My Lords, I wholeheartedly thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and Sir Greg Knight for their work and commitment to get the Bill thus far. If anything is designed to raise the temperature and noise level in the local pub, it is discussions about parking.
I rise to support the Bill in its genuine attempt to create a level playing field for all private parking providers. It appears to be largely uncontentious and to have the support of trade bodies such as the respected British Parking Association, which has regularly called for a single standard body, a single code of practice and an independent appeals service for all operators, regardless of the trade association the individual operators belong to. That is an important point.
The noble Lord has outlined the Bill in detail so I will not repeat that, but I take the opportunity to lament the narrative around parking controls. In general, it goes something like this: the motorist is king—or queen—and it is those rotten councils and nasty landowners trying to stop us parking where we want, when we want, for free, anywhere. It is also regrettable that the language and actions of some of the media have endorsed this view. I exaggerate for effect, but I am sure we all recognise the picture.
This attitude and approach to a valuable and much-needed service is at best unhelpful and at worst could be behind the levels of aggression and abuse that parking attendants face every working day. That is shameful and largely goes unnoticed, and I feel very strongly about it. It is the actions of those private companies at the bottom of the league table—if there is such a thing—that give rise to this. The noble Lord is correct: self-regulation clearly has not worked.
My daughter having experienced a really dreadful parking incident, I know its effects. To cut a long story short, she was intimidated into paying up there and then by the kind of chap, to coin a phrase, you would not want to meet in a dark alley. On further investigation, it turned out that the strip of land she had parked on was adjacent to a legitimate car park that she had paid for and believed she was parking in. However, she was not—it was a kind of ransom strip, and a ransom was indeed demanded. When we went to check the so-called notices and signs to demarcate the difference, you needed a ladder and a set of binoculars to see them. So I assume that signage will be part of the code.
News of this incident was quoted in our local paper, where I, like several MPs during the Bill’s passage, used words like “cowboy” and “rogues”. I was then invited to meet a local private parking company, which dutifully pointed out to me, as their mayor, that I should know that not all companies are rogue or cowboys and that they provide a legitimate service and provide it well. My wrist was duly slapped. Thus, for companies such as these, the Bill will be welcomed and consistency and fairness will be hallmark words. But for the very rogue and very real cowboys will it be business as usual, hopefully with a lesser degree of success, leading to more of them going out of business? That said, as my daughter discovered, intimidation makes you just pay up. My precise concern is that, as I understand it, the code will not apply to those who do not belong to one of the accredited trade associations and those who issue tickets outside the current framework. How will we deal with these? Perhaps the Minister could clarify that it is they that give the rest of the sector a bad name.
Controlling and enforcing parking will never be popular. Council parking services have been under attack in recent years in many ways, having to defend themselves from various claims, not least that they are responsible for the closure of shops and the demise of the high street due to parking charges. Thankfully, evidence has now firmly rebutted that claim, but it is still true that there is much government pressure through statute to ensure that councils do not profit—that is the word used—from their parking service, as if a well-run, effective council service actually catching people who are contravening the law is a bad thing. Councils are still not allowed to use surplus revenue to subsidise other public services to survive in a time of diminishing budgets.
Thus, while the Bill seeks to make it a level playing field for all private contractors, there will not be the same rules that local government have to abide by, rules that could change at the whim of the next Secretary of State—and they do. So my next question to the Minister is this: when the code is drawn up, could there be a degree of synergy with the rules that local government have to adhere to? Otherwise, the Bill will clarify matters for the public in part but not entirely, and we will still have a two-tier system.
The real test, however, will be in the enforcement of the code—I mean real enforcement—particularly in the early days, to lay down a marker that this code is not a crocodile with rubber teeth but has some bite. The penalty of not being able to get driver data from
the DVLA should be enough of a deterrent to ensure that standards rise across the board, but therein lies an area of concern: the DVLA handing over our personal data to myriad private parking firms. It is a legitimate view, held by some of my colleagues, that in this instance, private companies should not have access to any of our data. Can the Minister reassure us as to how this will be monitored, and what safeguards might there be to prevent the abuse of this data? I am sure we will discuss that at a later stage.
As the code is developed, there will be much more to say on matters such as the amount of fees. I genuinely feel that a lot of the animosity towards parking is due to the disproportionately high fees charged by private companies. The level of fees local authorities can charge is prescribed by government; there is no such control over the private sector. If, say, a person parks in a legitimate parking space in a hotel car park, attends a conference held there but fails, in rushing in late, to give their registration to the hotel reception, a fine of £100 may be given. This is surely disproportionate when compared to parking that jeopardises safety or causes an obstruction, enforcement against which is still unsatisfactory, and is far in excess of what any local authority outside London can charge.
I hope there will be an opportunity to look at this issue, the appeals process, grace periods and much more in Committee. But as was said earlier, the closer the local government regime and this new regime come together, the less confusing it will be for the public—the motorist—and the fairer for all. Parking control is not popular but it is a vital service and services have to be paid for. When my residents used to ask me regarding controlled parking zones, “Why should I pay for a permit to park outside my own home?”, my reply was, “You are not paying to park outside your own home. You are paying to stop everybody else parking outside your home all day, for free, which prevents you parking”. I learned quickly, though, that you can never win with parking.
With the caveats that I have raised, we support the Bill and wish it a speedy passage.
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