Parking (Code of Practice) Bill (First sitting)

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Thursday 19th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Greg Knight]

I am grateful for that example. My hon. Friend clearly has an unknown admirer, because I doubt that happens on many occasions.

The advisory code of practice is currently being formulated. I am grateful to the Minister, because after the House gave the Bill an unopposed Second Reading, he immediately started consulting on what should be in the code of practice. I have been to some of those consultation sessions to listen to what other people are saying. The code, although not yet ready for publication, is coming along very well indeed.

A summary on the code is available and has been distributed to Members. I will refer to a few aspects of it. There will be obligations on the operators of private car parks in the code, which will include the type of “equipment and technology used”, “clear signage”,

“clear and accessible displays of the terms and conditions”,

and the requirement that there be a transaction period and a grace period.

We need to ensure that a motorist has a choice before committing him or herself to park in a particular car park. With the advent of CCTV cameras, in some cases what happens is that a vehicle registration plate is recorded upon the motorist entering the car park. The motorist then sees the terms that apply to the car park and decides not to park there, but gets a ticket because the car was seen going in and coming out. That cannot be right. There must be a grace period of five or 10 minutes—perhaps even longer in a multi-storey car park—which would allow the motorist to change his or her mind.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

rose—

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Greg Knight]

I give way first of all to Scarborough and Whitby.

[Mr Goodwill]

Thank you. I myself witnessed a situation in Haworth. There was a notorious parking firm operating using clamps, which have now been outlawed. In that case, a couple who had parked their car went to a nearby shop to enact a small transaction in order to get some change. In that short time, they were blocked in by the parking company vehicle and clamped. They can no longer clamp, but these scoundrels are reverting to other methods, which my right hon. Friend’s Bill will prevent.

[Sir Greg Knight]

That is indeed the case. I am moving down the coast; I am now going to Clacton.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned solicitors’ letters. Does he applaud the provision in the Bill that parking companies should not send letters that look like they have come from a solicitor when they are just from the parking company?

[Stephen Doughty]

I applaud the fact that the Bill addresses that issue, and indeed I will discuss the issue of solicitors shortly.

There are other areas where the activities of such companies are a huge problem. I have had many complaints from taxi drivers in my constituency, who are regularly harassed and prosecuted when, for example, they are parked in a supermarket car park in one of the out-of-town shopping areas in my constituency, waiting to pick up an elderly constituent with their shopping.

The other area is hospital parking, and I want to single out one company for some pretty shady practices. That is ParkingEye, about which I have received multiple complaints regarding multiple hospitals from people with serious medical conditions, NHS staff and others who have been caught. I have a letter here from a constituent who was a medical student working in the oncology department at University Hospital Llandough in my constituency, who had applied for a permit. There had been some mistake with the email address so, unbeknown to her, she ended up with huge fines from that company and no recourse. My team and I have engaged on behalf of many constituents to try and get their fines overturned, but sometimes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West said, the companies do not even respond. We cannot get through to them. It is not possible to get a straight answer from them. I very much hope that the code of practice will address those issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman mentions ignoring intimidating letters. Of course, if the company does not have access to DVLA information, which if it does not abide by the code of practice it will not, it will not know the owner of the car. A person may or may not respond to the ticket put on the window, but the company will not be able to follow it up with letters.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but the problem is that about 30% are intimidated. That is the problem, and the point I am making is that until we can give people confidence, we will need a very strong message and very clear designation. I do not know whether the Minister has given any thought to how we might go about that, but it is certainly where I would like to go with it ultimately. Until we do that, the numbers will remain significant, and I fear we will still get complaints in our postbags about the practice.

With that caveat, I think that the proposals are a significant step forward. I am sure that they will get support across the House, and the sooner we see them in legislation the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I am pleased to tell him that we will engage directly with the MOJ and the SRA. To date, I do not believe that we have done so, but we will happily do that. He makes a very good point about the impact on the court system. More broadly, on the point that he raised on Second Reading and today about county court judgments and, in his personal experience, letters going to previous addresses, I am relatively confident that we can address that in the code of practice by including some clauses about reasonable efforts by parking operators to find a more up-to-date address.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the appeals process, which of course should be independent. I am pleased to tell him that, as part of the code of practice in the Bill, it will be scrutinised, funded through the levy. That will ensure independent scrutiny of the appeals process, as well as the associations and operators, to ensure that appeals are working not in the manner that he highlighted, but in one that is fair to those who need to avail themselves of such a process. He talked about information, which many other hon. Members talked about, and of course the code of practice will outline the information that should be standardised on tickets and signage, so that there is good practice and consistency across the industry.

On the devolved Administrations, I am pleased to tell Committee members that the Welsh and Scottish Governments are represented on the working group that has been engaged in developing the code of practice, and are in extensive dialogue with the team in my Department, to ensure uniformity of execution of the Bill and to confirm that all the various matters have been put in place as required.

I have an update for the Committee. The explanatory notes are out-of-date with regard to the legislative consent motion. Originally, the advice from the Scottish Government was that that would not be required, but that advice changed and they believe that they require it. That motion has now been passed, so I am pleased to say that the Bill will have force in Wales and Scotland, and that all legal requirements have been satisfied in that regard.

I pay tribute to the experience of the hon. Member for Cambridge in transport matters. He has spent a considerable time in the House weighing in on such issues, so it is a pleasure to have his experience on the Committee. I will touch briefly on the issues he raised. He made a good point about rogue operators. I am confident that not having access to the DVLA will deal with the vast majority of problems that hon. Members have mentioned, because the lifeblood of trying to extort money from people is having access to their details.

By standardising tickets, complaints processes, fees and lots of other things, the code of practice will offer us the opportunity to educate the British public when the Bill has passed. From that point forward, one will be able to say to the people of the United Kingdom, “This is what tickets should look like. These are the various things that you should expect to see on them”— whether that is a kitemark or something else. In that way, through consumer education, we will hopefully ensure that they will be able to check for some kind of mark or language that would not be on rogue parking tickets. By bringing everything together in a standard way, that education process can happen in a way that it cannot today. I hope that that will deal with most of those issues.

I am also happy to look at the law that already exists to tackle people who are doing things that are presumably illegal, such as trespassing or interfering with other people’s private property. As I said, however, the huge opportunity comes from the code of practice, which standardises behaviour and practical things such as the information contained on signage and tickets, so that we can get to the point where people know what to look for on a parking ticket.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the Minister agree that one reason why people often fall into those traps is that local authorities are generally very straightforward and honest with people in their parking areas, and offer free parking that is free? For example, in Scarborough, all parking is free for tourists after 6 o’clock.

[Rishi Sunak]

I am sure everyone watching the Committee will have heard that advertisement to visit my right hon. Friend’s constituency. Near to my own as it is, I also encourage them to visit the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.