Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Henry Smith Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Faisal Rashid]

I totally agree. It can be difficult for the general public to understand these machines; they are set up to be confusing and then people get trapped. We are passing a Bill that will oblige the Government to introduce a new statutory code of practice to spell out what behaviours can be reasonably expected from private car parking operators.

As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, who is in charge of this Bill, highlighted on Second Reading, there are almost 19 million journeys a day that end at a parking space. This is truly a Bill that will affect almost every person in this country in some way; it is an issue that hugely affects my constituents in Warrington South, as it affects the constituents of many other Members here. I have been contacted by a number of people who have told me of issues they have faced with parking companies. In most of these cases, my constituents are being penalised for breaking an obscure term of the car park, or they are being falsely accused of not purchasing a parking ticket.

One constituent told me that she had purchased a ticket but made a genuine mistake and failed to enter her vehicle registration number correctly. As a result, my constituent was sent a number of letters threatening court action if she did not pay a substantial fine. Despite the innocence of her mistake, the letters scared my constituent into offering up the money.

Such threatening and exploitative behaviour is totally unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue, and this is far from a one-off incident. I have been contacted by several constituents who made similar mistakes, often entering a single digit or character of their vehicle registration incorrectly, and have then been faced with fines and threatening letters.That is wholly unacceptable, especially as these mistakes are often made because of parking companies’ deliberately misleading signage and complicated machines.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) on introducing this timely Bill.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about parking companies that almost set motorists up to fail to be able to meet their terms, but it is not just the small operators who do this. It is alleged that NCP—National Car Parks—in the centre of Crawley has been charging motorists for illegal parking when it does not even have planning permission for the CCTV to monitor those cars. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the large companies must also comply with best practice?

[Faisal Rashid]

I totally agree: all operators, whether large, medium-sized or small, should be part of this code of practice.

Some of my constituents are being targeted with letters demanding money and threatening court action. Indeed, some people have contacted me to tell me that the situation has become so bad that motorists are being discouraged from visiting some of the town centres for fear of being targeted by rogue parking companies. This is a deeply sorry state of affairs; it is bad for my constituents and bad for our local economy, especially in the run-up to the festive season. High streets and town centres are already struggling. Rather than coming into town to spend money on the high street, people are choosing to stay at home and shop online.

The regulation of private parking companies that this Bill proposes is long overdue, and I am pleased that it has secured cross-party support. If this Bill is passed today, it will be welcomed not only across this House, but across the country. It is good to see that in a time of much division in this place there are still opportunities for colleagues to put aside their differences and work together to improve the lives of their constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Greg Knight]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

We have had a good-natured and constructive debate throughout our proceedings, and I wish to thank everyone who has taken part. In particular, but not exclusively, I would thank the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), and his predecessor, who first indicated to me that the Government were willing to support this measure. I also wish to thank Sarah McLean and Phillip Dunkley, her predecessor, who managed the Bill in the Department and have been very helpful to me. There are many other people I wish to thank: Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation; my parliamentary colleagues who served on the Committee; members of the advisory group, which I have also attended and played a part in, who have discussed these matters; and, last, but certainly not least, the official Opposition for their support for this measure, the Scottish National party and my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—and he is my hon. Friend—who pledged his support, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who is also my hon. Friend and is a sponsor of the Bill. I am also grateful to the many people throughout the country who have contacted me with stories of how they have been unfairly treated by parking operators under the current voluntary regime.

As I have said, parking is an indispensable part of motoring, as if someone undertakes a journey in a vehicle, they will need to park it. According to the DVLA, there are 38 million vehicles on our roads, approximately 19 million of which will be driven each day and will then undertake at least one parking transaction. The number of penalty notices issued every year from private car parks continues rise, so it is essential that the Bill makes further progress. It is essential that those who park on private land are treated fairly and uniformly.

Motorists should have certainty that when they enter a car park, they are entering into a contract that is reasonable and transparent, and that involves a consistent process. That is not just my view: in 2015, some 78% of respondents to the Department’s discussion paper on private sector off-street parking stated that there were significant problems with how the sector conducts its business. Poor signage, unreasonable terms, exorbitant so-called fines, aggressive demands for payment and opaque appeals processes need properly to be outlawed.

Some private parking operators still deploy tactics that are clearly unacceptable. I have previously referred to an appalling case involving a pensioner called Angela, whose car was ticketed for £70 for exceeding the time permitted in the car park. Angela is 5 feet tall and although she had not initially noticed the parking sign, when she came back to her car she looked for it. It was mounted so high up on a pole that she could not read what it said. That is clearly unacceptable.

Another motorist, Mr O’Keefe, whose case I have also mentioned before, was driving on a private industrial estate, searching for a particular business that he was having difficulty finding. He stopped in an empty lay-by for around 15 seconds to reset his satellite navigation system and was filmed by a passing security van equipped with a video camera. One week later, he received a penalty invoice for £100 for stopping in breach of a sign that was situated not in the lay-by itself, but some distance further along the road. He realised that he had passed it at 30 mph. The parking company accepts that he was parked for only around 15 seconds, but when he used its appeals procedure, he still received threatening letters.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) mentioned one of many cases in which usually pensioners, although not always—some of the cases that have come to my attention have involved pensioners—type one digit of their registration number into the machine incorrectly and the machine does not allow for any correction of the details already entered. The fee is nevertheless paid, but a ticket is issued. So, for many people, parking on private land can be a traumatic and expensive business.

One of the reasons why we need a mandatory code now is that technology is being used to provide evidence. The growing misuse of automatic number plate recognition cameras is a particular worry to me. Cameras ostensibly enable private parking companies to keep a record of exactly how long a motorist has remained in a car park and provide photographic evidence if they exceed the time they have paid for. They say that the camera never lies, but things are not always as they seem.

In one car park at a fast food restaurant in Nottinghamshire that is policed by CCTV, drivers are told they must not enter the car park when the restaurant is closed. However, the signage telling them that is located inside the carpark itself, along with the details of the opening times of the restaurant, making it impossible for a motorist to know before they enter the car park whether they will receive a private parking notice.

At another private car park at a fast food outlet in Enfield, a driver was recently issued with a parking charge notice for overstaying. In this case, the motorist visited the restaurant twice in one day. The ANPR cameras recorded her leaving the car park on the first visit and returning for the second. By using the photos the wrong way around, the car park operators tried to charge her a penalty for a period when she was not even in the car park.

[Henry Smith]

My right hon. Friend is continuing to make a powerful argument. One of my constituents recently parked at a McDonald’s so that he could go in and complain that his drive-thru order was incorrect, and he received a penalty notice. It is not only the small rogue operators that abuse the system; some large companies are also sailing extremely close to the wind.

[Sir Greg Knight]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. These examples are all, clearly, very distressing for the motorist concerned, as are the language and the threats that are often used—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk). It is, however, important to remember that these companies have no legal power to fine motorists. That is something only the police, local councils and those enforcing railway byelaws can do. As a result, some private parking companies deliberately make their parking charges look very similar to official penalty charge notices. When the police or the local authority issue a fine, it will often be labelled as a “PCN”—a penalty charge notice—and may come in an official yellow cellophane wrapper. Some private companies are now using similar packaging and are even labelling their notices with the word, “PCN”, but this time it stands for parking charge notice. Often the term enforcement is used, but these companies do not have any enforcement powers.