Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Lord Wills and Lord Lucas

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Hayter on this matter. I should declare an interest as someone who suffers fairly regularly from the kind of selfish behaviour that she so compellingly outlined. She set out the arguments so well that I do not intend to rehearse them again. I only ask the Minister to reflect on the sentiment of the House that, in dealing with the very real problems of clamping by private operators that it is widely accepted need to be dealt with, the Government do not create another set of problems. The risks that my noble friend outlined are real. I hope that the Minister in his reply can give the House some reassurance that the Government are going to tackle them.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am thoroughly in favour of Amendment 42, or at least the intention behind it. It is quite clear that the Bill as it stands will allow a continuation of current abuses in different forms. All you need is a couple of posts with a chain coiled next to one of them and you have a barrier that you can put whenever you want. Anyone caught within it might have to pay a large fine to be released. We will have the same people indulging in very much the same practices as at the moment but they will use a barrier rather than a clamp. Clearly this section is designed to exempt local authority car parks and others with a raised barrier and a ticket on entry. I entirely agree with that. However, it must be reworded, and Amendment 42 seems a pretty good way of doing it. It would be desirable to improve the arrangements in the Bill for appealing against unjustified tickets. I have no objection to the way in which the noble Baroness has set about doing it although I suspect she has taken on a hopeless cause when it comes to allowing more people to clamp. The Daily Mail will use that one, I suspect.