Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That is slightly tangential to the Question. I know that this is a real frustration both for those living on new estates and for the local authorities that are sometimes charged with picking up the bill for the insufficient quality of roads. Steps will be taken in the forthcoming leasehold and commonhold Bill to address many of the issues with these so-called freehold estates. I am sure that we will have a very useful discussion on that when the Bill comes before the House.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister has heard what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, had to say. I think that his argument has prevailed. As was just demonstrated, parking covers a very wide landscape, so may I draw the Minister’s attention to the difficulty one has in parking electric bikes in London? They are now geolocated, so you park it outside a station, but the app will not let you close. Can the Government please sit down with the mayor and the London boroughs to create a win-win—for people who hate these bikes being parked randomly on the street and for those of us who depend on them, who would just like to see more parking places for them?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the frustrations that people feel, but if you are parking the bike where you are supposed to park it, you should be able to log out of the system. It is absolutely unacceptable for bikes to be left in some of the places that I see them being left, and it causes a great obstruction, particularly to our residents with less mobility. If there is a bike in the middle of a pavement it is very hard to manoeuvre around it, particularly if you are in a wheelchair. We are looking at all these issues. New powers are being granted to local authorities as part of the Bill we will be debating later this afternoon, so I hope that will help the situation.