Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill

Julian Knight Excerpts

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Recent research shows that 70% of those who are blind have, in the past three months, collided with a car parked on a pavement, and that 32% feel less confident about going out. If we are in public policy and public affairs to increase social mobility and inclusion, and to build communities up, there would seem to be merit in trying to encourage people of limited ability to get involved and to do things. That is why I am bringing forward the Bill.

Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), as well as helping the blind, the visually impaired, the disabled and parents with young children, I think of children taking their first independent steps when they hit the age of 10, 11 or 12, and are walking to school with an older brother or sister. It is highly dangerous for them, on some occasions, to have to walk into the carriageway. That is a danger not just to those pedestrians, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am not sure when you appeared, Mr Deputy Speaker; I think I might have referred to you as Madam Deputy Speaker a moment or so ago, in which case I apologise—but to motorists who might suddenly find they have to swerve.

The key point I want to make in my opening remarks is that the Bill is not anti-car or anti-motorist. My wife and I own a car each. I represent a rural constituency of 400 square miles. Without a motorcar, there is no way I could serve my constituents. Without a motorcar, there is no way we could take our children to school five or six miles away from where we live. This proposal is not anti-motorist; it is about fairness and proportion.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

There is also a safety aspect involved for motorists trying to pull out of their own driveways who find their view obstructed by cars parked on the pavement. In my surgeries, and, I imagine, in the surgeries of many hon. Members, we often come across people who have encountered a serious accident or great inconvenience from such an occurrence.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. A lot of evidence has been presented to me from people around the country—not just my constituency—who have opened their front door and, rather expecting Jeremy Beadle to jump out, found the side of a white van parked so close to their front door that they have barely been able to get on to their front step.

My hon. Friend leads me to the point made by the Treasury Bench—I will come on to the Treasury Bench in a moment or two—that there are already rules and regulations to cover this arena of public life. However, they are desperately confusing. For example, it is an offence to park on a pavement, but according to local councils that is a matter for the police to enforce. It is a criminal offence, not a civil offence. The guidance in the Act that makes it a criminal offence refers, however, to wilful negligence. Now, it is quite hard, even for learned counsel such as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), always to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that parking has been wilful or negligent.