Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see this Private Member’s Bill in your Lordships’ House for us to consider, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and Sir Greg Knight on its reaching this stage. Although some may think that politics is fairly quiet in the Westminster bubble, it is good to see that your Lordships’ House can turn its attention today to three Bills that are of great importance to people’s lives and can make a difference to them.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, parking is a subject that seems to be at the core of some people’s lives, and I suspect that I might be guilty of being somewhat overzealous about it myself. I recall that, when the announcement was made of my elevation to the peerage, even before I entered your Lordships’ House I received congratulatory letters, not least from someone who said how jealous they were that I would have free parking in SW1.

Like others, I get irritated by those who seek to profit unfairly from motorists seeking to park. The culprits are not limited to car park operators. Motorists sometimes have to use car parks because of restrictions imposed by the likes of local authorities, which force them there through the imposition of restrictions on their roads. Often one sees a gradual, insidious loss of space.

I will elaborate on my parking credentials and overzealous nature. A few years ago I noticed that a large number of single yellow lines in Westminster had been turned into double yellow lines, such that parking after 6.30 pm was no longer available. In June 2014, I put in a freedom of information request to Westminster Council, asking for this to be quantified. The council refused to provide the information for the whole of Westminster, so I got the council to do it for the preceding three years for just one ward, the West End. I discovered that some 433 metres of single yellow line had been lost to double yellow line. It is a great loss to motorists and to businesses, which would otherwise benefit from late-night shoppers, particularly in this difficult retail environment—not to mention restaurateurs, theatres and the like.

I cannot help but comment en passant that Westminster Council has form in being anti-motorist, with its unsuccessful attempt in 2011 to force all-night parking into its own car parks, and its successful removal of free parking on Saturday afternoons, which is a great shame for West End retailers.

Meanwhile, back in Hurley, where my nomen dignitatis indicates that I am from and where I have an interest, another parking situation arose. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead sought to impose all sorts of ugly signage and parking restrictions in no lesser place than Hurley high street. Fortunately, we have an excellent MP, who helped the village reach a satisfactory compromise on its parking and signage.

It was during these important and critical negotiations with the council, with the enormous help of the local MP—who was then Home Secretary; she does win some arguments against authorities—that I had the chance to get to know the regulations that became Statutory Instrument 362, the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. I am sure that all noble Lords have had the chance to review these regulations, which cover the precise nature and size of parking signs allowed. At 545 pages, they pretty much cover the entire landscape and all you need to know. I hope that the Minister is able to give us some comfort that the legislation before us today, which is only enabling legislation, will not lead to a code for signage that is markedly different from that laid out in Statutory Instrument 362, so that there will be some compatibility with the signs and information that the motorist is getting used to, while at the same time keeping regulation, as always, to the barest minimum.

There has clearly been some abuse by some operators. Second Reading in the other place evidenced a wave of unacceptable practice. Not to be outdone, when I read the debate it brought to mind my local press, the Henley Standard, which reported that visitors to the town and its memorial hospital were being fined £160 by a company called Smart Parking when they were eligible for a free 20-minute grace period. They were being fined even when they drove through the car park without stopping—such is its configuration that one can drive through it.

Clearly, the success of the Bill will depend on the detail of the new code of practice and the terms it contains. I note that the Bill requires the Secretary of State to prepare the code. In other areas, the Government have passed that obligation back to the sector. For example, in the charity sector, where I have been involved both in charities and in the legislation, the Government created the Fundraising Regulator and invited the sector to self-regulate and, in effect, create its own code. In this instance, I support the different route that has been selected.

Some areas to be included in the code were very helpfully set out for us by the Minister in his letter of 14 January. He did not mention the situation where operators in a private residential area might first need to get approval from all, most or maybe some of the residents before implementing a scheme, and this may also require the inclusion of guidance from the Government in the code.

Finally, I have to put on record for full disclosure that, in a professional capacity, my employer has advised companies in the sector. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, there are good companies: we advised Creative Car Park Ltd and there are others that behave profitably, ethically and properly. It is up to us to ensure that good operators are allowed to thrive and others are curtailed. It is now time to ensure that the estimated 250 billion vehicle miles travelled in the UK in any one year are not subject to rogue opportunists taking advantage of the need to park at the end of those trips.

Pittsburgh: Synagogue Attack

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right: hate speech is at the root of this. He will be aware that we have just refreshed the hate crime action plan for the next two years. We are determined to take whatever action is necessary, whether it is hate crime expressed orally, online, or, as I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on social media. The noble Lord is absolutely right: it is central to our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I am president of a progressive synagogue which is similar to the Tree of Life synagogue. We have lent them a Torah scroll. When news came through on Saturday, I was with a rabbi from another progressive synagogue who had come to see me because he is so upset with the current situation that he is planning to leave the country. He is advising a number of his congregants to do the same. We discussed an article by Colin Appleby, who was a Labour Party member and went to the conference in Liverpool. Colin Appleby wrote:

“At breakfast on Monday, I was joined by two people I’d not met before. They hadn’t met each other before”.


They agreed, he wrote,

“that Jews were ‘subhuman’, ‘didn’t deserve to be allowed to define what constitutes antisemitism’ and should ‘be grateful we don’t make them eat bacon for breakfast every day.’”

He published the article. Would the Minister agree with me that this level of anti-Semitism, and that found in a recent tweet from a Member of this House, must be addressed now before we find a similar situation to that in Pittsburgh arising in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the whole House will have great sympathy with the words my noble friend has just uttered. However, I repeat the point that the Chief Rabbi’s office has felt—correctly, I believe—that there has been outstanding support from all communities in Britain with regard to what has happened in Pittsburgh. That is not to say there is not an issue to be addressed, but the action that the Government have taken, which is supported so clearly in the House of Lords, will help us to combat the dreadful evil of anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism

Lord Leigh of Hurley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote the use of the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, together with its guidance notes.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I draw to your Lordships’ attention my non-financial interests in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister announced the Government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in December 2016. Since then, we have encouraged local authorities to adopt the definition. To date, 135 local authorities across the United Kingdom have done so, as have a number of universities, the National Union of Students and the Union of Jewish Students. In addition, a number of political parties have adopted the definition and the police and CPS already use it as a guide. It is good to see in his place my noble friend Lord Pickles, who has done so much great work in this area.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

I thank the Minister and agree that all institutions and political parties should adopt this definition of anti-Semitism, which includes, of course, disproportionate attacks on Israel. Does the Minister share my concern that in this parliamentary Session there have been, according to the House of Lords Library, more than 250 Questions on Israel which, to put it in context, compares with 50 on Iran and five on anti-Semitism?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

As a Minister, I know quite a bit about answering the same question time and again, as noble Lords will be aware. Ultimately, this is a matter for individual noble Lords; it is not a matter for the Government. Obviously, noble Lords will need to declare interests, but if they do so, that is a matter for them.