argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
James Michael Ellwood Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
David James Mackintosh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very pleased to be speaking on this topic because, like my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), whom I thank for bringing it to the House, a couple of months ago I was invited to take part in a walk where I was blindfolded, given a white stick and led by a guide dog around Northampton market square. It was a route I have taken throughout my life, but it was a real education to do it without the sight that I have become so used to throughout my life and which we all take for granted I depended very much on the dog that was guiding me around the market square, but I had not appreciated how different everything around me would be—the cobbles on the pavement beneath me and the cars that were parked, frankly, where they should not have been, which would not have mattered had I been able to see. I was grateful to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in Northampton and the Northamptonshire Association for the Blind for giving me that opportunity As someone with a background in local government, I know that issues to do with parking, pavements and cars are often brought to us. It is difficult to see how we can make certain changes, because lots of residents want to have access to cars, parking and their homes, as we have heard. However, this does need to be looked at. I am glad to hear that it is being taken seriously by the Department for Transport; I am grateful for the update provided on the round table next year; and I look forward to seeing further developments.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) on bringing forward this Bill to deal with an issue that should have been addressed sooner. It is right to harmonise across the country the arrangements and enforcement policies that have been in place in Greater London for a very long time Every council and every individual sees the abuses of pavement parking on a daily basis. It can be very costly: pavements can crack when cars go on to pavements; the dropped stone kerbs and footings on the pavements can be damaged; and even landscaped areas can be damaged, which has not been mentioned so far How can we police this in the future? A reasonable form of future policing would involve something along the same lines as a parking ticket. Provision would need to be built into the new laws that enforcement is not fielded out to these ANPR—automatic number plate recognition—processing companies, because those cowboys will move on straightaway to find another little loophole that they can exploit to the hilt.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
Robert Goodwill (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me provide some clarification. It has been stated that parking on the pavement is a criminal offence. If a council uses its powers to ban pavement parking on particular streets, it can be enforced by those councils if they have civil enforcement powers. About 95% of local authorities do have those civil enforcement powers.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that interjection. He is correct in everything he says, but these powers are very costly. Their enforcement can range from £1,000 to £3,000, so we need to look at finding a means of enforcement on a cheaper scale, as well as on a fairer scale. I believe that any legislation to address this problem should exempt councils from bringing in these "spy-in-the-sky" companies, which would cause not only more problems for individuals, but an absolute headache for any legislative process that we introduce I have nothing more to say other than to wish my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset well and to thank the Minister for listening to parking issues not only on this occasion, but many times in the past.
Pavement Parking (Protection of Vulnerable Pedestrians) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Transportation
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): Obviously legislation and regulations already exist to prevent pavement parking, but the process is very costly. Is there any way in which we could amend the offence to make it cheaper for councils to act accordingly?
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend my hon. Friend on his choice of Bill. Is he aware of the words of Richard Foster, chairman of the CCRC, to the Justice Committee, who said: "you can be confident that there are miscarriages of justice that have gone unremedied because of the lack of that power" Does my hon. Friend agree?
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill. As I understand it, the Bill would bring the private evidence position of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England and Wales into line with the position in Scotland. Would he like to reflect on that?
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
William Peter Wragg (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is correct. The equivalent body in Scotland has the full powers to subpoena private evidence, whereas the CCRC does not have those powers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That might have been an oversight in the 1995 Act, but he is right to make that point at this juncture The subject of the Bill hinges on what are commonly referred to as section 17 powers. Currently, section 17 of the 1995 Act gives the CCRC the power to require public bodies and those serving in them to give the commission documents or other material that may assist it in discharging its functions. That includes police, local councils, the NHS, the Prison Service and so on. It should be clear how all such bodies could and do serve as vital sources of evidence in such appeal cases. As I said to my hon. Friend, the CCRC currently does not have equivalent powers to get those materials from private organisations and individuals. The Bill contains provisions that would allow the CCRC to do so The House should be aware that the current working arrangements and effectiveness of the CCRC were the subject of a dedicated inquiry by the Justice Committee in the previous Session, as my hon. Friend mentioned. The impetus behind the legislation comes directly from recommendations of the Committee’s report from the inquiry, which was published in March 2015. I am grateful to have the support of several current and previous members of the Justice Committee. The Committee’s thorough inquiry ran for two months and collected evidence from legal academics and others.
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend mentions the Justice Committee. Is he aware of comments of the former Chair of the Committee, Sir Alan Beith, who said: "There has been a failure by successive Governments to grant the CCRC an obvious and much-needed power to require private bodies to disclose documents to it…We could see no good reason as to why it has not been introduced, considering it has universal support"?
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
William Peter Wragg (Conservative, Centre-right): The key safeguard is the fact that there must be a court order, with that judicial oversight. That should give assurance to all Members of this House that the appropriate safeguards are in place in the Bill.
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
James Michael Ellwood Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): The rule of law is the bedrock of our society. Relied on at home and aspired to abroad, it is one of the things that defines what it is to live in this great country: to be free under the law. But even in the UK the rule of law can be undermined, and the principal way in which that can happen is through miscarriages of justice. The most famous among them trip off the tongue of any student of criminal law: the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven and Judith Ward. It is inevitable in a justice system that relies on humans—police officers, prosecutors, judges and juries—that human error and improper motive will creep in. Thankfully, that is rare, but the risk cannot be eliminated in every case We maintain the integrity of the justice system as a whole by having a robust system for dealing with miscarriages of justice. There can be no doubt that our Criminal Cases Review Commission does vital work, but it needs tools to do its job, key among which is the power to obtain disclosure. Under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the commission has the power of disclosure against public bodies. The Bill seeks a modest extension of that power to private bodies and individuals. Quite why private bodies and individuals were not included in section 17 is a mystery. Even to the extent that there were ever a justification for that limitation, it has long ceased to hold good. The exclusion of private bodies is an anomaly that is neither justified nor justifiable today. The Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) provides a modest extension to end that anomaly and make sure that the CCRC can, with the consent of a Crown court judge, obtain all the disclosure it needs. The absence of that power is no imagined difficulty. The briefing note provided by the commission for this debate gives a number of examples of situations where it has not been able to obtain disclosure, and a number of examples of private organisations that it would wish at times to obtain disclosures from. Banks, shops, news agencies, private health clinics, charities, campaign groups and law firms are all private bodies.
Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
James Michael Ellwood Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right. The knowledge that the CCRC will obtain a court order if a request for voluntary disclosure is refused will certainly provide encouragement where needed. All the private bodies I have listed may have that one piece of information that will establish that someone serving a prison sentence has been wrongly convicted. The chairman of the CCRC himself has said that "you can be confident that there are miscarriages of justice that have gone unremedied because of the lack of that power" to obtain disclosure from private bodies. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove has promoted this Bill to end that unacceptable situation and I thank him for doing so. The Bill deserves the unanimous support of this House.