Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I availed myself of an invitation from the Royal National Institute of Blind People a couple of months ago. I met the RNIB in a town in my constituency and was blindfolded and given a white stick. Then a disembodied voice said, “Don’t worry, we’ll stay with you.” I thought I was making huge and great progress, but when I took the blindfold off after about 40 minutes, I realised that I had travelled about 200 yards. My agent had kindly videoed me making the trip, and she was going to use the video—I am not entirely sure whether it was for promotional purposes or blackmail. However, it was unusable because of the level and frequency of expletives—from me, I hasten to add—as I kept bumping into things and getting disorientated.

I was lucky, because after that 40-minute torture I was able to take my blindfold off, see where I was, get my bearings and move around the town of Blandford Forum. However, 2 million people in this country are registered as either blind or visually impaired, and there are only 5,000 guide dogs. It does not take Einstein to do the maths and realise that a huge number of people who are either blind or visually impaired are without guide dogs. While they go about their legitimate business day in, day out—going to the shops, going to a community event, going to work, taking a child to school—they often find themselves encumbered by a car that is parked on a pavement when there is no need for it to be there. That is the kernel of the Bill.

What attracted me to the Bill is that it will have direct and signal benefits not just for those who are blind and visually impaired but for many hundreds of people in each and every constituency.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has ever tried to push a double buggy with two children in it, but there are many, many mothers up and down the country, as well as in my constituency, who will be extremely grateful that the Bill is being brought forward.

[Simon Hoare]

I have never been blessed with twins, but with three young daughters who are now seven, five and three, I have certainly had one in a pushchair, one at heel—well, vaguely at heel—and one on my shoulder. I empathise entirely with my hon. Friend. She is right that that group of people would benefit from the Bill, too.

We are very keen—this is what sits behind much of our proposed welfare reforms—to bring people who are able to work but have a disability back into the workplace, for all the reasons and benefits we recognise and understand. It can be very difficult, however, particularly for those in what can often be rather large and cumbersome motorised scooters, to suddenly find their progress blocked. What opportunity do they then have to progress? They can either turn around and go home, or go out on to the carriageway and take their lives—and not just their lives—in their hands.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I undertook a blindfolded walk around the town centre of Pontypool in my constituency. It brought home to me first-hand how the nature of obstacles makes a tremendous difference to making progress. Does he agree that one of the important parts of the Bill is not just about removing obstacles, but assisting with the level of anxiety that people with sight impairment suffer?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Recent research shows that 70% of those who are blind have, in the past three months, collided with a car parked on a pavement, and that 32% feel less confident about going out. If we are in public policy and public affairs to increase social mobility and inclusion, and to build communities up, there would seem to be merit in trying to encourage people of limited ability to get involved and to do things. That is why I am bringing forward the Bill.

Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), as well as helping the blind, the visually impaired, the disabled and parents with young children, I think of children taking their first independent steps when they hit the age of 10, 11 or 12, and are walking to school with an older brother or sister. It is highly dangerous for them, on some occasions, to have to walk into the carriageway. That is a danger not just to those pedestrians, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am not sure when you appeared, Mr Deputy Speaker; I think I might have referred to you as Madam Deputy Speaker a moment or so ago, in which case I apologise—but to motorists who might suddenly find they have to swerve.

The key point I want to make in my opening remarks is that the Bill is not anti-car or anti-motorist. My wife and I own a car each. I represent a rural constituency of 400 square miles. Without a motorcar, there is no way I could serve my constituents. Without a motorcar, there is no way we could take our children to school five or six miles away from where we live. This proposal is not anti-motorist; it is about fairness and proportion.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

There is also a safety aspect involved for motorists trying to pull out of their own driveways who find their view obstructed by cars parked on the pavement. In my surgeries, and, I imagine, in the surgeries of many hon. Members, we often come across people who have encountered a serious accident or great inconvenience from such an occurrence.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. A lot of evidence has been presented to me from people around the country—not just my constituency—who have opened their front door and, rather expecting Jeremy Beadle to jump out, found the side of a white van parked so close to their front door that they have barely been able to get on to their front step.

My hon. Friend leads me to the point made by the Treasury Bench—I will come on to the Treasury Bench in a moment or two—that there are already rules and regulations to cover this arena of public life. However, they are desperately confusing. For example, it is an offence to park on a pavement, but according to local councils that is a matter for the police to enforce. It is a criminal offence, not a civil offence. The guidance in the Act that makes it a criminal offence refers, however, to wilful negligence. Now, it is quite hard, even for learned counsel such as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), always to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that parking has been wilful or negligent.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I have a great deal of sympathy for what my hon. Friend is trying to achieve, but can he explain how it will work in practice? Clause 1 states that a person who parks on a pavement or a footway in an urban environment is guilty of a civil offence, but what can they do if they live on a very narrow road with no off-street parking? If they do not park partly on the pavement or footway, they are obstructing the road. I am sure my hon. Friend can deal with this point, but it is a serious one that needs addressing.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bill was introduced by a former hon. Member for Cheltenham in an earlier Parliament, but it was not debated. We have taken it on and amended it. This will not be a blanket ban for pavement parking. In medieval or older town and city centres with Victorian terraces and the like, popular ownership of the motorcar was never envisaged. To make the carriageways wide enough for emergency vehicles, bin lorries and other large vehicles, it is important to ensure a balance is struck between allowing the free movement of vehicles and securing the free movement of pedestrians.

The major difference in the Bill is that clause 3 sets aside specific provision for the Secretary of State for Transport to provide regulations and guidance to local authorities about who to consult—who are statutory consultees—and how to consult before it is introduced. It is not a blanket ban and nor is it an automatic obligation for local authorities to make use of the purposes set out. It will be up to the local authority, working in concert with local councillors, communities, freight transport associations, road haulage associations and the emergency services, to decide precisely where it is either appropriate or inappropriate to permit or to prohibit the parking of motorcars on pavements. This is not the dead hand of the state. This is not a licence for pettifogging officialdom, and nor is it a cash cow for local authorities to try to get in a bit of extra revenue. It will be proportionate and it will be sensible.

One thing I did not know—I am pretty certain that hon. Members know this, but it was a gap in my knowledge—is that organisations such as the RNIB and Guide Dogs will offer a service to people in all our communities to devise a safe and secure route to the shops, to work, to church, to school or to wherever. If, post consultation, and on the presumption that a local authority has decided to avail itself of the powers in the Bill, the trigger is that it would mark out in some way—through signage, line painting or whatever—where pavement parking is permitted, de facto, and anything not marked would not be allowed. It would allow the good folk at the RNIB, Guide Dogs and other charities to devise routes to give people certainty that when walking from A to B they will not meet a parked car. I hope that addresses my hon. Friend’s important point.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Is it not important to empower our councils to make decisions in accordance with their own landscapes? I, for example, have a medieval walled city in Berwick and a cobbled town in Alnwick. Interesting work has been done in many French towns. In some, parking is permitted on one side of the street for two weeks in the month, and then for two weeks on the other side, which means that emergency vehicles can always get through. The communities have adapted, there is a rigour to it and people do not break the rules because they understand that they support the flow of everyone who needs to use the pavements and roads.

[Simon Hoare]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend, who has given me an awful lot of support on the Bill and is a huge supporter of Guide Dogs. She makes her point well. Through local consultation and accommodation, these things can be resolved so that nobody is disadvantaged and social inclusion and mobility can be put at the heart of everything we do.

It might be helpful if I mention some of the organisations supporting the Bill: Guide Dogs; the Local Government Association, which is fed up with all the conflicting guidance from different Departments and geographically narrow traffic regulation orders, which cost between £3,000 and £3,500 but which are not really doing the job; the British Parking Association—it might just be a drive to get more customers into its car parks; the Campaign for Better Transport; Age UK; Living Streets; the National Association of Local Councils; Whizz-Kidz; the RNIB; Sense; Civic Voice; Cabe Design Council; Keep Britain Tidy; Transport for All; the Macular Society; the National Pensioners Convention; the National Federation of Occupational Pensioners; Deafblind UK; and SeeAbility. That level of support, from organisations that have thought about the Bill and decided to support it, indicates the wide range of potential beneficiaries.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, who kindly sponsored the Bill with me some months ago.

[Bob Stewart]

I rise as a sinner. I am guilty. I have been brought before the beak and charged £60 for parking outside my house in Kingston. I was guilty. I hope that the Bill, which I sponsored, will pass, so that I will know in future, from road signs, that I should not park outside my house.

[Simon Hoare]

Heaven rejoices when a sinner repenteth. I am certain that my hon. Friend’s confession, in perhaps the most public place to make a confession, will have the angels tuning their harps even as we speak.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

It is not another confession, is it?

[Kevin Foster]

No, thankfully not. Does my hon. Friend agree that the intervention from our hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) raises an important point about the confusion in the current legislation? In my constituency and that of my hon. Friend, there is one set of parking legislation, which is hard to enforce, even where communities have chosen to ban it, while in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), there applies the sort of legislation we are trying to introduce here. Would it not be fairer to motorists and communities to have consistency across England?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know that almost identical provisions have existed in London since 1974. I am advised that the London boroughs association would go to hell kicking and screaming if anyone proposed any relaxation or change to the parking guidance that has served London and her boroughs so well all these years.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill might raise expectations that cannot be realised? For example, Dorset county council says it cannot afford to fund a 20 mph speed limit outside Twynham school on Sopers lane, where a student was knocked down and injured on a pedestrian crossing earlier this year. If it cannot even afford that, how will it afford to implement the complicated measures in the Bill?

[Simon Hoare]

I disagree with my hon. Friend that these are complicated proposals; I think they are anything but complicated. As we all know, local authorities choose to prioritise different areas, and we are both lucky enough to reside in and represent constituencies in the area of a finely run and Conservative-controlled county council.

I return, however, to the point made by our hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). It would be up to local authorities whether to use the legislation. If they decided not to, for cash, political or ideological reasons, there would be no obligation on them so to do, and they would continue to rely on the police—or police community support officers, if they so wished—to treat the matter as a criminal offence and to issue tickets and fines through that process. That is the important point. This is not a coercive Bill; it seeks to address, in a pragmatic and sensible way, an issue that is recognised by many people in this House and the organisations I listed earlier.

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for introducing the Bill and all those, including my constituents in Kingston and Surbiton who have long campaigned for this measure—

[James Berry]

I know. I am glad to see my hon. Friend’s parking fines going towards reducing our council tax bills. Will my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) confirm that the Bill reaches a sensible accommodation between motorists and the long list of organisations he mentioned, and, more importantly, a localised accommodation that could, if done properly, be right for all areas of the country?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A local authority could decide to deal with the matter on a ward-by-ward basis. It could run pilots. It is an iterative, organic process, not a fixed one. I will leave him and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) to sort out the repayment of the fine.

I know that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but I think these are powerful: 97% of blind or partially sighted people have encountered problems with general street obstructions, and 90% of them have experienced direct trouble from a parked car. I have been sent a vast number of photographs—it goes to show, particularly after this week, that social media can actually be social—of vulnerable and elderly people, mothers and disabled people walking into busy carriageways to get around parked cars. I had an email from a lady who was in a mobility scooter who literally got stuck: there was one van parked in front of her and, before she realised it, another behind her. There was no dropped kerb, and she sat there for an hour and a half, because although she could just about bounce her vehicle down the kerb, there was no guarantee she would be able to bounce it back up on the other side. I say in all common decency, and as a motorist myself, that if only a little extra thought was given to these matters, legislation probably would not be required, but we are all too much like St Augustine, and therefore we often err where we should not.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this problem is particularly acute on pavements around schools, especially primary schools, where obstructed pavements not only force buggies into the road but obstruct pedestrians’ view and prevent them from crossing safely?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and as this debate continues the clear and tangible benefits are seen to be ever wider and ever clearer.

I turn now to the discussions I have had with the Department for Transport since we published the Bill. I do not think this is always the case with Departments and private Members’ legislation, but I want to put it on record that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), have been phenomenally helpful and courteous to me. That may come as a unique note in the Official Report. I also want to put on record my debt of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is a huge supporter of Guide Dogs and who advised me as a new and rather wet-behind-the-ears Member of this House on how best to proceed if there was not a mutual meeting of minds between me as the promoter of the Bill and the Department affected—in this case the Department for Transport, as the Bill would amend the Road Traffic Act 1988.

It is unfortunate that a meeting of minds has not been achievable during those discussions. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough has convinced me of both his sincerity in dealing with the issue and, in general terms, his firm and clear commitment to improving the rights of the disabled and the vulnerable with regard to transport and mobility. It was on that basis, following a conversation with my hon. Friend the Minister, that I wrote to him on 26 November setting out what I thought was a good proposal to move forward if, even in the dying days of our discussions, a meeting of minds was not achievable.

I have set out to the Minister that a round table discussion would be convened by the Department early in 2016, to be attended by organisations such as Guide Dogs, the Local Government Association, Living Streets, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and myself, to discuss the concerns that triggered the Bill and the current situation. The Department has agreed to sponsor evidence-gathering to provide a sound basis on which to determine how best to proceed in addressing the issue, either by legislation or regulation. That would be undertaken at the expense of the Department for Transport. Following the commissioning of that evidence-based research and greater clarity on what I believe to be clear already—that the situation is a little hazy and the rules a little confusing and conflicting, although, as I have said, we have been unable to achieve a meeting of minds—that initial round table would convene to chew over the findings of the research and plot a way forward.

On 1 December, my hon. Friend the Minister replied to me to say:

“However, improving access for disabled people is a key priority for me and I would like to thank you and Guide Dogs for raising this issue. Although Government cannot support your Bill, I am prepared to convene a round table next year to discuss this issue and envisage that it might include”—

I have mentioned some of those involved—

“to inform the questions we will consider in the research. After which, and in the next financial year, I am also content for my Department to undertake some work to examine more closely the legal and financial implications of an alternative regime and the likely impacts on local authorities. I would also be content to report back to the round table on the outcome of that work.”

There are two ways, as I understand it, to try to achieve progress on what I think is seen collectively across the House as an important issue. One way is to ram our heads against the wall, to find ourselves faced with the overpowering might of the Executive and the Treasury Bench, and to come away with a headache and a badge that says, “A1 for endeavour, gamma minus for success”. The other way—this was the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, for which I am again grateful—is to sit down with the Department. Predicated on the seriousness with which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough has been dealing with this and the assurances he has given, that has certainly given me food for thought.

In the time remaining, I would be very interested to hear—obviously at your discretion, Mr Deputy Speaker—the views and considerations of colleagues on both sides of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to the Members on both sides of the House who have participated in the debate. I am particularly grateful for the support from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh), given that, before entering the House, he was the leader of Northampton Borough Council.

Let me say to the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) that I am, at this stage, content to accept the assurances of the Department and the Minister. However, she should rest assured, as should the organisations who have signalled support for the Bill, that I—along with, I believe, colleagues in the House—will be holding the Department’s toes to the fire next year in order to make progress.

I am afraid that I neglected earlier to include my thanks to Fergus Reid, Clerk of Private Members’ Bills, who has been incredibly helpful to me.

People often wonder why a Member has introduced a Bill. I shall let the House into a little secret, with apologies to the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), who has heard this one before. In the last month, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) has received the birth certificate of a guide-dog puppy, which has been named after him. I thought that calling a dog Andrew was rather sweet. In actual fact, they have called it “Jones”. I was rather hoping that if we make some progress on this, the Guide Dogs might name a dog after me, because I rather look forward to its owner shouting across a crowded playing-field, “Hoare.”

I should also report the thanks of my three daughters, Imogen, Jessica and Laura, who I do not think ever thought they would get so many mentions in the House on a Friday morning.

Based on the assurances and undertakings I have had both in writing and in person from my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and his colleague, all of which underline the point of the complexity local authorities face in this area, I propose to withdraw the Bill and therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill withdrawn.