Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to be piloting this important Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House. Its promoter in the House of Commons was the right honourable Sir Greg Knight, MP for East Yorkshire, who is himself an unusually committed and elegant motorist. He has been most dedicated and committed in his work, which will have such a positive impact on so many of his constituents and on everyone who drives a vehicle and needs to park it from time to time.

I cannot remember having been directly involved with a piece of legislation that has provoked so favourable a reaction in everyone I meet since 11 February 1977, when I moved the Second Reading of the Passenger Vehicles (Educational and Other Purposes) Bill, which eventually became the Minibus Act 1977. So I have some experience of how difficult it is to manage the procedures of the House, and I salute Sir Greg for his diligence and for successfully captaining this small but beautifully made Bill through the other place. I also thank the excellent government Bill team for its ready and first-class assistance and support.

I am so pleased to see so many important Members of the House participating in this debate. I recall that it is almost exactly 30 years ago that my noble friend Lord Kirkhope successfully introduced a Private Member’s Bill that became the Parking Act 1989. In the House of Commons, that Bill required no debate at all on Second Reading, while Committee lasted just 75 minutes. I cannot promise such brevity today, but I am greatly heartened by the many expressions of support that I have received from all parts of the House.

With its focus on emerging technologies, the 1989 Act was certainly ahead of its time, but new legislation is now urgently needed. The Bill addresses the need for fairness and consistency for motorists who park on private land, and seeks to codify for the first time the standards that should be expected of all private parking providers. Currently, the private parking industry operates under a system of self-regulation. The system is good in parts, but it cannot provide the clarity that motorists rightly crave.

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 banned the controversial practice of wheel clamping and, in Schedule 4, made the keeper or hirer of a vehicle liable for any unpaid parking charges associated with that vehicle. Since then, any private parking company seeking to enforce a parking ticket against a motorist has needed details of the home address of the registered keeper, which it can obtain only from the DVLA. The DVLA will disclose that data only if a parking company is a member of one of the two parking trade associations, the British Parking Association or the International Parking Community.

To be a member of a parking trade association, a company must abide by a code of practice that sets out operational requirements by which a parking operator must abide. Each association has its own code of practice and different standards to which it holds its members. This has led to a degree of consumer confusion, with different rules applying on different sites and the inherent risk of a race to the bottom in code standards. A single code of practice would give us an opportunity to create a consistent standard across the industry, and to make best practice the standard practice for parking operators. I am pleased to say that these measures will apply in Scotland, England and Wales, giving motorists confidence that the same rules will apply whenever and wherever they park in a private car park on the UK mainland.

I shall go through the clauses. Clause 1 sets out the basis of the proposed code and Clause 2 the procedure for establishing it, including comprehensive consultation of interested parties and a significant role for Parliament in acceding to the draft code. Clause 3 requires the Secretary of State to keep the code under review, and Clause 4 sets out the basis for the publication of the code.

Clause 5 covers the intended status of the code, establishing that it will be admissible in legal proceedings and that adherence to it will be a requirement for a parking provider seeking access to the DVLA register. Clause 6 deals with the delegation of functions so far as policing the code is concerned. I will return to Clause 7 in a moment. Clause 8 establishes a levy on the accredited parking providers in order to fund the new system. Clauses 9 and 10 relate to regulations and interpretation, and Clauses 11 and 12 deal with the application to the Crown of the legislation and commencement.

This Bill comes to us with comprehensive support from all quarters, including the trade bodies for the private parking industry and motorists’ groups. Andrew Pester, chief executive of the British Parking Association—one of the two existing membership organisations with a self-regulatory code and access to the DVLA database—has supported,

“a single standard body, single code of practice and a single independent appeals service”.

In his words, the Bill,

“provides a unique opportunity to deliver greater consistency and consumer confidence”.

No one is arguing that there is no problem. Highly undesirable practices in the private parking industry range from threatening letters sent to motorists, poor signage in car parks and aggressive debt collection practices. One particular bugbear has been the failure to provide a transparent, fair appeal system when a motorist feels that a ticket has been issued unfairly. Motorists who wish to challenge a parking ticket are often uncertain about how to proceed; where to lodge an appeal is unclear and changes from site to site and company to company. The existing appeals processes lack transparency, and the cost of paying a ticket can rise if an appeal is made, as early payment options just melt away. Consumers feel pressurised into paying unfair parking tickets, because they fear the increased costs, should an appeal be unsuccessful.

Thanks to an amendment in the House of Commons, the provisions in this Bill now cover the appointment of a single appeals service, in Clause 7, which sets out the process by which the Secretary of State will be able to establish a single, independent appeals process. This will improve transparency and give motorists confidence that if they appeal against a parking ticket they will know where to go, in the confident and well-placed expectation that their appeal will receive a fair hearing. Steve Gooding, the director of the RAC Foundation, has said:

“We particularly welcome the proposal for a single, independent appeals service, which, together with a single, clear code of practice should establish a better, clearer framework and a level playing field that is fairer for all”.


The RAC Foundation is already making an invaluable contribution to producing the first draft of the code, for which it deserves our thanks.

Parking operators that operate in a fair and transparent manner, of which there are many, will not suffer from a code of practice coming into force, but it will stop those who undermine the whole sector with poor practices. Providers who already work to the standards of best practice will find that little or nothing changes for them. In time, the best practice that exists in many areas of the industry should become the standard. I believe that is why industry bodies have welcomed this Bill, supporting the Government in considering the areas a code of practice should cover.

This Private Member’s Bill, a great example of non-partisan co-operation, offers an excellent opportunity to significantly improve the conduct of the private parking sector, creating a fair, transparent, consistent system that motorists can confidently use whenever they need to. I close by again underlining the deep appreciation of all of us for the dedication and commitment of this Bill’s parent, Sir Greg Knight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, this has been a marvellous debate. It has been overseen by the author of the Parking Act 1989 and by the parent of this most important Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, Sir Greg Knight, who has listened to every word that has been spoken. I hope that Sir Greg will have been bolstered by the determination, foresight and enthusiasm for all that he has proposed and that it will help to deal with what, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, pointed out, is a perceived problem. Her description of that ransom strip echoed so many of the experiences I have heard of from other colleagues. I cannot match her knowledge of what happens in her local pub, although I might try a bit harder in future because that is where you discover what is going wrong.

My noble friend Lord Goshen described this as legalised unfairness. I strongly agree with him, particularly about the rogue parking element. I hope the message that goes out from this Chamber is that their days are over. We are not going to stand for any such nonsense in the future.

I can only apologise to my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate for the fact that nobody has taken up his challenge about the origin of nosy parker. I hate to disappoint him, but it has nothing to do with parking but everything to do with Matthew Parker, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 16th century, who kept querying the qualifications of the clergy and looking into them with a zealousness that appalled all his colleagues. I will go no further.

My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley is quite right to worry about the way in which single yellow lines are suddenly becoming double yellow lines. There are serious problems with parking in the West End, and I will go from here to look up immediately Statutory Instrument 362 just to make sure we get this right.

My noble friend Lord Lucas, that well-known fighter on behalf of the London Motorists’ Action Group, has come forward with a number of ideas. People must not be allowed to profit from penalties. That has been a theme that has echoed through the debate.

There are ways in which we can continue to improve what is proposed in this legislation, and I warmly welcome the positive response. In particular, if my noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth does not mind, I praise the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, because together across the Dispatch Box they have given this Bill tremendous support, which I hope will mean that it can make a speedy passage on to the statute book and we can then see an improvement in the overall situation.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.