PROHIBITION OF DRIVING OR PARKING ON CYCLE TRACKS (Hansard, 6 July 1984)

§ Mr. Cecil Franks (Barrow and Furness)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)
With this we may take Lords amendment No. 2.

§ Mr. Franks
Consideration of the clause in another place showed that the drafting needed to be improved. The clause as drafted made it an offence to park or drive any motor vehicle wholly or partly on a cycle track. Various defences are specified, including, in subsection (4), the defence that the motor vehicle is being driven on a cycle track when that is the only practicable way of obtaining vehicle access to or egress from any premises.
The effect of the clause overall would be to take away without compensation any existing lawful authority that a person may have to drive a motor vehicle on a cycle track to gain access to premises if there is another reasonably practicable means of gaining vehicle access to them. Clearly this is wrong. The amendment ensures that where a person has lawful authority to drive or park on a cycle track he will be able to continue that use without committing the offence specified in subsection (1).
It may help the House if I give one brief illustration of the difficulties that would be encountered without the amendment. If a house owner has two means of access to his property, one at the front and one at the rear, and one of those means of vehicle access is denied because of the construction of a cycle track, that person will no longer be able to use that means of access so converted to a cycle track by virtue of there being an alternative means of access. That denial of access without compensation is not in our minds and is not acceptable.
Subsection (4) gives a defence if a person is driving on a cycle track as the sole reasonably practicable means of obtaining vehicle access or egress from premises, even though he may have no lawful authority so to use the cycle track. It is clearly wrong to appear to condone any unlawful driving of a motor vehicle on a cycle track. In deleting subsection (4) we are not taking away anyone's lawful authority to use a cycle track. That authority is protected by the amendment to subsection (1). We are ensuring that there is no defence that can be held to condone the unlawful use of a cycle track.
Again, it may be helpful to the House if I give it a rather extreme example. Let us say that a burglar is driving along a cycle track en route to his intended victim. He would not be committing an offence as the Bill is currently drafted, but clearly he would have no lawful authority to be on the cycle track. That is an extreme example, but it illustrates the loophole which has been filled by the amendment.

§ The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mrs. Lynda Chalker)
It is right for me to say that the Government welcome and support the amendment. However thorough we were in our drafting of the Bill 626 originally and in our discussions in this place, this point has been well taken by our noble Friends in another place. I am grateful to Lord Gisborough for the attention that he paid to the matter, which resulted in the amendment.
There is no doubt that the amendment is the best way to tackle what would otherwise have been a small but none the less negative aspect of what has otherwise been an extremely positive Bill. I hope that the House will agree with the Lords amendment.

§ Mr. John Prescott (Kingston upon Hull, East)
The Opposition fully support the Bill and the purpose of the amendment. There is no reason to detain the House any longer, except to wish the Bill well.