Parking (Code of Practice) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-23
Topic: Transportation
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I understand totally the frustration felt by the hon. Gentleman’s constituents who have to park in Perth city centre. I hope that we will both see the amount of correspondence we receive in our mailbags on this issue decrease significantly as a result of the Bill Another frustration is that Smart Parking is singularly unresponsive. It does not reply to representations from Members of Parliament or have meetings with us. It does not even start to engage with some of the difficulties we identify with its operation. I wish to commend The Courier newspaper in Perthshire for the campaign it has mounted about the situation. One of the reasons I am down here today as the Member of Parliament is the very fine work that The Courier has done on the situation right across Perthshire. I congratulate it on that The Bill means that these companies will no longer be able to get away with that type of behaviour. The days when they could distribute fines like confetti, and when they could confuse and frustrate our constituents with their so-called smart technology and poor signage in order to harvest fines, are coming to an end. The Bill is evidently necessary, because self-regulation has been a resolute failure. The toothless regulators, such as the British Parking Association, are singularly incapable of dealing with the sharper practices of the rogue operators The British Parking Association actually lists some of the operators as its members. I had a meeting with it this week, and it gave me a copy of its magazine, which includes a list of all its members, and who should be listed there, in bold letters? It was Smart Parking. The BPA does not have the ability to regulate these companies and has shown no sign whatsoever that it is trying to get on top of some of the sharper practices. The BPA gives a veneer of legitimacy to some of the more outlandish rogue operators by including them in their membership, allowing them to continue to operate. The Bill will oblige operators such as Smart Parking to amend their practices I want to mention another practice that I have observed in a retail park in my constituency—this is actually worse than Smart Parking. Two private parking companies operate one huge car park at St Catherine’s retail park in Perth. One company circled the car park with signs telling motorists that, if they had the temerity to leave the part of the retail park where they had used a parking space to access shops in other parts of it, they would be fined. It did that, and it actually took photographs of people leaving their car and going into other parts of the retail park where the facilities are covered by another parking operator. That is what it did, and this is the extent to which some of these private parking operators work. It is not good enough, and it has to end I want to say to the Minister that I think what he is doing is fantastic. I have seen some of the details he is going to put into the code of practice and I think they are fantastic. I congratulate him on taking the maximalist approach. I think the Government will approach this by ensuring they will do the utmost they can to protect the motorist from this type of practice. They will put in place a set of regulations that will ensure the best result we can get when it comes to these things Among the things I want to make a plea for including in the code of practice—given what I have heard from the Minister, I am pretty certain that he will be looking at them—are equipment and technology. We have to make sure that we get the signage absolutely right and that surface markings are clearly identified and regulated properly. There should be clear and accessible displays of the terms and conditions of the car park. We have already heard examples of when that does not actually work. I know that the Government are looking at consideration periods to allow motorists sufficient time to decide whether they would like to park, and grace periods to allow motorists time to pay and leave the car park. All of this would make a real difference to the parking arrangements in our cities and town I believe these parking companies intentionally deploy poor signage. The fact that motorists can be fined simply for entering a car park to look for a space is simply and clearly unacceptable. One of the car parking operators in my constituency actually fines people for entering a zero instead of the letter o. Apparently, the smart technology cannot cater for that, but the operator takes no recognition of that when people appeal on such a basis Another of my pleas to be included in the code—the Minister may be able to help us with this one—is capping fines, a feature that I think we all agree must happen. The fact that someone can be fined £140, £160 or £180 for parking a car is simply and utterly absurd. I think, and I hope, that this will be addressed. My suggestion is that fines or parking charge notices in private car parks should be no more than those of the local authority. I think it is fair that there is a uniform cost that people pay in any city or town across the country, and I am pretty certain that we will get to such a place I know the Government’s intention is to ensure that what are called PCNs will no longer be able to look like fines from the local authority, and that is really important. Will the Minister tell us how this will be done and how he intends to ensure that that happens? Parking companies have to get away from this confusion with local authority penalty charge notices, and they must do so without using the threatening and intimidating language on these tickets What I would like to see on such tickets is the full legal basis on which they can be distributed. As the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said, this is a contractual arrangement, so they are not fines. If the private parking company is to pursue such a case, it has to take it to the civil court to demonstrate clearly that the motorist has breached the terms and conditions of using the private car park. That should be mentioned on the parking ticket, as issued by the private operator. I think that would be fair.