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Reform law on peddling and unsolicited house callers

Submitted on Thursday 13th June 2013

Rejected on Wednesday 21st June 2017

Current status: Rejected

Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)

Petition Action

Reform law on peddling and unsolicited house callers

Additional Information

Distraction burglaries account for 3.5% of all reported burglaries and tend to affect the most vulnerable people in society, such as the elderly.

The Pedlars Act 1871 is over 140 years old and only regulates people selling door-to-door, not other potentially bogus callers.

Legislation should be made to require licensing of all unsolicited house callers, including pedlars, utility engineers/meter readers, religious groups and charity collectors.

Licences should only be issued to persons of good character and licensees should display the licence at all times in a similar way to the SIA scheme. The licences should bear a photograph of a licensee and a unique serial number which can be verified by dialling a single national phone number or via a government website.

All licensees should adhere to a uniform statutory code of practice and licences should be revoked following breaches of the code or conviction for an acquisitive offence such as theft or burglary.


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This petition was rejected

The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:

There's already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

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