Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has completed his own consideration. I think the Minister will wish to give us his view.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I have listened carefully to the contributions of the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and of course to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby).
I understand why the amendments and new clauses have been tabled. They have been tabled, as the hon. Member for Shipley will appreciate, somewhat late in the day. Therefore, it has not been possible for us to give full consideration to the implications of what he has put forward. What I would say in general terms is that some of the measures he proposes do seem draconian, to use a word that was bandied around earlier today, and some of the measures that he wants to introduce may not be entirely necessary. For example, it is not necessary to have a separate offence of allowing another person to use a blue badge, as that conduct is already covered by section 115 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Sections of 44 and 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 also have a role to play. At this stage, I do not think there is a case for accepting any of his new clauses or amendments, but I will undertake to look at them carefully. If there is any merit to any of them, I will be prepared to look at them and so will the Lords.
Mr Chope
The Minister will have heard my exchange with Mr Speaker. Can the Minister confirm that the wording of the Bill is such that local authorities will now have discretion to give disabled parking badges for limited periods of time to people who are temporarily disabled?
Norman Baker
That matter is either reflected in the Bill or by the existing legislation, and it is one to which I, as a Minister, have given some consideration over time. I think we all have sympathy with those who have temporary impairments and might have a condition that may be similar to a permanent disability. However, the reality is that the administration costs of setting up such a system to deal with temporary impairments would be very high. With 2.5 million blue badge holders in this country, if that number were extended significantly, as would be the case if those with temporary impairments were able to have blue badges or something similar for a period of time, the consequences would be to put enormous pressure on existing parking space. Individuals with genuine but limited mobility problems could occupy spaces designed for those with much more serious conditions. The conclusion I have therefore reached is that this should be a matter for local discretion. There are opportunities for individual local authorities to take forward schemes in their own patches if they choose to do so, depending on the availability of road space. The likelihood is that some local authorities will do that.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Does he think that one way of reducing the large number of disabled parking badges would be to ensure that there has to be a renewal date for any disabled parking badge issued, so that they are not in effect issued for a lifetime?
Norman Baker
I agree with that, and that is indeed the position. We require blue badges to be renewed on a regular basis—I think it is every three years—to take account of the possibility of improvement to people’s mobility and disabilities. We hope that there are such improvements, and in some cases that is true. Even for those with permanent disabilities—loss of a limb, for example —we still need to ensure that the photograph on the badge is up to date, the address information is correct and that the badge has not faded, which has been a factor in the past, though it is less so now with the new badge design. It is sensible to have badges renewed on a regular basis and that already happens. There are no indefinite badges; that problem has already been taken care of.
As I said to the hon. Member for Shipley, we have not had a huge amount of time to examine the new clauses and amendments. I am not convinced that they have merit, but I will undertake to ask officials to look at them. If there is any merit, we will deal with that in another place. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his new clause.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to hon. Members who have contributed to the debate on my amendments, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who did not agree with them all but adopted his normal forensic approach and pointed out some flaws that I accept.
I am also grateful for the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) and the Minister. If I heard correctly, in his brief comments the Minister said that he would consider my amendments in more detail and, if there was any merit in them, would deal with them later. I will take that offer in the good faith in which I am sure it was intended. I will happily meet him to discuss some points in order to improve the Bill even further. That will be to the benefit of genuine blue badge holders. On the basis of his kind offer, for which I am genuinely grateful, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Third Reading
Mr Chope
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) for the progress he has made with the Bill and the deft way in which he has mastered the Standing Orders to ensure that his Bill leapfrogged over others Bills into the first slot today. He is already an old hand at this. His Bill is in first place today because it went through Second Reading without a Division—without even any debate—and was agreed to unanimously by the House. It also had a short Committee stage, confirming that everybody thinks that it will improve matters and deserves to get on to the statute book.
The better controls over the abuse of the blue badge scheme will be welcomed in my constituency. A large number of my constituents have blue badges, and they resent the fact that the system is abused and that sometimes this means they cannot park close to where they want to be, because their parking space has been occupied by someone who purports to have a valid blue badge but whose badge is not valid or does not apply to them. The changes in the Bill are very good, therefore. It is desirable that we give local authorities greater discretion. It will, I hope, result in local authorities considering what is best in their own circumstances.
I remain concerned about the fact that people who are temporarily severely disabled cannot access disabled parking concessions. I hope that the Minister’s comments implied that local authorities will now have the discretion to decide that they can.
Mr Chope
The Minister is nodding. That is very helpful. Dorset county council has always told me that it does not have the discretion to allow temporarily disabled people to access disabled parking permits. If we now have much tighter control over the abuse of those permits, greater flexibility for local authorities should flow from that. When given the appropriate medical evidence, they should be able to issue disabled parking permits to people with temporary disabilities. That is a really good benefit that could come from the Bill.
It is interesting that the Bill sets out why the form of the disabled badge should not be prescribed in detail—if it is set out in statute, the fraudsters will know exactly what is in it and can follow the same format. The Bill proposes that there should be some form of encryption, which will enable more effective enforcement to take place and make it much more difficult to forge the badges.
All in all, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown. I hope that, having got himself ahead of the queue, he can get the Bill into the other place and that before too long it will find its way on to the statute book.
Norman Baker
I am pleased that my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), has introduced the Bill, and I congratulate him on its progress to date. It will help to tackle the abuse that seriously threatens the value of the blue badge scheme for disabled people. The Government have long understood the need to reform the disabled parking scheme. Very few changes have been made to it since it was established in the 1970s. It is a crucial service for promoting improved mobility for disabled people; 75% of badge holders say that, without it, they would go out less often.
Since this Government came to power, my officials and I have been working with badge holders, disability groups and local authorities to deliver improvements. To ensure that badges are issued more fairly and consistently across the country, I introduced independent mobility assessments to help to determine eligibility. The provision in my hon. Friend’s Bill enabling members of the armed forces overseas to apply for a badge is also about fairness, of course, and it complements the Department’s reforms.
More recently, on 1 January this year, I introduced on behalf of the Government the blue badge improvement service. This is a major initiative aimed at tackling rising levels of fraud and abuse, while helping to ensure that disabled people receive improved customer service. It provides for online applications and provides local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales with a single national database of all blue badge holders and their key details, thereby preventing multiple and fraudulent applications.
Importantly, enforcement officers can also run quick validity checks via their hand-held devices, before taking the appropriate enforcement action. This new tool is a major step forward in tackling fraud. The powers in the Bill to allow inspections in plain clothes and the recovery of badges mean that, when an enforcement officer has checked the status of a badge on the central system, he or she will be able to take it off the street immediately if it is being misused.
Furthermore, since the improvement service went live, we have added a facility for members of the public to report lost and stolen badges. The Bill enhances that facility by enabling local authorities legally to cancel badges that are no longer in the holder’s possession. That will put the status of such badges beyond doubt. To help to counteract fraud, we have also introduced a new badge design that is harder to copy, forge or alter. The old-style cardboard badges have been replaced by new ones made from a hard plastic material which contains a number of overt and covert security features, as used in banknotes and driving licences.
The Bill will enhance that development by removing the requirement to prescribe the badge details in regulations. To disclose the high-security features of the badge would play directly into the hands of those who seek to make forgeries for their own gain. That will happen, however. People are already attempting to make copies of the new badge. I am pleased to say they are bad copies, but even so, we do not want to help the criminals by publishing badge security details.
Public consultation has demonstrated widespread support for the measures contained in my hon. Friend’s Bill, which are long overdue. I know that the Bill has cross-party support. I am sure that hon. Members will have received representations from disabled constituents, as I have, complaining about abuse of the blue badge scheme and the impact that it has on their lives.
I want to deal with the points that have been raised. I should clarify that badge holders will still have recourse to an appeal and review procedure. That is not being taken away. The difference will be that it will involve the local authority and then the ombudsman. The ombudsman service is free to users and has the expertise to deal with more than 10,000 complaints a year.
The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) referred to bus journeys, a subject that is some distance away from the Bill’s contents. I note, however, that the number of bus journeys undertaken over the past 12 months is on a par with the number undertaken in the previous year and in the year before that. There has not been the reduction in bus travel that she implied. We fully accept the importance of independence of travel. That is why my officials in the Department and I are taking forward a new accessibility strategy to enhance that need and right. We are consulting widely with disabled groups, which have been participating in the construction and formulation of that strategy. I can therefore assure the hon. Lady that they are fully involved in the Department’s processes.
In regard to the questions about disabled persons tax credit, the answer that I gave at the Dispatch Box recently was that a consultation has been initiated on what should or should not happen to DATAC and on any successor arrangements. We will make a statement in due course on what we conclude as a result of the responses to the consultation. I am sure that the hon. Lady would want us to give full weight to those responses and to analyse them properly, rather than rushing into a precipitate decision. I can assure her that the Bill will have no impact on local authority resources. I hope that that puts her mind at rest.
There is a consultation process under way on the personal independence payment, but the Government’s preferred option is one of minimum change. It is not in any way our intention to reduce the number of people who qualify for a badge. The consultation has been necessitated by the changes to the nature of benefits being brought in by the Department for Work and Pensions, but so far as the Department for Transport is concerned, we want the result of any consequential changes to stay as close as possible to the current arrangements. That is our preferred option, but obviously we will look at the responses to the consultation.
We believe that the Bill will help disabled people. It will help to fill the gaps and it will complement the Government’s own legislation. It will be an asset for those who rely on the scheme for independent living, and the Government fully support it.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.