Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment has been made of the adequacy of the compliance of private parking companies using contract breach terms to apply a penalty when there is no option for the driver to decline to enter into the contact, for instance where signage setting out contract terms is only placed within an area where charges are automatically applied on entry.

Private parking operators are regulated through their membership of the two main trade associations. These are the British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC). The BPA and IPC have launched a single industry Code of Practice which their members must follow. The industry Code of Practice requires private parking operators to provide a consideration period to allow a motorist the time to read the terms and conditions and decide whether to accept or reject them before a parking charge can be issued. The industry consideration periods vary from 1 minute to 10 minutes depending on the size of car park. The trade associations currently monitor compliance with its Code of Practice.

The Government is determined to drive up standards in the private parking sector. The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. My department recently ran a consultation outlining its proposals to raise standards across the private parking sector (available from gov.uk here). The consultation included proposals for a minimum consideration period of 5 minutes to be included in the new Government Code of Practice. All responses are now being analysed and the Government will publish a response, together with the new code, in due course.

Our consultation proposed that compliance with the Government Code of Practice would be monitored by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies, who would report compliance figures to the Government.