I have no desire to limit the activities of genuine hawkers but I am concerned that consumers in Reading are not ripped off and that legitimate traders do not face unfair competition from fly-by-night operators.”