Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007. The noble Baroness said: These regulations are part of a package of regulations and guidance that will put into place new procedures for parking enforcement by local authorities in England. They make no changes to the procedures used by the police and traffic wardens. They cover only England, and similar regulations for Wales will come before the House later this year. The regulations are made under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 and form one component of the Government’s strategy to make better use of the existing road network by improving road safety, reducing congestion and minimising the impact of road traffic on the environment. The Traffic Management Act gives local authorities a specific duty to manage their networks, and fair and effective parking enforcement has a key role to play in this. When a local authority takes over this responsibility from the police, it frees up police time to concentrate on more serious matters. It also means that parking regulations are, often for the first time, enforced throughout the area and at all appropriate times. Although this does not always please motorists, it is essential to facilitate the safe and smooth use of the highway. There are over 28 million vehicles on the roads in England and each of them spends an average of 23 out of 24 hours parked. Managing that demand is what we ask local authorities to do. These regulations will help them to do it in a fair, transparent and effective manner with the overarching objective of keeping traffic moving safely. The regulations before your Lordships set out the procedures for disputing a penalty charge notice, a vehicle immobilisation or a vehicle removal. Some drivers believe that a penalty charge notice or the clamping or removal of a vehicle is never merited, but it may genuinely be the case that the charge was served or the vehicle restrained or removed in error. That might be because the driver was delivering or collecting goods and had left the vehicle to do so; or a valid permit, ticket, voucher or badge may have been displayed on the vehicle at the time; or the owner who received the payment reminder was not the owner at the time of the contravention. A penalty charge notice, or parking ticket, is not a serious matter and does not involve endorsements on the driving licence, but it does have a financial impact that a fair society should levy only when merited. Clamping and removal are a considerable inconvenience, even when merited. When they are not merited, far stronger language springs to mind. The measures put in place to challenge penalty charge notices, vehicle immobilisation and vehicle removal are an important part of delivering a just enforcement system. The procedures for representations and appeals set out in these regulations largely replicate those in the Road Traffic Act 1991. That Act replaced a costly and time-consuming procedure in the magistrates’ court with a simple and streamlined independent adjudicator who dealt only with parking matters. That original vision has been changed to some extent by adding bus lane, certain moving traffic and congestion charging contraventions to the responsibilities of the adjudicators. However, we need to ensure that the procedures remain simple and easily accessible to the public, avoiding the fear that they will need costly legal or other representation to make their case properly. We believe that the draft regulations before the Committee deliver the continuation of simple and straightforward procedures for representations to the issuing authority and appeals to the adjudicator that are easily accessible to the public. They have been subject to extensive consultation but few comments were received on the representations and appeals provisions, and the changes that have been made since the consultation largely result from reconsideration by government. We have also had the benefit of expert and robust advice on our proposals from the entirely independent adjudicators. This reflects their expertise in dealing with many thousands of individual cases and we are grateful to them for their advice. I draw the Committee’s attention to the areas where the draft regulations now improve on the current procedures. As recommended by the House of Commons Transport Committee, the penalty charge notice will itself state the procedures for representations and appeals. The committee was of the view that there is widespread ignorance of the challenge procedures and that putting them on the penalty charge notice would help to resolve this. The circumstances in which a representation and an appeal can be made have been widened specifically to include instances where the enforcement authority has not followed the correct procedures. This ground would cover things such as an authority’s failure to observe the correct time limits or include the right information in notices, or a case where a local authority had served a penalty charge notice by post when it was not authorised to do so. Finally, the adjudicator will have the power to return to the local authority for reconsideration of a case where a contravention has taken place but in mitigating circumstances. That could cover cases where a driver had to pull over because someone in the car had become ill or the cheque for a resident’s parking permit had been banked by the local authority but the permit had been lost in the post. Local authorities have long had the power to cancel a penalty charge notice in such circumstances but a few have shown some reluctance to use this power. The adjudicators will now be able to ask them to consider the case again. The regulations will be widely welcomed by local authorities and the public. It has taken a lot of hard work to balance the needs of local authorities for a strong and effective enforcement regime and the needs of motorists for one that is flexible and fair. The regulations are based on the successful regime put in place by the Road Traffic Act 1991 but make a few key changes to help to deliver a fairer and more transparent system of effective parking enforcement by local authorities. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007. 26th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Baroness Crawley.)