Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Grand Committee

The second one troubles me a little more. The department asserts that the 15-minute period between the issue of a notice and clamping is a minimum period. The JSCI has argued that, in primary legislation, 15 minutes is the period and, if Parliament had wanted a 15-minute minimum, it would have legislated for that—but it did not and has given it as a definite period. So the committee does not accept that the department is correct. I am slightly troubled about this simply because, as the Minister will know, there is quite an industry in finding legal loopholes to get through fixed-penalty notices and various things. We need to be absolutely sure that we are confident that this will not become a loophole.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bring forward these regulations, which I welcome. They will extend the rights of representations and appeals in parking, bus lane and moving traffic cases. I will not seek to detain the Committee for long, given that there is broad consensus on the basic principles. However, I welcome any details as to why it has taken so long to introduce these changes, given that they relate to a policy statement from two years ago.

A colleague was going to be doing this debate today so I came against the regulations only at 11.30 am. My understanding is that this is really a package made up of a commencement order that has no parliamentary procedures, a negative order that nobody has prayed against—so it will go through—and this measured affirmative order, or whatever the right term is. I hope that these regulations do a simple, uniform thing and bring the powers and appeal rights in England and Wales into a uniform piece of legislation. There are lots of nods but I would like to hear the Minister say yes to that because it would simplify how one thinks about this.

I wonder whether the Minister can offer a timeline for what flows from this package. I recognise that she may have done that in her speech but the impressive speed of her delivery was beyond my comprehension in places; I am not suggesting that she was not right and accurate, so I apologise for that. The reason I would like to see a timeline is because, as the Minister knows, the commencement of this order depends on the commencement of the negative order but I do not know when that is proposed to be. It would be useful to have on record when that will happen and when the consultation on the guidance will complete. I got the impression that the guidance might be published on the same day as the commencement. That would be unfortunate but it goes to the general issue of how motorists will know about both the offences and their appeal rights at the same time. I think the Minister said a little about how motorists will know about the offences, but knowledge about their appeal rights seems equally important.

The Committee hopes that these regulations will contribute to making the system of road traffic contraventions fairer and more effective. On broader road traffic issues, the Minister will be aware that the Government recently published an updated private parking code of practice, which caps fines at £80 in London and £50 elsewhere. Welcome as that is, unfortunately, the new code will not come into force fully until 2024. In the meantime, many parking firms are charging more than those caps permit. Does the Minister believe it is right that they are able to charge extortionate amounts before the new code of practice fully comes into force?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for contributing to this short debate. I apologise at the outset for my speed of delivery. I must slow down; I will slow down. I promise the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that, next time I give an opening speech, I will slow down, enunciate and break for breath every now and again.

Some important points have been raised, which I hope to cover. I will write, of course, because I suspect that I will not be able to answer a couple of things in full. I am grateful for the broad welcome for these regulations. I accept that they have been a long time coming, particularly given that the Traffic Management Act was enacted in 2004. Then there was the issue of commencing Part 6. The delay in commencing that part and in putting these regulations before the Committee is partly down to the pressures of the pandemic; it has been a little busy in the Department for Transport. We wanted to get this right, recognising that it will be up to local authorities to put this into operation. They, too, have been suffering from a lack of time and resources during the pandemic.

We did crack on with it when we felt that things looked a little more positive but we had an issue with the JCSI, which was alluded to by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. An error was discovered in the affirmative SI, which meant that we withdrew it and then re-laid it with the error resolved. It did not have an impact on the date of its coming into force, so it did not have an impact on the whole process of what was going to happen, but we are grateful to the JCSI for its work on finding the error because it would have been unforgivable for that to have got on to the statute book.

On the issues relating to the JCSI vires, I might write with a little more detail, perhaps to explain why we slightly differ from the JCSI and how we propose to respond to it. I believe that we will make some changes at the earliest opportunity; potentially, there is an opportunity to make a change in the first designation order, which will come soon.

On the point raised by my noble friend Lady McIntosh on resources, cameras and the gubbins that will have to be in place to operationalise these regulations, we know that some places have already put them in place. We know that London already does it but, let us face it, London is not really like everywhere else. But one might look at Cardiff. For example, in Wales, the Welsh Government commenced the Part 6 powers back in 2013 and, to date, Cardiff City Council and Carmarthenshire have acquired the designation of those powers. In Cardiff, we have a little bit of visibility about how they did it, how much it cost them and what the impact was on their budgets. The council’s latest Annual Park and Traffic Enforcement Report for 2018-19 confirms the following. For the first full year of enforcement, which was actually 2016-17—it is a little while ago, but that was its first full year, and it is the most up to date that we have—it ended up with a combined income of around £3.4 million and a total expenditure of £5.6 million, including parking. We estimate that it probably spent around £3.7 million on bus lane and moving traffic enforcement. So that was a deficit of about £0.3 million. We would expect that, in most circumstances, after the first year when things have settled down, you would end up with a surplus. As I explained in my opening remarks, that surplus can be used only on very specific things.

There is also the issue to consider, if a local authority is putting something in place, that we have said that within the first six months there will be warning notices rather than fines to be paid for any individual attracting a contravention at a particular camera. So that will reduce the income. It is also worth recognising that many of the set-up costs will be one-off costs. There will be ongoing maintenance costs for the CCTV, but they will usually be one-off costs, which can be met more than over just the first year. On the flip side, we know that costs will be mitigated somewhat by the slight increase to the bus lane penalties.

In general, in our new burdens assessment, we suggested that there was no additional burden to local authorities by implementing these regulations, and the Local Government Association did not object to the new burdens assessment. So I think either it will work out cost neutral or there will be a surplus which, as discussed, will be used only for certain areas. I take the point about some sites being very non-compliant and therefore attracting large numbers of fines. Of course, we will make it clear in the guidance how local authorities should deal with those sites. We want the cameras to be in problem sites but, clearly, there will be areas where they can improve their highways layout or, indeed, their traffic signage to make people understand exactly what has happened.

To go back to my noble friend’s question about cameras, those that are used for moving traffic contraventions must be certified by the Vehicle Certification Agency. We have very specific cameras that are certified by the VCA, and we certify cameras at no charge to the LA—the department bears the cost. We have a specific fund from which we draw down. But it is local authorities that are responsible for paying for the cameras and then putting them in place, so it is up to them.

That slightly leads on to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The guidance that we will complete will set out all sorts of things in relation to operating these regulations appropriately. I have mentioned those areas where there is lots of contravention. We have worked closely with the sector on the development of the detailed statutory guidance. We have had input from a wide range of stakeholders, including the motoring groups—the RAC and the AA have been very involved—and local government: the Local Government Association and local councils. We have also been in touch with and talked to active travel groups, including Sustrans, British Cycling and Living Streets, as well as the British Parking Association and the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. Clearly, we have to get this guidance right. We need to make sure we have the right level of enforcement and in the right places.