Parking (Code of Practice) Bill

Luke Hall Excerpts

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

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

I am delighted to support the Bill and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) for his work over a long period to make progress on this matter. I also associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). I recognise a lot of the incidents that he discussed.

As a number of Members wish to speak, I will cut short a lot of my remarks, which essentially endorse the Bill, and come on to a couple of extra points that I really want to make. I completely support the Bill’s objectives. I spoke to my local citizens advice bureau yesterday and asked about the levels we are seeing in south Gloucestershire. It said that in the last couple of months, 29 people have received advice from the CAB about private parking enforcement notices. Clearly, incidents and the amount of ticketing are rising, so I completely support the Bill. I will make a couple of points and perhaps suggestions about how we could alter the Bill in its next stage.

The Automobile Association has probably been in touch with a lot of hon. Members about parking hotspots. Essentially, hotspots are covered up or hidden because of access to location data. When councils enforce parking restrictions, they are obliged to detail, by location, how many PCNs have been issued and how much money has been raised, but private parking operators are not. That means that problem locations, where parking charges are issued essentially too liberally, remain hidden.

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is right as far as the present situation is concerned, but if the Bill proceeds, I anticipate that the new mandatory code of practice would require transparency of data. I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that information about the number of tickets issued per car park will be in the public domain.

[Luke Hall]

I completely endorse what my right hon. Friend said and hope that the Minister will give that assurance. As has been discussed, parking hotspots can be due to poor signage, unclear signage, poor markings on the floor and even, in some cases, signs that are deliberately designed to mislead the person who is parking and catch out motorists. I am not saying that that is happening in all cases, but it clearly is in some.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the provision of confusing signs, along with the confusion over PCNs and the machinery that people have to use to get their tickets, is often deliberate, with the intention of levying fines rather than ordinary parking charges?

[Luke Hall]

It is important for us to address that during the Bill’s passage. Parking hotspots in private locations continue to trap innocent drivers month in month out, year in year out, and because the information is not released, there is little pressure or incentive for layouts to be improved in order to prevent drivers from making the same mistakes. I support the AA’s recommendation that when a private parking company requests a person’s data from the DVLA, it should be required to give either the postcode or the location where the driver was caught, so that the number of parking charges issued per location could be recorded and published by the DVLA. I understand that it would be quite a simple change, and that the information could be added to the V888/3 form that private parking operators have to fill in. I hope that that can be incorporated in either the guidance or the Bill.

I also want to make a point about cost. According to a report published by the Transport Committee report in 2014, which I understand is still accurate, the DVLA charges £2.50 to process each request for information, but the processing costs the DVLA £2.84 per application, which means a deficit of 34p. We are effectively subsidising the private companies that are making the applications, and that surely cannot be right. I hope that we would make the charge the same as the cost, but, if not, we would surely charge slightly more rather than slightly less. The DVLA is having to cover a shortfall of £700,000 a year, which is 0.1% of its total operating costs.

I know that a number of other Members wish to speak. Let me end by saying that this is a positive Bill. I hope we shall be able to address a couple of the points that I have made as it progresses, and that the Minister will give some assurances about the guidance, but I think that it will promote confidence in private operators by creating what will be a set of recognised standards. It is endorsed by the chief executive of the British Parking Association and the director of the RAC Foundation. I commend my hon. Friend for introducing it, and I will support it.