Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Julian Knight Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Greg Knight]

It is only common courtesy in business to respond to correspondence. I expect the code of practice to have a requirement that where someone challenges a parking notice, whether it be the car owner, the car owner’s solicitor or the car owner’s MP, the parking company is obliged to respond, and within a reasonable time—I would say 14 days.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way. Does he agree that these parking companies often indulge in what I term confusion marketing in the car parks they manage? There are signs that say different times and days, and when Members of Parliament point out these quite fundamental problems in their systems, the companies often write off the fine but do not rectify the original problem.

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In some cases it appears that confusion is designed to ensure that a parking ticket is issued against the unsuspecting motorist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I was going to regale the House with a whole litany of complaints, but everyone will be happy that I am not going to do that because Members from all parties have shown their unanimity on this issue. There is unanimous support for the Bill, and I completely concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight).

Much of my postbag and email inbox is taken up by correspondence on this issue, about which more than 10,000 people a year now seek advice and guidance from Citizens Advice. Enough is enough. Firmer regulation is long overdue. The technology is often a problem for the more elderly people in my constituency, along with issues such as eyesight, signage and access to telephone numbers.

There is a clear case for a unified code of practice being really useful. Currently, any given parking operator could be regulated by either the British Parking Association or the International Parking Community, each of which imposes separate and different codes of conduct on its members, so a degree of digging is involved just for a resident to find out to what rules the company they have a dispute with is bound, let alone for them to find out how to hold the company to account.

A unified set of standards will make it much easier for ordinary citizens to learn their rights and take action against unscrupulous parking operators, by making the information easy to find and universally acceptable. That will make it faster and simpler for the likes of Citizens Advice and the staff in our offices to help people who approach us about parking issues, and I hope that it will also allow more people to find out on their own what they need to know.

Although failure to meet the new code of conduct will not be a criminal offence, the Bill will ensure that such a failure may lead to a parking operator being refused access to DVLA data. I hope that will effectively put such an operator out of business in that respect. I strongly support the Bill and am very pleased that it will hopefully be given its Second Reading.