HL Deb 16 June 1986 vol 476 cc654-9

7.3 p.m.

Lord Dean of Beswick

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

First of all, perhaps I may pay tribute to my friend and colleague in another place, the honourable Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, North, Mr. Kevin McNamara, who chose this subject as his Private Member's Bill and piloted it through another place. Noble Lords will probably be aware that this is the second Bill I have dealt with in this Session. I hope that it will not become too much of a habit.

The Bill is relatively modest but is important and has two main aims. I shall do my best to explain what they are. First, there is at present confusion whether it is legal in areas of permit parking for the local authority to charge or not to charge and to have a variable scheme. Clause 1 will give the local authority flexibility in this matter. This is an important measure for areas such as the seaside and other areas which are or can be heavily congested for brief periods during the day where the local authority seeks the power to protect its residents but at the same time to facilitate parking for visitors to the area. The Bill will give the local authority power to charge or not to charge residents, non-residents, permit holders and non-permit holders. This practice will allow the local authority to gauge its needs for its own area.

The second aim is probably more interesting and may be deemed to be more important. It deals with metering devices to be used in arranging car parking. There are three aspects concerned: in-car parking discs, parking meters and parking meters without clocks. The legislation in being at present is somewhat confused and the Bill seeks merely to clear up the principles. Basically it means that there can be in-car parking devices for charge or rent which are costed, and this will be made legal. This will be important in areas of natural and outstanding beauty where it would be an advantage to control and charge for parking but where the public or people do not want to clutter up a good view by indiscriminate parking. It could also affect such places as a cathedral or church close or other parts of our heritage. Therefore the Bill will make it legal to have these in-car parking meters, with which a number of companies in conjunction with local authorities are now experimenting.

The meters already being used in various parts of this country are technically far superior to the outmoded ones we are currently using. There is also an export potential for this type of equipment. They are difficult to misuse. The last part of the Bill allows for people who abuse the meters to be dealt with.

I have no wish to detain your Lordships any longer. I have tried to explain what are the objectives of the Bill. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Dean of Beswick.)

7.7 p.m.

Lord Brougham and Vaux

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for introducing this Bill to your Lordships this evening and for explaining it to us. Unlike the Public Order Bill which your Lordships debated last Friday and which had a marathon 80 hours in Committee in another place, this small but important Bill went through all its stages in 12 minutes. At Third Reading there were two speeches.

I very much like the idea of a parking meter in which one can insert a card and buy parking time, in the same way as one can buy telephone time with a British Telecom phonecard. This Bill will allow for that and one will not have to worry about having the right change or the right kind of coins. The other day I happened to turn on the television to watch the six o-clock news. It showed, albeit briefly, the kind of parking meters which are undergoing trials in the Midlands. I was quite impressed by what I saw.

This Bill would also allow for a prepaid parking device to be displayed in the vehicle, which to my mind would be even better as we could then do away with all the lines of rather unsightly meters that we see on the pavements. I have one question to ask my noble friend the Minister. Will BSI standards be approved and will they apply to card and token operated parking machinery? I welcome this Bill and I hope that it goes through quickly.

7.10 p.m.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister and to my noble friend for rising in the gap on the list of speakers to take up just a minute or two of your Lordships' time. It was only today that my attention was drawn to some aspects of the Bill by the Association of London Authorities. I happen to be its president and therefore declare that tangential interest in the matter. The association drew my attention to the Bill and asked me to deal with one or two aspects not of car parking in general but of the use of meters in the environs of London.

My noble friend Lord Dean quite properly referred to two or three scenarios in which improved metering facilities and improved meters could be of benefit to the community. If I heard him right, he mentioned seaside towns, areas of natural beauty, cathedral closes and so on. The problem that besets many London authorities is born out of the desperate shortage of traffic wardens to police or to monitor effectively the use of meters by the public. I have been told that in the heavily congested streets of London a motorist will park at a meter, pay the money and, because of the shortage of traffic wardens, nine times out of 10—I asked whether nine times out of 10 is correct and was told it is—will be lucky enough not to be caught if he stays after the time has expired. In other words, he will get away with it. That is not only unfair to drivers in the rest of the community who may well be searching and searching for a proper place to park while someone who has paid only the basic charge gets away Scot free; it also means that income is lost.

I am told that at least two London boroughs—one is Islington and the other is Kingston-upon-Thames—have begun to employ people called meter attendants. Their function is to police or monitor areas where there are a large number of street meters and to observe, perhaps a little more diligently than even the traffic wardens are able to do because they are overstretched. Where they come across a meter where the excess period has begun to run—that is, after two hours—they are, I am told, legally empowered to serve on the motorist a notice for the excess period; not the penalty period which comes after the excess period.

The Minister may not be able to give me full details tonight, in which case perhaps he will write to me, but can he tell the House whether this situation is being taken seriously and urgently by his department? I am told, for instance, that last year the Select Committee on Transport reported that the minimum number of traffic wardens that ought to be employed in London is 4,000, but there are only 1,800. If the reason for there being only 1,800 when 4,000 are needed relates to budgets and staffing totals, and, in effect, Government policy of one kind or another, the Government can do much to make sure that the people who are not using but are abusing meters are brought to book.

Secondly, can the Minister tell the House whether there are discussions, and at what level, between the London authorities? I am told that there is no political animus involved, and I have mentioned two authorities which, because the situation was desperate, decided to take the action that I have described. I think it is fair. I think that many people who ought to pay are getting away with not paying. We are talking about deterrents. We want people not only to pay the proper charge; we also want them to be deterred from not paying. Unfortunately, the present under-staffed traffic warden system enables these people to get away with a great deal. Therefore, I hope the Minister will be able to tell me today, or later, that he shares the concern of all London authorities, whatever their political persuasion, to improve the quality of life, the quality of road safety and the quality of the environment for the people who live, work and travel in their boroughs.

7.14 p.m.

Lord Underhill

My Lords, it would be wrong if in the debate on a useful Bill of this nature a few words were not said from the Official Opposition. The proposal on new metering devices is, I believe, a useful part of the Bill, though frankly I do not regard it as the most important part. I am reminded of a recent occasion when I went to a Tube station in a neighbouring London borough—I live just over the London borough border—where after a certain number of hours the parking charge is £1 but the meters take only 10p pieces. Your Lordships can imagine the complete hullabaloo and dislocation that occurs with people rushing around all trying to find 10 10p pieces. I wonder how many noble Lords have in their pockets 10 10p pieces with which to meet that situation.

My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton raised an additional point which I believe should be carefully looked at. I hope that the Minister can say whether the warden numbers in London are up to strength and what is the general position elsewhere. Once again I remind your Lordships that I live in a county district just over the Greater London border but within the Metropolitan Police area. In that district is a very large shoppers' car park, with no charge at all, and yet there is parking on yellow lines along the main road with two lines of traffic. There are no wardens. Whether that is due to Metropolitan Police policy or to difficulty in getting wardens, I do not know. This is in the Epping Forest district and perhaps the noble Earl will look into it.

The other important point is that the Bill clears what is a grey area in permit parking areas. The Bill enables a local authority to adopt flexibility in this matter, striking a balance between residents and visitors according to how it sees its own needs. An important part of the Bill allows for shared parking at different times of the day according to the needs of the area.

My noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick should be thanked for bringing forward the Bill. I echo what he said in congratulating Mr. Kevin McNamara, the honourable Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, North, on bringing forward the Bill in another place. I believe that the Bill has the full support of the Government and the department and I hope that it will have a speedy passage through your Lordships' House.

7.17 p.m.

The Earl of Caithness

My Lords, we, too, are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for the very succinct way in which he introduced the Bill. As he said, this is a Bill which deals with detailed matters, but it is nonetheless welcome for that. The Bill provides useful additional flexibility to both local authorities and manufacturers of parking apparatus and I am sure that it will be welcomed by them. It will have the added benefit, I believe, of reducing crime associated with the present equipment. Furthermore, the new equipment that the Bill permits will help to increase the efficiency of the operation of parking schemes.

With the leave of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, I shall answer a couple of points on his Bill that were put to me directly. My noble friend Lord Brougham and Vaux asked about British standards. I can tell him that the British Standards Institution is working on standards for different types of new equipment, including electronic parking meters and pay-and-display machines. It is also studying cashless systems. The Department of Transport hopes to adopt these standards in due course. In the meantime my department will ensure, in granting special approvals for equipment, that appropriate consultations with the motoring organisations are carried out. But to make compliance with BSI standards a requirement in all cases would, I believe, be inflexible and would prevent useful small-scale experiments which might be helpful in the preparation of countrywide standards.

With due respect, I think the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, went a little wide of the Bill, but I shall look into the points he raised with regard to the enforcement of meter schemes and the shortage of traffic wardens. One thought that struck me was that if nine out of 10 motorists get away with it, I must have been frightfully unlucky, or else the one out of 10 cases came round a lot more quickly than I anticipated. But I can assure the noble Lord that the Government take the problem of meter abuse very seriously. I can tell him that in October the Government will be introducing the extended, fixed penalty system under which unpaid penalties are converted into fines with a 50 per cent. surcharge, and that this summer the metropolitan police are also introducing contracted-out clamping and removals in central London, which should help enforcement.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, I am more than grateful and understand the problem, but I should be grateful if the Minister would give the assurance that if the Association of London Authorities feel that it has a useful contribution to make in dealing with this problem then he and his colleagues will be happy to meet the association to discuss these problems.

The Earl of Caithness

I go further than that, my Lords. I welcome anybody who has a contribution to make to any of the existing or proposed legislation. Of course I shall look into that particular point for the noble Lord. I think that comment, too, covers some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, raised, and I shall also write to him and put a copy of my reply in the Library.

In conclusion, on behalf of the Government I am happy to support this Bill in full and wish it the same success and speedy progress as the previous Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, introduced.

Lord Dean of Beswick

I shall not delay your Lordships much longer. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, to my colleague on the Front Bench, Lord Underhill, and to my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, for their support. I can understand the concern of Lord Graham regarding the London boroughs, because if there are major parking problems generally, surely the metropolis itself has the worst one of all.

I am glad that the Minister, in his very kind reply to my small Second Reading contribution, made reference to the type of equipment that is under experiment and being used. I understand that there are now meters based on a somewhat similar system to the British Telecom card, where by inserting a card the customer can buy his or her time. I understand that eventually a type of card will be used by which it will be possible to debit directly.

Having made those further few brief points, let me once again express my appreciation to the noble Lords who have spoken in support of this Bill.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.