Hospital Car Parking Charges

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who has worked with me from the beginning on this debate on hospital car parking, and the many other Members who have been involved, including Opposition Members.

We face three problems on hospital car parking. First, it has become a stealth tax on the most vulnerable. It has hit parents who cannot afford to visit their premature baby in hospital. The charity Bliss states that about 30% of parents of premature babies are unable to visit their baby because they cannot afford the hospital car parking charges. Those who can afford it pay an average of £32 a week to visit their sick child. I do not want to live in a country where parents cannot afford to visit their sick children. It was never envisaged that people with cars would subsidise the national health service.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock set out some hospital car parking charges. The most shocking are those at the Royal Free hospital in London, which I know because, sadly, both my grandparents passed away in that hospital. It costs £500 a week to park a car at that hospital. If there was ever an example of how hospital bosses have used car parking charges as a stealth tax, the Royal Free hospital provides it.

People say that we have to have these charges, but why is there such a wide range of charges across the country? Why do 25% of hospitals not charge at all? I am ashamed to say that my own county of Essex is one of the most expensive areas outside London for hospital parking charges. Why do so many hospitals in the north of England not charge at all?

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has done a fantastic job of leading this campaign. On the subject of neonatal intensive care, there is an added problem. Because of the shortage of facilities, parents often have to travel long distances and pay for accommodation in order to stay near their children overnight. It adds insult to injury that they have to pay hospital parking charges as well. This is a treble whammy, and the charges are particularly unjustified in such cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend highlights the problem exactly. It applies not only to the parents of premature babies but to people with cancer. Indeed, 10% of hospitals do not give people with cancer any kind of concession at all.

There is also a problem of transparency. No one knows why such huge increases in charges are taking place, and no one knows exactly what the money is being spent on. Southend hospital, in Essex, charges £2.50 for the first hour’s parking. It was highlighted on BBC Essex recently that the hospital had spent more than £7 million on a new multi-storey car park. Even Harrods and Selfridges would not spend £7 million on a car park. The hospital increased its charges in 2011 and raked in nearly £1.4 million in parking fees alone. It was never envisaged that hospital parking should become a cash cow or a tax on the vulnerable and the sick.

We should also remember that it is not only the patients, the vulnerable and those who are visiting them in hospital who face this stealth tax. It is also a tax on nurses, who are paying an average of £200 a month just to park their cars so that they can do their job. If we had to pay that amount to park our cars here at the House of Commons, I am sure that the practice would be stopped immediately. I also want to mention the concessions for people with disabilities. We often need a PhD to understand all the different rules and regulations involved. We need clear guidelines, and I welcome what the Government have said about this over the past week.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I want to set in context what my hon. Friend has just said about the scale of these charges. I have just checked the cost of parking at Chiltern Railways’ new multi-storey car park in Wycombe, and it is only £7.50 a day. I say “only” because that seems quite good value given that some people are paying £500 a week for hospital parking. Does he share my amazement that hospitals manage to provide so little parking for so much expense?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. As I have said, this has become an easy way for hospital bosses to raise money, and there has been no dialogue with the public about it.

People say that the money could be spent elsewhere, but I believe that hospital parking is as much a front-line service as anything else. It is as important as how many nurses and doctors there are. I am glad that the Government have spent an extra £12.5 billion and that there are 3,000 extra nurses since the coalition came to power, but hospital parking is as much a front-line issue as those things and it should be put into the general pot of NHS spending. It should be taken into account in the same way as spending on nurses and doctors and on machinery. That is often forgotten.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) said that no one goes to hospital out of choice; people go because they have to, or because they have to visit relatives or friends. They should not suffer in the way that they do. They should not have to face the stress involved. Many of my constituents have contacted me to tell me of the stress they face when, having paid at the car park machine, they have to wait for a doctor’s appointment that should have been at, say, 11 but does not take place until 1 o’clock. Through no fault of their own, they have to pay extra car parking charges as a result. How can that be right? Again, I welcome what the Government have said about that.

We need to look at this as part of the front-line spending on the NHS. Estimates suggest that it would cost between £200 million and £250 million to scrap hospital parking charges. I believe that the Government should set up a special fund, possibly paid for by using more generic drugs, and I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) to look at that proposal. I welcome the fact that he has listened, and that the Government have published some really tough guidelines for hospitals. I recognise that they are not the ten commandments; they are not written down on tablets of stone, and we cannot force hospitals to comply with them. They are the next best thing, however.

I put it to my hon. Friend the Minister that if hospitals do not comply with the guidelines, and that if they continue to fail to offer proper concessions to people with disabilities, to use hospital parking as a stealth tax on the vulnerable, to charge their staff for parking and to perpetuate the lack of transparency which means that no one can understand what the revenue is being spent on, we should scrap hospital parking charges completely, as Opposition Members have suggested. I hope that we are already moving in that direction.