London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords] Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateChristopher Chope
Main Page: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I remind the House that with this we are considering amendments 11 to 19.
When the debate was in train on 10 July, I believe that Mr Chope was about to sum up—within minutes—and end his speech on the group of amendments.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Your recollection is impeccable, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although more than two months have elapsed since we last debated the amendments, I do not think that it is necessary for me to remind the House of the issues at stake, given that there are further important matters to discuss.
During the course of the debate, there was considerable discussion regarding which of the commendable amendments in the group we should seek to test the opinion of the House. Having listened to the helpful advice of my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), the balance of opinion is that the best choice would be amendment 14, which would provide that people could not be prosecuted for having unlit skips if they had taken reasonable steps to ensure that they were lit. In other words, the amendment would mean that there would have to be a lack of responsibility before a criminal act could be committed. There was acceptance across the House that such an amendment would be reasonable, so while I shall not press amendment 10 to a Division, I will seek the opinion of the House on amendment 14.
Earlier in the debate, we heard the good news that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), on behalf of the promoters of the Bill, will accept amendment 11, which should interest those who think that such occasions are rather a pointless exercise. It is clear that the promoters of this Bill are much more willing to accept amendments than the promoter of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill—the Government. The Government should learn a lesson from how we conduct private business, during which if it is thought that the arguments being made about amendments are reasonable, the amendments are accepted without anyone feeling that they are losing face. I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Bill’s promoters on being broad-minded enough to accept not only amendment 11, but amendment 30, which we shall reach in due course. Without further ado, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 11.—(Mr Chope.)
Clause 9
Builders’ skips: penalty charge provisions
Amendment proposed: 14—(Mr Chope.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to consider amendments 22 to 40.
Mr Chope
The amendment relates to part 5 of the Bill, which deals with charging points for electric vehicles. Many moons ago, perhaps even more than two years ago, I was told that the reason the Government were so keen to ensure that the Bill got on the statute book was its provisions on charging points for electric vehicles. The fact that the Bill has been on a very slow curve since is indicative of the many practical problems that are being experienced by people who want to promote electric vehicles and a green economy. That is why the issue of charging points has not been as significant as the Government at one stage thought it would be.
I declare my enthusiasm for the idea that there should be electric vehicles. Obviously, if one has an electric vehicle, one needs to have somewhere to charge it. On the whole, batteries that are long-lasting are heavy and large, so it is much easier if one has a smaller, more efficient unit that can be charged at a charging point.
I was therefore disappointed to see that part 5, which gives powers to London local authorities to
“provide and operate charging apparatus for electrically powered motor vehicles”,
does not require those local authorities to provide and operate such charging apparatus. What a missed opportunity, one might say. I am not suggesting that local authorities should provide and operate charging apparatus in any place. What I am suggesting in amendments 21 and 22 is that the clause should state that London local authorities “shall”, rather than “may”,
“provide and operate charging apparatus for electrically powered motor vehicles”
in every
“public off-street car park under the management and control of the authority”.
We know that London local authorities make an enormous amount of money from car parking charges, both for on-street and off-street parking. We also know that off-street car parking charges often discourage shoppers from going to local shopping centres. However, if local authorities believe they can charge a lot for the use of off-street car parks, surely, in a society in which we support the principle of having and promoting the use of electric vehicles, they should be required to provide and operate charging apparatus for electrically powered vehicles rather than just have the opportunity to do so if they wish to take it up.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
My hon. Friend knows I am with him on most of his activities, but does he acknowledge that there is a certain smell of the nanny state in his amendments? Is he suggesting—this seems totally out of character for him—that drivers of non-electric vehicles should in effect subsidise drivers of electric vehicles through car parking charges?
Mr Chope
Far from it—I am with my hon. Friend on subsidies. I am suggesting that the cost of charging an electrically powered motor vehicle should be self-financing. Obviously, when someone goes into a public off-street car park and charges their vehicle, they can expect to pay for the parking, the service and the electricity. I am not suggesting that other car park users cross-subsidise those who have chosen to have electric vehicles. Electric vehicle users are already cross-subsidised to an extent because of their different treatment under the vehicle excise duty regime.
Philip Davies
I am relieved that my hon. Friend has not gone completely nanny state in his approach. However, his proposal would depend on sufficient demand for electric charging points in such locations. If there was insufficient demand, the drivers of non-electric cars would, in effect, be subsidising the very few drivers of electric cars at the charging points.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is getting into an interesting argument on which we could have an academic discourse. Obviously, to encourage an embryonic service, we might have to provide it and hope that people start using it. Many years ago, when I was the Minister with responsibility for roads, I was involved in promoting the use of lead-free fuel. It seems amazing, Mr Deputy Speaker that, within our living memory, we moved from full-leaded fuel to the unleaded version. To begin with, relatively few vehicles ran on unleaded petrol. If a pioneer bought a vehicle that used unleaded fuel and there was nowhere to fill it up, it would have been a deterrent to people taking up unleaded vehicles. In the same way, if we want to increase the uptake of electric vehicles, we need to increase the number of places where people who own them can recharge them, so that they do not just leave them with an empty battery in the middle of the highway.
Philip Davies
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but I cannot believe that, when he introduced unleaded fuel, he insisted that every local authority had an unleaded fuel pump outside every available car park. I presume he left it to the private sector to run the show. Why does he believe that we need the state to be involved so heavily in providing charging points?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I recognise that the unleaded debate was such a long time ago that Mr Davies may struggle to remember it, but Mr Chope definitely wants to talk about electric points, and not to get bogged down in leaded or unleaded fuel. I know he dealt with that as a Minister and that he wants to deal only with electric points now—he does not want to upset the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
Mr Chope
Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. As so often, you are spot on in reading the language not necessarily expressed between my hon. Friend and me.
In my hon. Friend’s most recent intervention, he asked why local authorities are being given this responsibility. The Bill does not leave it to the private sector to provide charging points for electric vehicles; it gives powers to London local authorities to provide and operate charging apparatus. In my submission, that is acceptable only if there is a requirement for them to provide that. What is the point of giving them a power without any certainty about whether they will exercise it? My hon. Friend paints a scenario in which the public sector can be kept out of this completely. Indeed, I could support that where there are no public sector London local authority-owned car parks. However, if London local authorities wish to take powers to establish charging points for electric vehicles, my point, and the point of these two amendments, is that they should provide them in all their car parks.
Philip Davies
I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will not mention unleaded fuel again. Coming on to the nitty gritty on electric charging points, as the Bill is currently written it may well still be that the local authority will not get involved and that it will be left to the private sector—there is no requirement. It is only if my hon. Friend’s amendment is accepted that local authorities will be forced to do this, rather than the private sector.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is making an argument against the whole of part 5. He is basically saying that if we are to have charging points for electric vehicles, it should be left to the market, and that the private sector will come into the market and fill any gaps. I find that to be a persuasive argument.
My counter-argument relates to the provisions in part 5. If London local authorities are to be given powers to set up charging points we should, at the same time, say that they shall set up charging points. Otherwise, we could have a situation where they pick and choose where they think it will be most advantageous for them to set up the charging points, and effectively undermine the potential private sector involvement to which my hon. Friend refers. One consequence of part 5 may well be that in London the private sector will be inhibited from coming forward to provide and operate charging apparatus, because local authorities will be competing unfairly by providing that apparatus in their best positioned off-street public car parks, rather than in all their car parks. That is the point I am trying to make: it should, effectively, be compulsory.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that the Bill has been progressing through this place for such a long time that the legislative framework against which it was originally drafted has changed substantially? Part 5 may not be necessary, because the Localism Act 2011 allows local authorities to carry out this work.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Perhaps we will hear from the Minister in due course what he thinks is the answer to that issue. The regime being established under part 5 would put London local authorities in a privileged position compared with ordinary private sector operators. Philosophically, my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley and I would say that that was wrong. The counterweight is that if the legislation puts local authorities in a privileged position, additional responsibilities should be placed on them in the public interest—namely, to ensure that charging points are available not just in occasional car parks, but in every public off-street car park run by the council.
Mr Nuttall
If that was the case, surely it would increase the risk of a burden being placed on the taxpayer.
Mr Chope
I accept that, which is why I am disappointed that relatively few spokespersons for London local authority taxpayers are present in the Chamber. There is a lot in this Bill that could ultimately result in additional costs for London local authority taxpayers, mainly through council tax. As somebody who represents a constituency outside London, all I can do is share my hon. Friend’s concern about that. Indeed, we are doing a public service in raising the issue, although it does not seem to have yet reached the ears of people across London, who are normally very concerned about whether they are getting value for money for their council tax.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend says that this is a matter only for London, but it is not, because if the strategy goes hopelessly wrong, London local authorities or the Mayor of London might at some point look to the Government to bail them out. That is why we all need to be aware of this issue on behalf of taxpayers in our constituencies.
Mr Nuttall
In view of the point my hon. Friend has just made, is he not as surprised as I am that the Government have not introduced a Bill to provide for the erection of charging points nationally, rather than just in London?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not mind my advice and help. We are discussing the London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill, and I do not want to get into a national debate. As much as Mr Nuttall is trying to tempt you, Mr Chope—he is very good at tempting Members away—I know that you do not want to be distracted from the amendments before us.
Mr Chope
Thank you for that ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker. Obviously it means that when the Minister responds, he should address his remarks to the issue of charging points for electric vehicles in London, without straying into whether there should be charging points for electric vehicles beyond London. I am glad that you have effectively given him that warning in advance of him making his contribution, and I am sorry if I was going to lead him down the wrong path.
Philip Davies
The Government have set out their position in “Driving the Future Today”, as published by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles, which has been given money to provide such points. My concern is that if my hon. Friend’s amendments are accepted, that could lead to the national budget for this issue being used up.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I know that you wanted to make a short intervention, Mr Davies, and I know that you may wish to speak later, in which case I would not want you to use your speech up now, but instead to recognise that we need to continue with the amendments before us, rather than causing further distractions.
Mr Chope
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Amendment 23 would introduce the words “on a discretionary basis” into clause 16, amending the provision that:
“A London authority may grant a person permission to provide or operate charging apparatus for electrically powered motor vehicles…on any highway for which they are responsible as highway authority.”
That discretion would be necessary as a consequence of amendments 21 and 22 being accepted. Amendments 24 and 25 propose leaving out references to authorised persons, which would result in the London authorities having to exercise the responsibility themselves, rather than through authorised people.
Philip Davies
Given the discussion that we have already had about the desirability of the private sector being involved, would not these amendments strike out the opportunity for such involvement by preventing a London authority from allowing the provisions to be operated on its behalf?
Mr Chope
Maybe my hon. Friend is right, but my submission is that if the London authority is going to provide charging points, it should do so itself, on its own land. The Bill does not deal with charging points on private land. It deals only with charging points in public off-street car parks that are in the control of the authority, and on any highway for which it is responsible as the highway authority. If someone is going to set up a charging point on a highway, the highway authority should be responsible for it, rather than the person who is setting it up. If anyone wants to set up private off-street charging points for electric vehicles, I would encourage them so to do. They would not need the permission of the local authority to do that. Indeed, they might be able to access the subsidies that were mentioned earlier. Clause 16 allows a London authority to give an “authorised person” permission to set up a charging point on the highway, for which that authority would not be directly responsible.
Philip Davies
Surely any person granted such permission would be acting on behalf of the local authority, which could revoke that permission any time it saw fit. My hon. Friend seems to be going down the road of enforced nationalisation.
Mr Chope
Well, if that is not sufficient to intimidate me into withdrawing my amendment, I do not know what is! I would certainly not wish to go down any route that could be interpreted, even mistakenly, as enforced nationalisation. I will reflect on my hon. Friend’s point. I look forward to hearing his speech, and I shall perhaps come back to that point when I have the privilege of winding up this short debate.
Amendments 26 and 27 propose leaving out subsections (6) and (7) of clause 16. The effect would be to deal with the issue of liability. One of the privileges that the Bill gives to London local authorities is to exempt them from the common law relating to nuisance on the highway or in public off-street car parks.
It says in subsection 7(b),
“in relation to permissions granted under subsection (2)”,
that nothing
“is to be taken as imposing on a London authority by whom a permission has been granted any liability for injury, damage or loss resulting from the presence on a highway or public off-street car park of the charging apparatus to which the permission relates”.
What is effectively happening under this provision is that the London local authorities are seeking to say, “Not me, Guv”. If anything goes wrong with the charging apparatus and it results in an accident or in somebody being injured, which would normally lead to a claim for damages against the local authority, that authority is going to be exempt from the consequent liability. I think that puts the local authorities in a privileged position, enabling them to have an unfair competitive advantage compared with other people who are involved in providing charging points for electric vehicles.
Amendment 27 emphasises the same point in respect of paragraphs (c) and (d) of subsection (7). Paragraph (c) states that nothing in the section
“is to be taken as imposing on a London authority any liability for injury, damage or loss resulting from the presence on a highway or public off-street car park of a connecting cable”.
If somebody puts a connecting cable across the highway or a public off-street car park, but it is not constructed in such a way as not to be an obstruction, resulting in somebody tripping over it and injuring themselves, one would expect that local authority to be liable for the consequences of that action. According to the drafting, however, the London local authority is seeking to absolve itself from liability for people who fall over connecting cables, on the highway or in public off-street car parks, which connect to charging points for electric vehicles. The subsequent paragraph specifies that a London local authority has “the right” to “indemnify” itself
“against any claim in respect of injury, damage or loss arising out of the grant of a permission granted under subsection (2).”
It seems to me that these provisions give to the London local authorities far too many privileges above the law. If they are keen to set up these charging points for electric vehicles, they should, in my submission, also accept the responsibility that goes with that, which is that they should be constructed in a responsible way and should not cause danger to members of the public which can result in injury, damage or loss.
Amendment 28 is designed to leave out subsection (8), which reads:
“For the purposes of determining, in any proceedings in a court of civil jurisdiction, who is liable for injury, damage or loss resulting from the presence on a highway or public off-street car park of a connecting cable at or near charging apparatus…it shall be presumed that the person in charge of the relevant vehicle at the relevant time had responsibility for and control of the cable.”
Why should that presumption be made? Why should it not be a matter of who has responsibility for and control of the cable? That should be the test, rather than making a presumption that the person in charge of the relevant vehicle has the responsibility for and control of the cable. It seems to me that this is another way of introducing a statutory exception that benefits local authorities and overrides the common law of the land.
Philip Davies
I am glad to observe that my hon. Friend is back on track with the amendments, because they are faultless. Does he not think it bizarre that a driver who has an accident caused by a cable while he is driving along should be treated as if he were in control of that cable, although he may not have been aware of its existence before the accident?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is entirely right. That brings us back to the question of whom we are trying to encourage to use electric vehicles, and hence to use electric vehicle charging points. If using a charging point can make someone liable at law for events for which that person would not have been responsible but for the provisions of this statute, that in itself will deter people from using electric vehicles. I know of no legislation that provides for someone who fills up his tank at a petrol station to be automatically liable, as the person in charge of the vehicle, irrespective of whether he or she is at fault. I assume that normally, whether the petrol station was owned by a private sector company or by a local authority, its owner would, could or should be responsible.
Important issues of principle underlie these provisions. The danger, as always, is that if they are passed without adverse comment, it will be possible for them to be replicated in other Bills. We have observed that iterative process for many years. Throughout the country, we have encountered more and more—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Let us not worry about other Bills. Let us deal with the Bill before us, and, in particular, with the amendments.
Mr Chope
I shall deal next with amendment 29, Mr Deputy Speaker. It proposes the removal of clause 16(9), which states that in subsection 8,
“’the relevant vehicle’ means the vehicle in respect of which the connecting cable was about to be, was being or had been used for charging”,
and that
“’ªthe relevant time’ means the time when the liability arose.”
That seems to me merely to compound the proposals in subsection 8.
We then arrive at what could be described as a bright dawn. Amendment 30 makes the following proposal:
“Clause 16, page 13, line 15 after ‘cable’, insert
‘or wire which is not provided by the authority’.”
I tabled that amendment because I considered it to be an essential safeguard, spelling out the status of the charging apparatus to which we have been referring, which had not been provided by the authority.
Bob Blackman
Let me say on behalf of the promoters, in order to save time, that they are happy to accept amendment 30. I trust that we shall now be able to move on to the rest of the amendments that my hon. Friend wishes to press.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) may have accepted this amendment, but I am not sure that I shall accept it as easily. May I therefore suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) does not move on quite so quickly, and instead outlines why this is necessary, because I do not see why?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think we have got the reasons, and I know Mr Chope wants to get on. I have not even had a chance to call other speakers yet. I would be delighted to hear the views of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I will therefore be grateful if you move on through the amendments as you were doing, Mr Chope.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will be able to make his own speech in due course, and when our friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), replies on behalf of the promoters, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley can intervene on him to ask why he thinks this amendment is so good. That might be the better way of proceeding, because the situation from my point of view is that I thought my amendment was a good idea and now it has been accepted by the promoters, which I think that is a doubly good idea.
Amendment 31 addresses the definition of connecting cable. It is defined in clause 16 as
“any cable or wire, whether provided by the authority or otherwise, used to connect the charging apparatus to a vehicle and that is not permanently attached to the charging apparatus.”
As a consequence of the other amendments, I do not think the definition is sufficient.
Philip Davies
If my hon. Friend’s earlier amendments ensure all of this has to be done by the London local authority alone, am I right in thinking there will not be any wires, connecting cables or anything else provided by people other than the local authority?
Mr Chope
That is absolutely right, but in drafting these amendments I had to anticipate the possibility that my earlier amendments would not be accepted by the promoters or the House—after all, it seems that there is even some difficulty in getting my hon. Friend to accept them. I therefore thought, to employ a lawyer’s phrase, that it was probably sensible to plead in the alternative, or move an amendment in the alternative. I agree that it would not be sensible to accept all the amendments en bloc because some of them are in the alternative. That would have to be sorted out if a lot of these amendments were carried or were accepted by the promoters.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you have arrived in the Chair just in time for us to get on to clause 17. It deals with notices to be given before the exercise of powers under section 16. I have tabled some amendments to this clause. Amendment 32 would leave out subsection (2), because that is consistent with the argument I was putting forward earlier that it would not be right to allow authorised persons to be involved in this process. This is therefore a consequential amendment, consequent upon being able to remove references to authorised persons from the Bill.
Philip Davies
I follow the logic of that, but it does not necessarily follow. It might be thought that the authorised person does not need first to publish a notice under this section. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to whether the publishing of the notice was relevant in his deliberations?
Mr Chope
Clause 17(1) states that
“a London authority shall not exercise any power…unless they have first published a notice under this section.”
[Interruption.] Okay, well that is what clause 17(1) says. Clause 17(2) says “unless the authorised person”—[Interruption.] Yes, but I am seeking to remove authorised persons from this entirely, whether or not they had published notices. That is why this is a consequential amendment, consequent upon the removal of any references to authorised persons. That is because they would not be able to operate this equipment, whether or not they had published any notices under clause 17. That is made clear by subsection (3), which states:
“A London authority or an authorised person, as the case may be, shall publish a notice”.
My amendment 33 seeks to remove the power for an authorised person to publish such a notice. Amendments 34, 35 and 36 make similar amendments, and it is not necessary to repeat the argument in support of them.
I shall now deal with the amendments relating to clause 18, which is entitled:
“Duties to consult or obtain consent of other authorities”.
It is invidious to try to evaluate the significance of one’s amendments, but amendment 37 is significant. Clause 18(1) states:
“A London authority shall not exercise any power conferred by section 16(1) unless they have consulted any authority other than themselves who are a local planning authority, as defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for the area in which they propose to exercise the power.”
Consulting a planning authority is a very different proposition from obtaining its permission, which is why amendment 37 would replace “consulted” with “obtained the consent of”.
When people are faced with the possibility of having an electric charging point provided by a local authority or a London authority on the highway outside their house, they need to be protected from it being sited in the wrong place or being a health hazard. The local residents look to the local planning authority, in the first place, to try to ensure that those safeguards are available, through the process of needing to obtain planning consent. That involves publishing a notice, giving notice of what is proposed and obtaining the consent of the authority. The Bill states that that would not need to be done and someone could put their charging point on the highway without having to get the permission of the local planning authority.
Philip Davies
I agree wholeheartedly with what my hon. Friend is saying; it would seem absurd that someone could consult the authority and have it reject the suggestion, yet they would still plough on regardless. Does he understand that this amendment, which I support, highlights the folly of his amendment 21, which sought to force London local authorities to provide these places everywhere? He is making a good point, but it flies in the face of his earlier amendment.
Mr Chope
Giving my hon. Friend the benefit of the doubt, my response to his intervention is that that is not necessarily so. This provision presupposes that the London authority, which might be Transport for London, would be providing the charging points and doing so against the wishes of the local planning authority in whose area it was going to put those charging points. That is what I am trying to get at: it is possible that there will be two different authorities. The London authority exercising its power under clause 16(1) is not necessarily the same as the local planning authority as defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Amendment 38 will leave out subsection (2), which talks about an “authorised person”. The same issue arises about consultation and, as I have already said, I do not think that the powers in the Bill should be extended to authorised people. The same point arises from amendment 39, which will leave out subsection (3).
Last but not least comes amendment 40. Clause 19 creates a new offence of unlawful use of a charging point—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley laughs, and I think that many people coming to the issue for the first time would laugh as well. The clause provides for a new offence—have we not enough offences on the statute book already—and states:
“A person shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale if he uses charging apparatus in contravention of a sign displayed on the apparatus which indicates that…the apparatus is not to be used for any purpose other than charging a vehicle; and…it is an offence to so use the apparatus…A person is not guilty of an offence under subsection (1) if…he had the permission of the person who operated the charging apparatus at the time to use the charging apparatus for the purpose in question”—
although it was a non-authorised purpose—
“he had reasonable cause to believe he had such permission; or…at the time there was on the charging apparatus an indication given by the person who operated the charging apparatus that it could be used for the purpose for which it was used.”
Effectively, the clause creates a new offence of stealing electricity.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend, is the sponsor of the Bill, is nodding. That would be fine if there was not already provision in law to deal with the stealing of electricity, and that is why the provision is completely redundant.
We are creating a separate regime of stealing electricity from a charging point for charging electric vehicles rather than relying on the general statute law on electricity theft. I do not know whether the House is familiar with this, but electricity theft is a big issue. At the beginning of July the energy regulator, Ofgem, said that it wanted more to be done to combat electricity theft. I know that this is not the subject of the Bill, but a third of electricity theft in this country is to power cannabis farms. Nothing is being done about that—it is apparently being ignored—but meanwhile we are trying to bring in draconian measures to deal with people who, in a fit of over-enthusiasm, might abstract some electricity from a charging point.
Surely we should keep the law simple: whether the electricity is from a charging point, from a company or from someone’s own meter through changing the wires or using a device, we should rely on the same law—that is, the Theft Act 1968. The Theft Act provides that it is an offence to steal electricity and there are guidelines about the reasonable penalty to be imposed on people who steal electricity. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East why the promoters of the Bill think that existing laws on electricity theft are inadequate to deal with electricity that is taken from a charging point. Some 25,000 people—quite a lot of people—steal electricity each year, and such theft costs each electricity customer the equivalent of £7 a year.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
My hon. Friend raises an important point, but the proposal addresses someone who might be not stealing electricity, but using it unlawfully. In such circumstances, they would have paid for it.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend might well be on to a good point, but we will find out when we hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East on behalf of the Bill’s promoters.
Section 13 of the Theft Act makes abstracting electricity an offence. It is triable in either the magistrates court or the Crown court, and there are Sentencing Council guidelines on the appropriate punishment. Case law suggests that, for a person who installs a device that causes the electricity meter in their home to give a false reading, a sentence of one month’s immediate imprisonment might be appropriate. I tabled amendment 40 because I was worried that the clause would be another example of putting a further small offence on the statute book and complicating the criminal law, instead of relying on basic law, which is that someone who steals electricity—who takes it dishonestly and without authority—is committing an offence under section 13 of the 1968 Act.
Philip Davies
I agree with my hon. Friend, but is not clause 19 also deficient by focusing in subsection (2) on the fact that someone would be not guilty if
“he had the permission of the person who operated the charging apparatus”?
Surely we should be focusing on the person who was paying for the charging apparatus, who might not be the same person as the operator.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am grateful to him for citing another reason why the clause is defective. He is making an additional argument in support of amendment 40, given that it would remove clause 19 completely.
I anticipate that my hon. Friend will make a speech, so I shall throw out the invitation that I made in connection with the previous group of amendments. It would not be reasonable to press more than one of the amendments in this group to a Division, so it is important that we listen to hon. Members’ arguments so that we can determine which amendment they think should be put before the House. I shall be interested to hear in due course the views of my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and anybody else, including perhaps the sponsor of the Bill. When he responds to my remarks in relation to the amendments, we will be able to judge which one he thinks is the strongest and the one in respect of which he has the greatest difficulty in putting forward a cogent response.
The issue of charging points for electric vehicles is one that we need to take seriously. The provisions of the Bill could be a precedent that is established across the country. It has taken a long time for the Bill to reach this stage. Bearing in mind that it is Government policy to facilitate the production and use of electric vehicles and to try to make it practical for people who have such vehicles to travel around not just the conurbation but the country, I hope we will hear from the Government on the subject and also from the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), who I welcome to the debate to speak on behalf of the Opposition. Her predecessor, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), attended the previous debate in his capacity as a Front-Bench spokesman. I was very sorry that he chose to resign his position because he had been a great servant of the House and had contributed well to debates such as this. All I can say to the hon. Lady in anticipating her contribution to the debate is that she has a hard act to follow, but I am sure she will be up to the task.
These issues are important and are worthy of the scrutiny of the House. In due course, if we get the right charging regime for electric vehicles, it may well be that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, start using an electric vehicle in London if you do not already do so, as might I. If we do not have unfair subsidies and an unfair regime for local authorities, organisations such as this Parliament of ours may be able to set up charging points for electric vehicles. Who knows, this could be a very significant debate for the future of green energy in our country.
I hope that after we have heard the debate we will be able to decide whether amendment 21 or some other amendment is the one on which we wish to divide.
Philip Davies
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I was a little worried when he began. I thought he had been got at by the Whips Office and had been turned into a more left-wing version, but as he got through his speech I realised that the authentic voice of Christchurch was once again being heard.
I congratulate my hon. Friend, who does such a great service on private Bills, which the promoters understandably would like to be nodded through in the minimum time. I echo his praise for our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is not somebody who wants to see legislation nodded through, but engages in the debate and the process. We should commend him for that. Without my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, some rather nasty parts of private Bills would go through without anybody raising an eyebrow. Even if his amendments do not always find favour, it is essential that they are debated and considered, and that people can see their merits or otherwise. I hope that plays its part in making the legislation that goes through this House better than it would otherwise be. So I am grateful to him for the amendments that he tabled.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch set me a challenge to give him some guidance as to which amendment I thought was the one that he should press, so I shall try to give—
Mr Chope
I am not suggesting what my hon. Friend has just said. I would support him in an aspiration that the number of public off-street car parks under the management and control of local authorities should be significantly reduced by means of being sold by those authorities. My amendment is saying that if car parks are managed and controlled by the local authority, that authority shall set up charging points.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend puts a slightly different complexion on matters, if I understand him correctly; if I have not, he must pull me up. If he is suggesting that the onerous requirement on local authority car parks is to encourage authorities to sell off the car parks so that they do not have to fulfil that requirement, I do at last see what he is driving at. I start to see the merits of his plan. I was not aware of what his real agenda was; it is a “privatisation of car parks” amendment, rather than one about the privatisation of charging apparatus. I will have to rethink my views.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend, the sponsor of the Bill, is getting ahead of me. He is clearly a much faster reader than I am. He is ahead of the game and is absolutely right that amendments 35 and 36 are also relevant.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is on to a good thing with amendment 37. It seems ridiculous that the only duty in clause 18(1) is to consult. The title of the clause is: “Duties to consult or obtain consent”. Somebody taking a fleeting look at the Bill would think that obtaining consent was an important part of it, but my hon. Friend is right that subsection (1) mentions only consultation, which is not good enough. Consent must be obtained; otherwise it is a potential affront to local democracy. What on earth is the point of consulting if no regard is to be given to the views of the consultation? That would be a pointless exercise. If an authority has decided that it is going ahead with something and then simply goes through the motions, that would be a waste of time.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is making a good point about the contrast in clause 18 whereby the local planning authority has to be consulted but Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd and London Underground Ltd have to give their consent, so they are being given a privileged, elevated position compared with the local planning authority, to which local residents look for protection against unwanted developments.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One could argue that it should be the other way around: companies such as Network Rail are not accountable to the public in the same way as the planning authority or as responsive to the public mood. Surely we should expect the consent of the relevant local authority to be obtained.
The point is—I am sure we all have examples of this in our constituencies—that the public have completely lost faith in consultations, and this Bill reinforces that. People are conned into thinking that statutory consultations are meaningful and that they matter and will make a difference, only to find that their views are completely ignored and overridden. People lose faith in the whole process and end up not engaging in anything, because they think it is a waste of time.
I am afraid that this clause reinforces something that does a great disservice to our democracy: sham consultations which people go through simply because there is a statutory requirement to do so. Nobody takes notice of them, because the decision has already been made and they are a minor inconvenience. People say, “We’ve got to waste a bit of time on this consultation, go through the motions and look as if we’re doing something,” knowing full well that not a blind bit of notice will be taken of what anybody says. The only thing worse than not consulting people is to consult them and take no notice of them. I say to the sponsor of the Bill that if there is no requirement to take any notice of the consultation, do not have a consultation in the first place. The local authorities should be open and honest about the fact that they do not care what local residents think and plough on with what they are doing, without going through what we all know is an absolute sham which does a great disservice to public life and public bodies.
Bob Blackman
In some car parks, a local authority might wish to control the process. I do not envisage cables being littered all along the public highway, but local authorities could provide cables in car parks, particularly when there is someone present to ensure that the process is operated properly. It is important to be clear about whose responsibility this would be. Indeed, there could be an issue in civil court proceedings in that regard. Amendment 31 would remove the definition of a connecting cable, which could be dangerous. The term “connecting cable” is clearly defined in the Bill and the amendment is not helpful. I urge my hon. Friend not to press it.
Amendment 37 relates to the way in which permission is given and the consultation that should take place. We are talking about potentially 25,000 of these charging points, to which my hon. Friend has alluded, right across London—and possibly more. The amendment would require planning permission to be given for each of those charging points, at a time when I would suggest that the Government are trying to move away from the whole process of granting planning permission. We are talking about two aspects: one is the public highway; the other is council-operated car parks. Clearly, the only people who would have any concerns about council-operated car parks would be the council and the potential users of the car park. The users will not be consulted—they may use the car park, but would not have any rights over what happens in it—so only the planning authority would be consulted. Under those circumstances, the requirement to obtain planning permission seems like overkill.
Bob Blackman
Having served as a councillor on a local authority for 24 years before coming to this place, I can confirm what the position would be, and it would mean the local authority having to give planning permission for every single one of these charging points. A planning application would have to be taken out—at a cost, by the way, to the local council tax payer—and those considering the planning applications would then have to advertise locally and send to every local resident in the immediate area where the charging point was to be sited an invitation to lodge an objection. I suggest that that whole process would be extremely bureaucratic and unnecessary.
In considering implementing the charging points, any local authority worth its salt would consult individual residents as appropriate and advise them through publications or notifications what is going to take place. There would then need to be a process for finding a reasonable mix in respect of where the charging points would be. That would be preferable to requiring full-blown planning permission, which I think would be draconian, would slow the process down considerably and would lead to extremely high costs for the individuals putting in the charging points—costs that are completely unnecessary.
Mr Chope
I take my hon. Friend’s point that we do not want to have thousands of planning applications, but is there not a middle way? Could this not be done, for example, through permitted development rights? Putting a charging apparatus on the street could be granted permitted development unless there were objections from neighbours—a form of permitted development similar to what the Government have recently brought in for extensions to domestic houses.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion. The key here is consulting the planning authorities on their approach to a particular area, but let me come back to the effect of the amendment. It would effectively require the local authority to go through the wholesale planning permission process. On that basis, I urge my hon. Friend not to press the amendment.
Mr Chope
Unfortunately, there is no reference to vandalism in the clause, which refers specifically to someone who
“uses charging apparatus in contravention of a sign”.
Someone who vandalises, abuses or interferes with such apparatus is not using it. My hon. Friend mentioned the problem of theft from parking meters. I imagine that that is dealt with not by a specific offence of stealing from a parking meter, but by the offence of theft. Surely exactly the same principle could apply to the theft of electricity, which is already an offence on the statute book.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for clarifying his purpose, but I think we should make it clear that misusing a charging point, or using it without appropriate authority, is an offence, and that a penalty will be imposed if someone is convicted of such an offence. That is what the promoters want, and I strongly support it.
I urge my hon. Friend not to press his amendment to a vote. It is clear that the offence of electricity theft would not necessarily cover all aspects of unauthorised use of a charging point. Clause 19 makes that a specific offence, and makes it clear both to members of the public and to the courts what the penalties would be. I think that removing it would constitute a very dangerous precedent, because local authorities would have to use some other part of the law to enforce the rules. Given that there is to be a new basis for the provision and charging of private vehicles, we need sensible measures to deal with unauthorised use of the new devices.
Let me say on behalf of the promoters that we are happy to accept amendment 30. I urge my hon. Friend not to press the remaining amendments, but if he chooses to do so, we will oppose them.
Mr Chope
This is a notable debate for a number of reasons, but one is that we have not heard from either the Minister or the official Opposition spokesman, yet we understand that the development of a network of charging points for electric vehicles is a key policy of both the Government and the Opposition. The way of implementing such a policy in London is what we have been discussing for the past couple of hours. I find it extraordinary, if not disturbing, that we have not heard from the Minister in response to the genuine questions raised during the debate.
It is invidious to make contrasts but I am going to do so. The way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has dealt with the debate is first class. The whole purpose of scrutiny in the House is for questions to be asked and answers to be given, and for that to be done in a civilised way. It may well be that people have misunderstood the meaning of the Bill. They may have made nonsense of an amendment, but the only way of testing that process is through a civilized exchange across the Floor of the House.
My hon. Friend has shown during today’s proceedings and in previous discussion of the Bill that if the Government are interested in bringing forward Ministers who are good at responding to debates, taking seriously the process of scrutiny and answering the questions, my hon. Friend is a model Minister in waiting. He has shown that he grasps the whole purpose of our Parliament, which is to scrutinise the Executive, and the purpose of the Executive is to respond to that scrutiny.
Having come in for a bit of stick tonight in relation to some of the amendments in the group, I remind the House that it is a long-standing convention that if one tables an amendment and it encounters quite a lot of opposition, one then downgrades one’s amendment by saying, “Well, after all, it is only a probing amendment.” By force of argument, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, and from my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Bury North, I have been forced to downgrade my lead amendment to a probing amendment. However, it has been very effective in probing and getting out of the promoters what they have in mind and why that amendment is ill-conceived, like many of the others that go with it. Had the Minister responded, I might well have been pushed back into a more aggressive mode and become a little more stubborn.
Mr Nuttall
I appreciate that my hon. Friend is completing his summary. Is he as surprised as I am that, notwithstanding the courteous and careful way in which the amendments have been considered, only one has been accepted?
Mr Chope
Having one amendment accepted is more than was achieved during the earlier business—today, yesterday and the day before yesterday, with all the might of the Opposition forces against the Government. I am grateful for small mercies. In fact, two amendments will have been accepted this evening, and that is pretty good. As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East should be made a Minister; perhaps I might have a role in the official Opposition. We might be able to make more progress.
I intend to withdraw amendment 21, move amendment 30 formally so that it can be accepted by the House and test the opinion of the House on amendment 40. It would be a pity if those who have listened so attentively to this debate were deprived of the opportunity of participating in a vote before we reach the appointed time.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 30—(Mr Chope.)
Clause 19
Offence of unlawful use of charging point
Amendment proposed: 40—(Mr Chope.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.