Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Huw Merriman Excerpts

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

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) on finally bringing this madness, quite frankly, to an end with this Bill.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have talked about their constituents’ experiences of receiving unfair parking enforcement notices. I declare an interest because I have experienced the exact same situation. I drove into an underground hotel car park, got my bag out and went into the hotel. A member of the hotel’s staff then told me how much the parking charge was—it was more expensive than the hotel room—but that there was a really good local authority car park around the corner. I took that advice. I got back in my car, drove out and parked in the local authority car park without any problem. However, I received a fine from a parking operator because I had driven in and driven out of the hotel car park five minutes later. I won my appeal, but the hotel company said that it would discipline its member of staff for advising me to park elsewhere. Perhaps that is a private Member’s Bill for another day.

On the border of my constituency, there is a local authority car park. Bizarrely, part of the land is privately owned. People park there because they think they can park for free, just as they can for the local authority part. There is no signage on the part that is privately owned and people do get charged. It is an absolute sting.

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point. That is why it is essential that the code of practice has a transaction period that is free. In other words, it would give motorists thinking time between entering a car park and deciding whether or not to stay. In some parts of the country, car parks are situated in conservation areas where, for planning reasons, signage is inside. We need to give motorists time to go in and think, so they can say, “No, this is not for me” and leave without facing a penalty.

[Huw Merriman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are talking about contract law. If people pick up an item in Boots priced £5 but at the till they are charged £10, many people think they can actually get the item for £5. In fact, under the offer and acceptance of contract law, the contract is formed only at the time of execution. Yet when one goes into a car park, one can be charged before executing the transaction. That has to be a breach of contract law.

On the charging mechanism, there is no proper definition for what is a reasonable and proportionate charge. That is of particular interest, because my former chambers sought a legal opinion from the Royal Automobile Club. The feeling was that the legal definition of reasonable and proportionate would be the cost of administering the charge. What was unusual was that the Supreme Court was asked to decide and found that £85 was reasonable and proportionate. The QC, however, felt that it was several times higher.

Perhaps the Minister could commit to guidance on what the charge should be. If that were to follow local authority charging, which outside London would be £60, I would perhaps stray into another area and say that I do not believe £60 is reasonable and proportionate. Local authorities will say that that is the cost because they do not make any profits, but I believe that they do. I believe that local authorities, time and again, use the money they raise from parking to pay for other areas of their spending. They are not supposed to do that. Barnet Borough Council, which was taken to court and lost, freely admitted that it was levying excessive charges to raise money for other services. No other local authority will ever admit that. There is a permitted amount they can spend from parking revenues on measures that enhance the environment. However, that is so wide and woolly that local authorities can effectively charge in any way they want.

[James Cartlidge]

Has my hon. Friend considered the position of rail companies? Under the Greater Anglia franchise, the rail company owns the car parks. The increase in its charges—I refer not to the fines, but to the cost of parking—is very substantial each year. They are unregulated, and the company has a monopoly. It seems to me that we should at least be considering those who probably have no choice but to pay the cost of parking—not just the fines.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. His link to railways reminds me of another charge that I managed to land myself with—I have an unfortunate habit of doing that. In fact, I recently chaired an event with Gyles Brandreth at which a local authority won an award for its great parking policies, so I threw all my offences in—not in the hope that they would be rescinded. Season tickets are another issue for many. Someone buys a season ticket—so a company that has the machines knows that they have bought the season ticket—but if that person is unfortunate and the ticket falls down and is not on display when they close the car door, they will be charged because the ticket was not displayed, despite the fact that they have already purchased it. Again, there is the principle that someone cannot pay twice for the same transaction, but it is not being properly enforced. If my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire comes up with a private Member’s Bill again, there would still be much more to do. We are getting there on the private side of things, but I am afraid that our constituents do not necessarily see the differentiation. Many local authority practices are not working, too.

I will leave time for others to speak, but I could not stand up and talk about parking without mentioning my own parochial issues. There are only 12 local authorities left in the United Kingdom that still require the police to deal with parking matters on their high streets. I have two of those local authorities in my constituency. We have talked about police funding issues and that the police perhaps do not have the resources that they need to do everything, and rightly we have added another thing to their priorities this morning. The police in my constituency have turned around and said, “We are not going to carry on doing this.” Effectively, if someone overstays in a two-hour parking bay, it is a criminal offence and the police are required to take action. All the money raised goes straight to the Home Office, so there is no local incentive, and the police take the view that they should be doing other things, and I absolutely support them. The local authorities, however, do not want to take this on, so in my constituency there is a parking free-for-all on our high streets. It is so bad that I got Guide Dogs to come down and I walked around, first, blindfolded while being led, then with a cane, and then with a dog. It is absolute chaos for people; motorists are parking on dropped kerbs and on kerbs. Those are criminal offences, of course, but the police are not doing anything at all, not even in areas where local authorities have traffic wardens.

I mention this point even though I know that it will not be this Minister’s responsibility—it will be more for the Department for Transport. The Government have had very successful policies on our environmental causes—small measures that go down incredibly well with the public—but I feel that we are not doing the same with transport. People are absolutely sick and tired of the way that their high streets are being cluttered up. People are acting in an antisocial manner and getting away with it. In my constituency it has got so bad that I find myself taking photos and putting them on social media, which I probably should not do and is probably an offence of some type, but we have got to a point where we really need action.

The frustration for me as an MP is that when I make this point to local authorities, they do not necessarily want to take it on. When I make it to the police, they say they do not have the resources. I make the point about enforcement to the Department for Transport, but enforcement is not occurring either. It is not fair that my constituents, just because of where they reside, are under a regime that is completely old hat and which most other authorities have moved on from, and are stuck in this situation.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire. I am sorry to have wandered off into the other spheres of parking, but we should not kid ourselves as a House that this is solved just with regard to the private side of things. On the public and high street side, there is more to do, and our constituents would thank us if we did so.