Deregulation Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will flag up a couple of points in the gap which will need further attention as we go through the Bill.

There is a dearth of accessible housing in the UK. As a result, one in six disabled people and more than half of disabled children live in accommodation that is not suitable for their needs. The need for disabled-friendly housing will only grow as the population ages, and providing good housing can reduce the need for care. The Government’s proposal to incorporate lifetime homes and wheelchair-accessible standards into building regulations is therefore most welcome. However, I am concerned that those standards will be only optional and concerned at the suggestion that planning authorities will be able to adopt them only where they can satisfy a rigorous needs test and show that they are strictly necessary and justifiable, not just desirable.

The GLA has committed to all new buildings matching lifetime homes standards and to 10% of all new homes being built to wheelchair-accessible standards. I would like to see the approach taken by successive mayors in London rolled out across the UK and I believe that the Bill should be encouraging that. Instead, I am concerned that it could actively discourage authorities from taking that positive approach if they are required to jump through too many bureaucratic hoops. I therefore seek the Minister’s assurance that the Government accept that the level of evidence gathered by the GLA is sufficiently rigorous to support the introduction of lifetime homes and wheelchair-accessible standards. I would also like to see an exemption from the community infrastructure levy for fully wheelchair-accessible housing and a reduction for that which meets the lifetime homes standard.

I turn to my second point. The Bill includes provisions on parking. Clause 38 amends the Road Traffic Act to prevent local authorities from issuing penalty charge notices through the post and using CCTV for parking enforcement in particular circumstances. I was glad to see that the Opposition have some reservations about this. The clause was inserted following a government consultation on local authority parking strategies. The Government acknowledged that a common theme in responses to the consultation was the need for a uniform approach to pavement parking, but this has not been followed up in the Bill. That is a major omission. Pavement parking is dangerous for pedestrians, especially parents with pushchairs, wheelchair users and other disabled people, including blind and partially sighted people, who may be forced out into the road where they cannot see oncoming traffic. Pavements are not designed to take the weight of vehicles and they cause pavements to crack and the tarmac surface to subside. This is also a hazard to pedestrians, who may trip on broken pavements, and particularly to blind and partially sighted people, who cannot observe the damage. It is also expensive. Local authorities paid more than £1 billion on repairing kerbs, pavements and walkways between 2006 and 2010; £106 million was also paid in compensation claims to people tripping and falling on broken pavements during the same five-year period.

Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, with the support of at least a dozen other organisations, is calling for laws across the UK prohibiting pavement parking unless specifically permitted, such as have been in place in Greater London since 1974. Local authorities report that existing measures are insufficient. In a recent YouGov survey, 78% of councillors supported a national law with flexibility for local authorities to make exemptions. The Transport Select Committee described the current system as unduly complex and difficult for motorists to understand. A Private Member’s Bill with cross-party support has been presented in the other place by Martin Horwood MP. There is considerable support for a law of this type, and I very much hope that the Government will give it serious consideration.