Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill

Russell Brown Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

As a layperson, not someone with a legal background, I fully recognise some of the arguments the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) makes, but my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is exactly right: for the last several years, there has been constitutional bickering and wrangling over who is responsible for this matter. I ask the few of us left in the Chamber: how many of us have not come across an awkward individual who, inadvertently or otherwise, has parked their vehicle in a way that prevents someone with a child in a pram or a pushchair or a disabled person in a wheelchair from getting along the footway? I fully appreciate the point made over the last 10 or 15 minutes, but it is surely an obstruction. Of course it is, but in Scotland, the wrangling goes on.

The Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, is all about determining where competence lies. It is abundantly clear that the Scottish Parliament want to do this, but the problem is in gaining the clarity, which I hope today’s debate will allow to happen.

Only last week, I was out one evening on the referendum trail—as I have been on most evenings, most afternoons and most mornings of late—when I came across a property that had a boundary wall, a footway and a grass verge. A guy had pulled his vehicle across that grass verge. By pure chance, a lady coming along the footway in the opposite direction to me was in one of these small, not very wide mobility chairs—so she got through. She said, however, “I’ve been lucky, haven’t I? If I’d been in a normal-sized one, I would have had to go on to the road”. That is pure inconsiderate driving—in fact, downright bad driving. We are living in an era, however, where this guy could not pull his vehicle into his driveway because there were another two vehicles there. This is happening more and more often. The issue is to a certain extent about road users being inconsiderate.

[Mr David Davis]

Forgive me, but I speak as an English, rather than as a Scottish, Member of Parliament. The issue is not—for many of us, I think—whether or not the legislation is generally a good idea; it is the confusion over why the Scottish Parliament cannot carry this out itself. What is stopping the Scottish Parliament; what is the confusion?

[Mr Brown]

I think my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith explained that. There is some bickering about how this can best be dealt with.

[Guy Opperman]

Briefly, can the hon. Gentleman clarify this for me? If, as I understand it, this measure has cross-party support, and if the issue has been a matter of consideration by the Scottish Government for seven years, why have that Scottish Government not passed this Bill?

[Mr Brown]

I would not say indiscretions, but certain little loopholes might have arisen. Even when my party was in coalition with the Liberal Democrats in Scotland for a number of years—

[Mr David Davis]

We feel for you!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brown]

We won’t go there. It seems to have been an inability to move the Scottish Parliament forward. I recognise, particularly when the three wise men are in their places right at the back on the Government Benches—

[Mr Nuttall]

There are only two.

[Mr Brown]

Only two, is that right? Okay, in that case I will let the two argue it out with the other one.

The issue is not about clogging up the whole legislative programme; it is simply about deciding that this power could be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I am speaking at the Dispatch Box for the Opposition today, while the Government have a Transport Minister here. If the Bill were given a quick, clean bill of health, it would not fall to the Department for Transport to deal with, because the power would fall back through the Scotland Office. The Bill will not snarl up the programme of legislation for the Department for Transport.

If it comes down to money, we should look at the amount being spent by local authorities for dropped kerbs for people in wheelchairs and the like, and recognise that we still see inconsiderate behaviour by drivers who still block those kerbs. I emphasise again to Government Members that this is not a massive piece of legislation.

[Mr Nuttall]

I appreciate that this is not a massive piece of legislation, but could the shadow Minister give the House an idea of the extent of the problem in his constituency, representing, as he does, a Scottish constituency? Does he get a lot of complaints about this at his surgery, for example?

[Mr Brown]

I appreciate that my constituency is 300 miles away from here, but I think the experiences of my constituents who may use wheelchairs and such like is the same as that of people the length and breadth of the UK. It is not as if this is a specific problem there, but I would be very surprised if Members on the Government Benches had not encountered problems, and even seen it with their own eyes and thought, “That’s a bit of bad parking.”

If this Bill is going to be talked out, I do not want that to come from me, however, so let me just say that this is about doing nothing more than devolving power to the Scottish Parliament to deal with this once and for all.