Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill

Debate between Jim McMahon and David Tredinnick

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

The subtlety of my speech may have left hon. Members behind, so let me go back to what I said. We support the Bill, but I was challenging just how it will be used in practice and what the interests in an area are. As I have said, if there is a business improvement district in the town centre, it is easy to consult the BID. However, the area affected may be much larger than such a tightly defined geographical area, so it would be helpful to provide such a definition.

[David Tredinnick]

If the Bill is fortunate enough to make it into Committee, I give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that we will look at his points, particularly about inflation automatically triggering increased charges. We will obviously look at those points with care.

[Jim McMahon]

I appreciate that commitment. I should say that I am coming at this with a number of different experiences. In a former life, I was a town centre manager, so I fully appreciate how important car parking is. It is not just a way to generate revenue; it is vital to the viability of the shops and retail outlets in the shopping centres and high streets in our town and city centres. I think we are as one on the importance of making sure that we have a vibrant local economy, and car parking is very important to that. On that, we are in fierce agreement with each other.

I have taken enough time as it is, but let me tell the hon. Gentleman that I am very happy to see the Bill progress, and he can be assured that Labour Members will support it.