COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 31 July 1968)

§ LORD BESWICK
My Lords, I beg to move that this House cloth agree, with the Commons in their Amendment No. 10. This is a very formidable-looking Amendment. It gives powers to the British Airports Authority to deal with vehicles abandoned at aerodromes in the same way as the local authorities can now deal with abandoned vehicles under the Civic Amenities Act 1967 and under Sections 20, 52 and 53 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967. There is sufficient evidence to indicate that there is such a problem on the airports, and again especially at Heathrow, and I should have thought it would be useful for the Airports Authority to have these powers. I beg to move.

§ THE EARL OF KINNOULL
My Lords, I am grateful again to the noble Lord for explaining yet another new clause. I am sure we generally welcome these new powers to allow the Authority to carry out their duties, but there are just one or two questions that I should like to put to the noble Lord. First, I wonder whether he can explain—again this is for information purposes—how big a problem is posed by these abandoned vehicles at London Airport. Secondly, can he give further guidance on the definition of the word abandoned"? 367 is particularly important in the case of the multi-storey car park which this clause is intended to cover. One can understand a case where a pilot, or a crew member, or a member of the public, goes abroad and, either through illness or some other reason is delayed, with the result that his car is left in the multistorey car park for some time. One wonders whether such people will find their cars still at the car park when they get back. There is also the question of a person who dies while abroad, and of the executor who may be delayed in obtaining letters of administration and—indeed, may not even know that the car is in the car park. I think the definition of the word "abandoned" is very important, and I hope that the noble Lord can give us some explanation.

§ LORD BESWICK
My Lords, the noble Lord asks about the size of the problem. I am afraid that I cannot give him any figures. I know from past experience that it is surprising how many people take a car to one of the car parks and forget all about it. All I can say, in answer to the noble Earl's question, is that the Airports Authority have been able to convince the President of the Board of Trade that there is a problem here and that they require powers to be able to deal with it satisfactorily.
The noble Earl has made some cogent points about the safeguards here, and clearly there must be safeguards. But all that is being done here is to give the Airports Authority the same kind of powers as are now vested in local authorities; and as the noble Earl and the House will know, there are a number of safeguards about the necessity of giving notice before the vehicle is moved. These will apply in this case. I think I can give the noble Earl the assurance that, although one can visualise difficulties, such as people going abroad and, as the result of subsequent events, leaving a motor car in the park, the provisions in Section 20 of the 1967 Act and Sections 20, 52 and 53 of the Road Traffic Act 1967 will give the kind of safeguards for which the noble Earl is asking.