Points of Order
Debate between Henry Smith and Baroness Primarolo
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
The hon. Member becomes more ingenious by the day at ensuring that his points are made in the Chamber, and I congratulate him on that. He knows that that is not a point of order, but he also knows—even though he is disappointed—that he has got his comments on the record, for which I am sure the entire House is grateful.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 13 October I wrote a letter on behalf of a local business to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. However, despite numerous follow-up requests by my office, I received a response only the other day, saying that the matter was being transferred to another Department. What pressure can be brought to bear on Departments to address the inordinate length of time that it takes to respond to hon. Members?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I must admit that I share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment at the delay in replying to him. The Leader of the House is in his place, and I am sure he will immediately take up the matter on behalf of the hon. Gentleman.
Bill Presented
Private Pensions (Charges, Disclosure and Accountability) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Gareth Thomas presented a Bill to require firms offering regulated private pensions services to exercise a fiduciary duty of care to consumers and other users of financial services, to exercise due diligence when making decisions on behalf of consumers, to provide clear information to consumers on all charges and costs paid by the consumer or the pension fund on the consumer’s behalf and to disclose any conflict of interest and potential conflict of interest including commercial relationships that might result in or be perceived to result in financial detriment to consumers or undermine the integrity of financial markets; to make provision for disclosure by postcode of the location of investors in private pension funds; to make provision for an Annual General Meeting for each private pension fund; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 April, and to be printed (Bill 313).
NHS Risk Register
Debate between Henry Smith and Baroness Primarolo(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to take part in the debate. As I have said in the House before, every right hon. and hon. Member feels passionately about the NHS. We have legitimate disagreements about the best way forward for the national health service, but we all know that it is something that each and every one of our constituents, almost without exception, and each and every member of our families, cares about. We have all relied on our health service at one time or another. It is therefore understandable that debates about the future direction of the NHS should arouse the sort of passion articulated earlier today.
It is important in the debate to reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, which has been repeated by other hon. Members—that as a result of the Health and Social Care Bill, the national health service will remain free, regardless of the ability to pay, and universally available to all citizens of this country. When we discuss improvements to the health service, it is outcomes that we need to focus on.
I believe that the biggest risk to the NHS—which, as the shadow Secretary of State has said, is one of this country’s most respected institutions—is allowing it to continue with inertia and carry on as it has done in the past. At best that is a sentimental and quaint way of looking at the future of our health service. At worst it is dishonest and dangerous for the future health care of each and every one of our constituents.
Certainly, the experience in my constituency shows that the health service desperately needs change, and that without it we risk the quality of care. In 2001 maternity services were removed from Crawley hospital, and in 2005 we lost our accident and emergency department. The risks that have been experienced since those events have increased immeasurably, but since we have started to move towards the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill we have seen considerable improvements. Waiting times have reduced for my constituents. Local GPs and clinicians very much support the provisions of the Bill and have already joined together in a GP commissioning consortium. The elected local authorities, which are a welcome addition to local health debates, are engaged, which is great for improving future health care provision and ensuring the involvement not only of patients and clinicians but of elected councillors. Only last week I was delighted to open a new digital mammography unit at Crawley hospital and a new day unit being expanded there, so already there are improvements.
In my concluding remarks I want to talk about the inconsistency we have heard from the Labour party on the release of the risk register. As we have heard, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the former Health Secretary, and his predecessor in that job, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), rejected making the risk register available on a total of three occasions. The argument that things are now different is just nonsense; the only thing that is different is that Labour are now in opposition. They are using precious time in this place to call for the release of a risk register that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) has said, is now over a year old and no longer relevant, because we have moved on with—
Voting by Prisoners
Debate between Henry Smith and Baroness Primarolo(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Consumer Protection (Private Car Parks)
Debate between Henry Smith and Baroness Primarolo(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision relating to the licensing of charging, publicly-available, privately-owned car parks; to require local authorities to introduce a licensing system for such car parks; to enable local authorities to recover the costs of such a licensing scheme from car park operators; and for connected purposes.
Hon. Members are sent to this place for essentially two reasons: to represent the interests of our constituents and to ensure the passage of good legislation that will enhance and protect the well-being of citizens. I believe that the proposed Bill would do both.
I remind the House that there are two kinds of car park provider in this country. First, there are local authority-controlled car parks, which are covered extensively by legislation. Secondly, there are private car parks, which are covered to a much lesser extent by legislation. I will not say that all private car parks are operated irresponsibly. The vast majority of providers treat their consumers with the respect that they deserve. However, there are all too many rogue car park operators who use unscrupulous practices, not only in my constituency but in the constituencies of right hon. and hon. Members up and down the country. The Bill would address that problem. Concerns have been raised not only by right hon. and hon. Members, but by the Consumers Association and organisations such as the Automobile Association.
What is the problem? Often, consumers who have used a publicly available private car park receive in the post several days later a threatening demand from the provider for a so-called penalty payment, alleging that the consumer has not purchased the correct ticket. Even when the consumer produces evidence that they bought, for example, a pay and display ticket, the private operator says that it was not displayed properly. That contrasts with the way in which local authorities run their car parks, where, if somebody can show proof of purchase of a ticket, their fine is cancelled.
The second area of concern is the way in which some unscrupulous operators, who make up the minority of private car park operators, demand payments for the most minor and accidental infractions, such as a wheel that is just touching the dividing white line between spaces. In one case that I came across, somebody received a demand for payment because they got stuck in a queue of traffic as they were trying to leave the car park and were timed out. Again, we may contrast that with how council-run car parks operate. There is an appeals system, and reasonable appeals often succeed. Indeed, appeals succeed in almost two thirds of cases.
The third, and perhaps most disturbing and insidious, aspect of unscrupulous private car park providers is the sheer scale of the “fine” that they seek to levy against the consumer. Often, there is a threatening letter with a demand for £70, which is hiked up to £100 within a fortnight and then further still as time goes by. Again, we may compare that with local authority-controlled car parks, where the fine is typically £50, reduced to £25 if paid within 28 days. We can see that there is quite a difference.
The threatening and aggressive letters sent to many consumers are causing a great deal of concern, particularly among the most vulnerable and elderly constituents of right hon. and hon. Members. Many people simply feel intimidated into paying the apparent fine, which of course is not a fine in any criminal sense, because they just want the problem to go away. Even people who would not be classed as vulnerable have come to me and other Members deeply concerned about threats to destroy their credit rating, send in the bailiffs or seek county court judgments. That means that many people simply pay the demand, which is how unscrupulous private car park firms make an awful lot of money in an unfair way.
The situation is starting to have a detrimental effect on many town centre businesses. I have received plenty of evidence from legitimate businesses in town centres, which have come to me to say that where rogue private car parks operate, they damage business. People say that they are simply not prepared to go into the town centre to shop or for entertainment purposes, because they fear that they will have an arbitrary penalty notice issued against them by a car park provider.
The question is, what is the solution to the problem? It is certainly not in my instincts immediately to reach for regulation or for the rulebook. I certainly would not advocate establishing some sort of national agency or quango, because the Government are quite rightly seeking to reduce the number of quangos despite the best efforts of another place. I am certainly—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but private conversations are getting much too loud in the Chamber. If people want to have private conversations, I suggest that they go outside.
Henry Smith
I am very grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am certainly not proposing that local authorities should take over the patrolling of private car parks that are available to the public, or that the resources of the police should be used for that purpose. What I propose in the Bill is that local authorities with a licensing function should have the ability to license the operation of publicly available private car parks, in the same way that local licensing committees make decisions about the licensing of publicans for the sale of alcohol or cab drivers for the running of taxis. In a similar way, we could have local democratic control with a local focus, to ensure that there is better practice by the minority of unscrupulous car park operators. My proposal would also carry no cost to the council tax payer or the taxpayer in general. Simply, the system would be paid for by a modest application fee paid by private car park operators to the licensing authority when applying for a licence.
Coming before the House shortly in the freedom Bill will be proposals to restrict the use of wheel-clamping. I very much welcome that, but I fear that one unintended consequence will be that unscrupulous wheel-clampers will simply switch to issuing demands for payments from people, in the same way that some private car parks do. I believe that the Bill could be a useful way of closing that loophole.
There is provision in legislation already for local authorities to operate with private car parks. However, that requires the compliance of the private car park operator and the local authority, and of course, an unscrupulous provider is unlikely to agree to work with the local authority. Self-regulation could be a solution, but so far, the British Parking Association has not introduced an appeals process. It has a very small pilot scheme, but that has not been effective yet. It is therefore my pleasure to propose this motion.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Henry Smith, Mr Mark Williams, Anne Marie Morris, Gareth Johnson and George Eustice present the Bill.
Henry Smith accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 February 2011, and to be printed (Bill 114).