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• A Pedlar holds BIS to account
• Posted: 2010-06-19 08:19:37 BST By A Pedlar
• I am concerned that civil servants in BIS and not ministers will determine the future of pedlary in the UK.
  In repeatedly stating that decisions are not taken by BIS but ultimately by the minister, pedlars perceive the contrary.
  Ministers may consider BIS policy options but to date those options do not reveal the crushing consequences.
  BIS has shown pedlars no indication that it seeks to preserve pedlary trading rights, least of all through so called consultation.
  Instead BIS policy options have been led by private interests against the general interest.
  BIS consultation has not informed ministers of the magnitude of the consequences for all citizens.
  The Pedlars Act protects over 17's to begin a business for £12.50 in any place in the UK.
  That... primarily that... is what is at stake.
  Those places include anywhere that the public has free access.
  This freedom is an anethema to town centre management controllers, multinationals and their high street brands.
  In supporting suppressive policy BIS is held to account for serving the private master.
  Pedlars are citizens, local and national, not pulled by the strings of foreign business.
  The question is asked by common people - whom does the civil servant serve?
  
  Will somebody please ask BIS to confirm that they serve the General Interest and in so doing will preserve pedlary.

• Re: A Pedlar holds BIS to account
• Posted: 2010-06-22 11:17:01 BST By nic mcGerr
• Thank you for posting this comment - I am very worried by the way in which the law that gives a pedlar authority throughout the UK is being interfered with by special interests working through their contacts within government departments such as BIS and others. I am sure that ministers always assume that they are being given the best advice based on open and unbiased opinion, but what has been revealed over and over again by how information has been passed down through the various administrations including police is that there is very little understanding of what is the true meaning of a pedlar's activity which was given its own particular and special status in 1881 by the Pedlars Act, and that is that a pedlar has the freedom and ability to step out of doors and go anywhere thoughout the UK, all the time being within the law safe from being prosecuted as any sort of criminal or wrongdoer. I've read all the business in Parliament that has been brought to my attention by the various petitions against the private bills that have been brought to go against pedlars by those places that have been wealthy enough to pay for this private business which wants its own special law and not that of the general public laws which protects all ordinary people, but I have to say that the way in which the law is being manipulated to suit these private interests goes directly against the British Constitution as most people understand it.
  The research done by St Chads college shows pedlars to be an important and vital part of public life, experience given in evidence by pedlars confirms that pedlars are welcome throughout the British Isles, pedlars are co-operating with helping to draw up a European wide understanding of pedlary, and yet government departments carry on with only one plan and that is to do away with pedlars.
  The recent use of an S.I. to strike out two descriptive elements from the Pedlars Act is the most obvious example that the highly paid "experts" employed by HMG either have no idea about the precious nature of the Pedlars Act and therefore should not be paid at the great expense to the public, or they know full well what the outcome will be and so continue with the break up of the most admired aspects of society using the "clever" tools given them by grand committees not available to the everyday person on the street.
  Despite having had a recent election in which politicians championed the values of the great reforming era that has given us the vote and the Pedlars Act, and despite one parliament not tying down another, the admin wagon rumbles on, barging through every ill thought out proposition that's put up for "approval", and ignoring the public that it invites to "consult".
  Civil servants it may be assumed will have to be "civil", but they are also servants to the Crown and pedlars have only one relationship between them and the public and that also is to the Crown as being of "good faith". This is not a truth to be lost by the curmudgeons of power.

• Re: Re: A Pedlar holds BIS to account
• Posted: 2010-06-22 16:45:09 BST By A Pedlar
• Late last year we (pedlars.info) were notified that an EU inspired Services Directive would oblige the UK to remove the rights of pedlars of services ie chair-menders and skill in handicraft. A Grand Committee rubber stamped an amendment to Statute (the Pedlars Act) inspite of concern by Lord Lucas on pedlars behalf and numerous pedlars emails to BIS who were given scrutiny oversight.
  Well guess what? BIS failed in its scrutiny and the Grand Committee failed in its scrutiny of submissions by BIS.
  Just yesterday we (pedlars.info) were informed by letter from BIS that their previous understanding of the directive was wrong and that the UK Services Directive may now be extended to pedlars of goods.
  So what does that mean to you (pedlars)?
  
  Pedlars have been witness to clever private business interests abusing secretive and privileged counsel advice to civil servants to subvert UK Statutes through introduction of new Statutory Instruments or local Acts. They've done it with private bills but pedlars still survive no matter how clever the slight-of-hand text. Now they'll try to use EU Directives to finally subvert UK law and indirectly kill the Pedlars Act whilst in the same breath patronising pedlary with less than meaningful "consultation".
  This process is no longer an issue about pedlary but a direct attack by unaccountable private interests diminishing the authority of the constitution, seducing lazy rubber-stamp servants to do the consulting, and ultimately privatising political policy.
  
  We wrote to Vince Cable Secretary of State BIS about the failures in his department but a reply came from head-in-the-sand civil servants so the head never knows what mischief the feet are causing.
  
  You might ask... whom do commoners write next?
  
  Will the Grand Committee be once again ... out to lunch?