Sale of Goods (Amendment) Bill [Lords] (Hansard, 15 July 1994)

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I shall be brief. I commend the Bill to the House, and in doing so I thank those who are responsible for its being here—primarily, Lord Renton. He is better known to many of us in this place as the right hon. Sir David Renton; he was a Member here for many years and the predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the constituency of Huntingdon. He piloted this Bill through another place with the general support of peers in all parties.
I had the good fortune to take on the Bill and, had I won a place in the ballot, I would have introduced it last year. I took the Bill through Committee with the support of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House and I am grateful for that support. I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Technology, who is on the Front Bench today, and to our right hon. Friends the Minister for Industry and the President of the Board of Trade, all of whom have been extremely helpful in supporting the Bill.
The Bill has one simple, but important, aim—to outlaw the practice of market overt. Members on both sides of the House will know that if goods in Bermondsey market, which is the one that is almost always quoted, are bought between sunrise and sunset, the title of the goods purchased passes to the purchaser, regardless of the origin of the goods. The market has been castigated as a thieves' den for that reason. The Bill contains no threat to the legitimate traders of Bermondsey market and it has the strong—indeed, passionate—support of the various antique dealers associations, the Antiques Trade Gazette, the Metropolitan police and many other police forces who have been in touch with me, all of whom see it as a small, but positive and helpful step. The Historic Houses Association is yet another organisation which lobbied for the Bill and welcomes its introduction.
I know that some of my hon. Friends have matters that they want to raised and we have little time. With the leave of the House, I shall respond to them if there is an opportunity. I commend the Bill to the House.

§ Mr. Roger Evans (Monmouth)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking so briefly. I propose to be equally brief. He is wrong to suggest that in Bermondsey market one can pass title regardless of origin. The rule applies only to goods acquired for value in good faith. That is not such a startling proposition and, indeed, it is one which is echoed in other areas of the law.
My concerns about the Bill are that, first, it does not apply, and has no relevance, to car boot sales, which are the modern curse, where fences dispose of property. Secondly, a proper understanding of the rule is so narrow that it will arouse greater expectations for change. The problems of prosecuting people who buy colour televisions—stolen from my constituents—in public houses in Cwmbran are exactly the same as those of prosecuting people who buy antique items in Bermondsey market at and under value. The law does not affect that problem.
1342 I do not intend to talk out or to oppose the Bill, because I am satisfied, having talked to my hon. Friend the Minister, that the Government can deal with it in a way that will satisfy all of us. The problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) identified is important, but—partly as a result of the heritage lobby, with and for which he is elegantly associated and an important spokesman—it is only one aspect. Ironically, he wants to tear up the pages of Coke's institutes and Coke's reports, which are still the law of the land on the topic, and to replace them with the Rocky Horror alternative prayer book version; but never mind. If there is a social need to do so, I can understand the force of the argument, but the problem with the Bill is that it does not deal with other situations that are equally open to challenge, and the matter ought to be given broad consideration.
For example, mercantile agents in possession can pass good title to goods, which means that if one takes one's car to a car salesroom to ask for a quote and it is sold on to someone else, that other person takes good title.
Secondly, if we buy trust property that is sold in breach of trust by a trustee, the rule is that the purchaser for value in good faith takes good title. It makes nonsense of law reform to take one aspect of chattels of a particular class and deal with it on its own. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether the Government will review the general position.
The next problem is that the Bill moves English law further away from European law, rather than the reverse. The rule in the French civil code is "La possession vaut la titre", which is very similar to the doctrine of market overt. Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider, because this is a single-market issue, whether there ought to be a European approach as to the circumstances in which good title in goods is passed and the circumstances in which it is not. If one buys and imports throughout the European Community—whatever the appropriate balance of protection between the vendor and, on the one hand, the person from whom the goods are stolen and, on the other, the bona fide purchaser—it is a matter with a European dimension that is dealt with on that basis.
Has my hon. Friend had any consultations with the City of London corporation? One of the glorious anomalies is that every shop in the City of London is a market overt in the class of goods in which it trades. He is seeking here to abrogate the ancient privileges of London, and I should be very interested to know what consultations he has had on that aspect.
What has tended to happen in recent years is that our ancient franchise markets—the kind of market to which the market overt rule traditionally applies—have been greatly undervalued by those in power. I am bound to say that we have seen attempts to deregulate them which the Government have had to slightly reflect upon, and this is another fairly brutal attempt to whittle away at their considerable privileges.
I have several traditional franchise markets in my constituency, and I see colleagues in the House who represent agricultural constituencies where rural franchise markets are a part and parcel of life and perform a valuable social function. Farmer Giles can still turn up and sell his potatoes or his beasts. It used to be that one bought them with good title, and one could sue the auctioneer or those running the market. The Bill would stop that.
I urge my hon. Friend to consider the question of franchise markets. He should not abolish them as a feudal 1343 anomaly where they are valued and appreciated institutions. Nevertheless, will he consider a general review of the way in which markets are regulated and run? I hear what those in the antiques trade who make complaints about Bermondsey market say. I have never been there and I have certainly never bought anything there, although I may have driven past it.
Those who complain that particular institutions have become thieves' kitchens might perhaps consider whether they have a remedy in the law as it stands, rather than promoting Bills of this sort.

§ Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham)
I shall also be extremely brief, and I could not better the erudition with which my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) expressed his concerns—which I share, particularly those about livestock markets. The reservations that I have about the Bill include the fact that we are intending to sweep away a piece of English history which goes back for many hundreds of years at just after 2 o'clock in a deserted House on a Friday in July, and that is a pity.
The Bill will not do what it is designed to do, and it will pursue people in one market at the expense of livestock markets in my constituency. I have one charter market in my constituency which has existed since mediaeval times. We do not know—and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) also does not know—whether it is a market overt or not. I suspect that it is, but there is a dispute about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth said that there could be real problems in dealing with the issue of title, which is currently covered by that aspect. While I share those concerns, I do not propose to obstruct the passage of the Bill; but it is worth a moment's pause before we abandon a piece of legal history to the dustbin.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Technology (Mr. Patrick McLoughlin)
I shall respond to some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) put directly to me. He asked me to consider whether the matter could be looked at through the European Commission. That is an interesting point and I will consider it. I do not believe that the Bill contains some of the anomalies to which my hon. Friend has referred, but I shall want to look carefully at it in the light of what he said. I will respond in due course.
We are conducting a more general review and we have known about the Bill for some time. There have been no representations that the market overt rule ought to be kept. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) almost argued against his own point in one respect, when he referred to his local market and said that he was not sure whether it was a market overt or not. There are some problems with definition as to which markets are covered by the general rule of market overt. I do not think that there are particular reasons for keeping it going.
1344 Indeed, it is something of a puzzle why it was not abolished when the common law regarding the sale of goods was first codified in the Sale of Goods Act 1893. The rule has been much criticised as a thieves charter, and although there is not a great deal of evidence that market overt is used as a means of disposing of stolen goods, it can no longer rationally be defended. For that reason, the Government support the Bill and commend it to the House.

§ Mr. Cormack
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his remarks. I should like to reply briefly to my hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) and for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), to whom I am grateful for saying that they will not ultimately oppose the Bill. I cast no aspersions on the learning of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth, but many learned lawyers, including Lord Renton and Law Lords in the other place, believe that the Bill is desirable and sensible. On the law, I rest my case.
To say that, because market overt has been enshrined in English history since 1189, there is no reason to get rid of it, is hardly an argument. William Wilberforce could have bowed to the same argument when the slave trade was being abolished and one could still be branding people and doing all sorts of other unmentionable things. That argument does not hold, because something that has a long history behind it is not necessarily correct.
I am glad to note what my hon. Friend the Minister said about Europe and it is, of course, important that we discuss matters with our colleagues in the European Union.
As for the City of London, as a freeman of the City—if I have to declare that interest—I have received absolutely no representations from any of my colleagues or from common counsel on this. Many of them know about my interest in the Bill, just as they know that Lord Renton took it through the other place.
I will not weary the House by quoting an extremely learned letter from Brian Davenport QC—I believe that my hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth and for Hexham have seen the letter—but, as he points out, As a matter of history, there is nothing new in the suggestion that the law of market overt should be abolished. This was unanimously recommended by the Law Reform Committee in its twelfth report in 1966. He goes on to deal with the livestock market and notes: The Law Reform Committee reported that over half the livestock markets in England were private markets and therefore could not be markets overt. In the case of each of the others it would have to be shown that the market was established by charter or had existed since before the year 1189. I do not believe that the farmers of Hexham or of anywhere else are in danger. No one likes dealing in stolen goods in any event, if he is an honest man, and most farmers are honest.
I am conscious that another measure is to be discussed briefly, so, once again, I commend the Bill to the House.