Protection of Freedoms Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

I rise briefly to support new clause 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). In over 14 years as Member of Parliament for Exeter, I cannot recall a local grievance that has caused as many constituents to complain to me or seek my help as have done about the behaviour of private car park operators over the last 18 months or so. Constituents have been fined while going to buy a ticket; fined despite buying and displaying a ticket; and fined despite the fact that the ticket machine was broken at the time and the driver had left a note to that effect on his windscreen. One car park at Exeter airport, which has 24-hour digital recording of the cars going in and out, has fined motorists for using the car park to turn around in, or for driving in and out of it by mistake. The vast majority of cases concern people who have been fined, not clamped. The common grievance is the sense of summary injustice and the lack of any right of proper appeal. In some cases, when I have intervened, the companies concerned have reduced or even waived the fines. My local newspaper, the Express & Echo, has also taken up individual cases and sought to name and shame the rogue operators, but no system of justice should have to depend on the intervention of an MP or a local newspaper. I wholeheartedly agree with the excellent editorial in The Times today that warned that the Bill threatens to make a bad situation worse. We need a proper right of appeal, and I am afraid that the appeal process outlined by the Minister, which will be on a voluntary basis, will not reassure my constituents.