Hospital Car Parking Charges

Mike Penning Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. This takes me back a long way, to 2006, when you were a Health Minister and I shadowed you for some four years. The issue of car parking charges was around at that time, and successive Governments have talked about addressing it. This is a regressive tax. It is a tax on everybody, because everybody needs the NHS—that is why it is there. It is even more regressive for NHS staff, who are taxed even more just to go to work their difficult shift patterns. That is completely unacceptable.

I have raised this issue many times before. Members might remember that I used to be a firefighter. Firefighters do not pay to park in the yard at the fire station. Our excellent police do not pay to park their cars. The ambulance service is part of the NHS in my constituency, and its staff do not pay, either. They drive to work and they go to the pound to pick up their ambulance. So why should other emergency workers be charged in this way? It is fundamentally wrong.

This issue has gone back and forth across the Floor of the House, no matter which colour Government we have. Contracts have been signed, by previous Governments and by ours, that have locked us into hugely expensive agreements, particularly the private finance initiatives. We need to do something about that, and I will say more about it in a moment.

[Bob Stewart]

It seems to me that there should be staff car parks. There should be a set-up in which staff have separate parking arrangements so that they do not block public parking spaces. They should also have guaranteed slots, so that they are not late for their shifts.

[Sir Mike Penning]

That happens in some parts of the world. For example, that is what they do at the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which looks after part of my constituency. I went there the other day to visit someone who was in palliative care. I did not know how long I was going to be seeing them, or whether I would see them again. The fantastic news is that they are now at home, being looked after by the hospice movement, of which I have been a member for 40 years. That is what the hospice movement is very much for.

Interestingly, I parked and paid in what I thought was a public car park, but I was in the staff car park. So, when I went to try to get out, the barrier would not go up. I pressed the button to talk to someone, and they said, “You’ve parked illegally.” I said, “How have I parked illegally? I’ve got a ticket.” Fortunately, they had no idea who I was, because they probably would have just lifted the barrier to get the MP out of there as fast as possible, which is normally what happens when we visit our hospitals, isn’t it—everything is brilliant, rosy and shiny and everything is great. I said to the person, “No. If you’re going to fine me, fine me. I’ll see you in court, because I have paid in an NHS public car park that you have designated.” They eventually just said, “Oh, go away.” I have been waiting for the fine to come through—it probably will now—and I will see them in court, but the charging is morally wrong.

The situation is even more difficult for patients. The previous debate was about babies and parenting. Babies come out when they want to, usually, not when we want them to, and not based on how much time is left on a car parking ticket. That is what happens, and yet people are getting fined every day because they have outstayed their time in the car park. How can that be right?

A Member who could not be in the Chamber today because they had to attend another meeting, asked me to mention volunteer drivers. What would we do without them? They are fantastic, but they have to pay to park in some hospital car parks before they take patients home, which they do as volunteers because the patient ambulance service is struggling so much. In some parts of the country—I know that it is happening in my area—people are actually asking for patient transport because the car parking facilities are so bad. They are putting more of a burden on patient transport because they cannot find a parking space and they are petrified of being late for their appointment. If they are late for their appointment owing to patient transport, that is okay, but if they cannot find a parking space, they hear, “Oh, you’re a bad person.” We have heard that people are parking outside hospital car parks. Blue badge holders are being charged to park in a car park when they can park for free on the road, so that is what they do. We know that is happening, and it is really very wrong.

I know that the Minister is a good man, and an honourable man, but when he stands up to reply he will almost certainly say that parking is devolved to NHS trusts, and that it is for them to decide how they run their facilities. But for those of us who are Members of Parliament, NHS trusts are completely unaccountable. We can moan about this, but they will not listen in the slightest. They will be looking at whether they can get away with it and how much they can raise.

This is not just about money; it is about space. We have heard that if car parks do not charge, they will be full of people from the town centre. When the acute facility at the excellent Hemel Hempstead Hospital was closed, it was moved to the middle of Watford town centre, next to a football stadium. Apparently Watford play there, and a lot of my constituents will be very upset when they hear about me being derogatory about Watford, but they have a huge number of fans. I went to Watford General Hospital on a Saturday morning to visit a constituent, a good friend of mine, and I parked and paid. When I came out, there was a group of parking people around who clearly wanted to give me a ticket. I had paid in the football bit that is designated for use by Watford football club when they are playing at home. What has that got to do with going to see and look after someone at an NHS hospital, or go to that hospital?

Unfortunately, the parking attendants did recognise me, and they were very apologetic, but I do not think that is right. What would have happened if they had not known who I was? The ticket was coming. How on earth can we have a full acute hospital in the middle of a town as big as Watford, next to a football stadium, and then call that a modern NHS hospital? The parking facilities there for staff and patients are frankly almost non-existent, not least because tons of it has been carved off for the football club. I want Watford to be very successful, but what I want in our part of the world is a brand-new hospital, with proper parking facilities, on a greenfield site away from the town centre, so that we do not have any concerns about whether people will park there all day in order to go shopping. At the moment, though, I do not have that.

There is the acute hospital in Watford, which struggles—it has just come out of special measures and I wish it well—and Hemel Hempstead Hospital, which is basically a clinic these days. We have out-patients; we have a few intermediate wards. They charge the staff, and patients with out-patient appointments, to park there. The car park is empty. Hardly anybody parks there because there is nothing on the site any more, but the hospital still insists on charging. That pushes the patients outside, so there is restricted parking outside, which is also an issue. It is cheaper to park in the council car park in the town centre and walk 400 yards up the hill than to park in a car park that is empty because there are so few facilities at the hospital.

This problem has to be sorted out from central Government, and the central Government guidelines have to be enforceable. I was a Minister for many years: Departments can issue as many notices as they like, but nothing will happen if they do not come out with the stick. Could the money be raised in other ways? Could there be savings in the NHS? As we have heard, the amount of money being raised, compared with the overall pot, is peanuts. One of the more recent chief executives of my very small acute trust was on a package of over £300,000 a year. If we want to save money instantly, let us take a look at the salaries of the really top people in the NHS and let us look after the people at the bottom—we certainly should not charge them to park when they go to work.

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[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his extremely powerful speech and on raising this important issue.

I want to start with an experience that our family recently went through. My daughter started to show signs of acute appendicitis. As any family could imagine, we quickly bundled our daughter, who was in agony, into the car and drove to the hospital—it was not a very calm journey. I am sure that many Members will have had a similar experience. We were panicking and scrambling around for change so that we could park the car, then taking turns to pop out every few hours to move the car or top up the ticket. That was obviously a one-off and bearable, but for many a trip to the hospital is sadly not a one-off experience, and they are forced to take several trips a week because of chronic illness. They are people going through the worst of times, and the cynical approach of charging them to park is unacceptable. It is not anyone’s choice to be ill, and they should not be exploited.

New figures show that the money raked in from NHS car parks in England run by private firms has increased to £500,000 every day. The £175 million that was made from hospital car parking charges in 2016-17 is equivalent to only 0.001% of the total health spend, but still, ruthless private car parking firms pocket most of it. It cannot be fair that worried family members who visit their loved ones can end up with eye-watering fines if they arrive late back to their cars. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, it cannot be fair that NHS staff who have parking charges deducted from their wages are fined for parking in the wrong bay when they cannot find a space in the correct bay.

Some may recommend that regular hospital visitors use public transport, but in my constituency, Batley and Spen, the bus that used to connect Birstall with our local hospital has been cancelled, as have local bus services in many smaller communities. That has forced more people to use a car and thereby incur parking costs. My local hospital, Dewsbury and District Hospital, charges after 20 minutes, so people get 20 minutes for free. There is a reduction for blue badge holders, but they still have to pay. There is a stress-inducing pay-on-exit system, and it is quite complicated to get car parking concessions approved by hospital staff on the day. It is not an ideal situation.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Does the hon. Lady agree that in the 21st century, means-testing at the point of delivery, which is what we are talking about here, is morally unacceptable in an NHS of which we should be and are proud?

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[Julie Cooper]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that comment.

I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House because it seems that there is much agreement on the matter. It is heartening to hear Members mentioning—and fully understanding—its impact on patients, visitors, carers and NHS staff. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) mentioned the effect on the greater transportation system.

The hon. Members for Telford (Lucy Allan) and for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) made powerful speeches, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), who accused the system of profiteering. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) made an important point on behalf of staff. The right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) referred to the burden of having to pay to go to work. My hon. Friends the Members for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) mentioned personal family issues when people are taken away from a sick family member’s bed to replenish parking meters.

No one likes to pay to park, but to pay to park at a hospital really does add insult to injury. We are not talking about a luxury experience, a shopping trip or a fun night out; we are talking about paying to visit a hospital. People are not queuing up to go to the hospital café, as the hon. Member for Telford pointed out. No one goes to hospital because they want to. People go because they are sick. They go for treatment, for surgery, for chemotherapy and for kidney dialysis, and they go to visit loved ones. In short, hospitals are not destinations of choice: people go because they must. I am quite shocked that it is free to park at Trafford shopping centre yet I must pay to park at my local hospital.

During the past three years, I have spent hours and hours visiting my mother in hospital. I have often gone backwards and forwards two or three times a day, juggling hospital visiting around work and other commitments. I have to say that it has all been very distressing. As I leave the hospital each night worried, wondering what tomorrow will bring, the last thing I want to do is to stand outside in the cold queuing to pay for my parking. This burden is, of course, in addition to the actual cost.

Some hospital car parks demand payment in advance, as we have heard. This brings its own set of problems, because patients and visitors have to judge how long each hospital visit will last, and then often have to leave the ward or treatment room to feed the ever-hungry parking machine. Of course, running to and fro between the car park and the hospital is impossible for someone hooked up to a dialysis machine. Many dialysis patients suffer with multiple conditions and are unable to work, so paying to park three times a week for dialysis sessions that each last four to five hours is a real financial burden for them and their carers.

Paula in my constituency relies on the weekly £62.70 carer’s allowance she has received since she was forced to give up work to provide round-the-clock care for her husband, who suffered a severe stroke. He has been in hospital for the past month. She has visited every day, often staying for two to three hours to support and comfort him. This costs her more than £20 a week. By the time she has paid for her petrol, half her carer’s allowance is gone.

We have a national health service that was set up to be free at the point of delivery. It was established in 1948 to make healthcare a right for all, but that is not what is happening. Even though hospital car parking is free in Scotland and Wales, here in England, hospital users are forced to pay often extortionate rates, with charges varying from £1.50 an hour to £4 an hour. We are charging the chronically ill, the terminally ill, and their carers and visitors. More than half of all people over 76 have conditions that require regular hospital appointments, and hospital car parking charges are an extra burden for them and their families. The Alzheimer’s Society reports that patients with dementia stay five to seven times longer in hospital than other patients aged over 65. Hospitals can be frightening places for people with that condition. They rely on family and carers visiting them to give support. Parking charges are an extra burden that these families could well do without.

The Patients Association has commented:

“For patients, parking charges amount to an extra charge for being ill…Hospital appointments are often delayed or last longer than expected, so even if you pay for parking you could end up being fined if your ticket runs out. Visiting a hospital can be stressful enough without the added concern of whether you need to top up the parking.”

Macmillan Cancer Support says:

“The core principle of the NHS is to provide free healthcare for all at the point of access. But sadly some cancer patients in England are paying extortionate hospital car parking charges in order to access treatment for a life-threatening illness.”

Bliss, the charity for babies born prematurely or sick, says in its “It’s not a game: the very real costs of having a premature or sick baby” report that these charges can contribute to the financial burden that many families face when their babies need neonatal care.

In the midst of all this misery, the average hospital trust is making £1 million of profit from car parking charges, and several hospitals the length and breadth of the country report profits of over £3 million. Last year, NHS hospitals made a record £174 million from charging patients, visitors and staff. In addition, 40 trusts report additional income from parking fines.

Some people point out that public transport is an option that avoids parking charges. Public transport provision has been reduced in response to funding cuts, but even where it exists, there are many for whom it is not an option. Some patients are too unwell or too frail to travel on a bus. Others, including cancer patients attending for chemotherapy, have reduced immunity and must avoid contact with the general public.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The hon. Lady is making a compelling case, as have most Members. Public transport has its place for out-patients and so on, where it is available, but imagine someone going into labour and saying, “Can I wait for the No. 2 bus, please?” This is farcical. We need car parks to be there for people when they need them, rather than being a cash cow.

[Julie Cooper]

I entirely agree and thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Patients and carers are often balancing work and other commitments, and have tight time schedules that preclude public transport. I have spoken to the parents of a terminally ill child who left their child’s bedside only to tend to the needs of their other children. They do not have time to wait for a bus.

No discussion of hospital car parking charges would be complete without a consideration of their impact on NHS staff, which Members have spoken about eloquently. These staff pay to go to work and are still not even guaranteed a space. That can lead to them being late for the beginning of their shift. Some hospital staff whose shift overruns because they are tending to patients’ needs face fines for overstaying their parking time. That is clearly no way to treat our health professionals. It is no wonder we face a crisis in recruitment and retention.

Government action to date has been limited to a series of recommendations on hospital car parking. Currently the Government recommend that hospital car parking charges should not be applied to blue badge holders, carers, visitors of relatives who are gravely ill, and patients who have frequent out-patient appointments. In reality, those recommendations count for very little. In fact, the trend is to increase car parking charges and to reduce the number of those who are exempt. Many hospital trusts have even begun to charge blue badge holders.

It is not good enough for the Government to abdicate responsibility. This is a matter of principle. Scandalously, Conservative Members have previously argued in the Chamber that the NHS needs the income from parking charges. I have no doubt that the NHS needs this revenue, as it is common knowledge that the service has been starved of funding since 2010, but is it right that we fund our health service by taxing the sick?

Labour Members will have none of this. I am proud that the next Labour Government will ensure that our NHS is properly funded and will abolish car parking charges at all hospitals. To pay for that, we will increase the premium tax on all private health insurance policies. Crucially, no hospital will lose funding as a result of our policy.

In 2015, I asked the Government via a private Member’s Bill to exempt carers from hospital car parking charges. At the time, that relatively modest proposal was met with derision from Government Members. My attempt to remove this financial burden was dismissed as a worthy aim, but not worthy enough for the Government to support. Indeed, Conservative Members went to great lengths to talk the Bill out.

Times, I hope, have changed. Today I am asking, along with the right hon. Member for Harlow, that the Government remove all car parking charges at NHS hospitals. Today we ask the Government to do the decent thing by removing this tax on the sick and taking action to ensure that we truly have an NHS that is free at the point of access.

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[Stephen Barclay]

With respect to my right hon. Friend, it is a statement of fact, as confirmed by my officials—I am very happy to correspond with him further about it—that 67% of NHS sites do not charge. If one wants to get into the definition of a hospital, it actually covers more than acute services. I do not want to get distracted by that point. The one I was seeking to make is to recognise that this issue is particularly concentrated on acute hospitals, and that is the issue before us.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby recognised that there is considerable room for flexibility within trusts. One of the key issues in this debate is the distinction between charges covering the maintenance of car parks, and how a reduction in charges may lead to a reduction in the number of spaces and the quality of the facilities—we heard, for example, about the state of the car parks in north Manchester—and those involving profiteering, with charges going beyond of the cost of maintenance. The hon. Lady is concerned about that, and the interplay with the current guidance. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) also mentioned that when she highlighted the distinction between the charges at her hospital and those of the local authority, and raised the issue of transparency.

The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) expressed concerns about transparency in relation to blue badge holders. They are not means-tested, so an affluent blue badge holder could be spared a charge while a less affluent visitor to a hospital is charged. Transparency about how the guidance is applied is therefore a factor, as has been recognised.

[Sir Mike Penning]

May I push the Minister a little bit on blue badge holders? Quite rightly, blue badge holders are not means-tested. The key is their ability to access services. It does not matter how much they have in the bank. If they need to go to a hospital and they have a blue badge, surely spaces should be free and as close to the point of entry as possible.

[Stephen Barclay]

Absolutely. As my right hon. Friend will be aware, the guidance speaks to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) mentioned the 64 pages of guidance. I am very happy to take away and look at why there are 64 pages of it. Blue badges are part of the conversation that my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow began in 2014.

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[Stephen Barclay]

Of course, but equally the hon. Lady must recognise that the fact that charges are still being applied under PFI agreements put in place by a previous Government in 2008 signals that there are often complexities, in terms of what can be done when different factors apply. As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull highlighted, there are factors relating to displacement. That is why trusts have local discretion, but as the House has discussed today, we need to understand the transparency around that and how it is applied.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Will the Minister give way? He is being very generous.

[Stephen Barclay]

I will, but then I will press on, because I want to give my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow some time.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I am sure we have time, on this important issue. The Minister raised the issue of complexity. Clearly, as has been shown by Members across the House today, some cases would be easier to address than others. I fully accept, as I said in my speech, that some ludicrous PFIs were put in place, both before the present Administration came to power and since. Do the easy ones first; that is the answer. That is what Scotland did. Then come to the more difficult ones. Ruling out any change at all because there are some difficult issues is surely not the way forward.

[Stephen Barclay]

A point was raised about whether free parking could be addressed through tokens and barriers, but colleagues in the NHS raised concerns about how that would apply, in terms of any burden on staff. We heard examples of frequent users of a hospital being able to access concessionary schemes, but staff have raised concerns about the impact on them, and how they might be expected to assist in the administration of the scheme in regard to those visiting hospitals as a one-off.

The pertinent point about the impact on staff was raised by Members from across the Chamber. Many Members have been visited recently by representatives from the Royal College of Nursing, regarding the wider discussions between NHS employers and the RCN on pay. It was helpful to hear in the debate contributions about the RCN’s understanding of the benefits, pressures and issues.

Across the House, there is no question, as was reflected by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, about the desirability of addressing iniquities and variance, and about the scope to ensure compliance with the guidance, but we need to be mindful of unintended consequences, and particularly about constraining the car parking available for those who need it. I am happy to continue my discussions with my right hon. Friend on this policy. I commend him and colleagues on a very constructive debate.