The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on his speech today and on bringing this matter to the attention of the House. I have a constituency similar to his with a lot of 19th century terraced housing, which is also similar to the constituencies of the hon. Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater). I also thank the hon. Members for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for contributing to the debate.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton mentioned his constituents Barbara, Carolyn, Hafsa, Jack and Antony. I also have several constituents who regularly contact me about this matter, so I know that there is concern across the House about it and we all want to see positive change. I would like to make it clear that the Government are determined to ensure that disabled people have the same access to transport as everyone else and that they can travel easily, with confidence and without extra cost. That is why the Government’s inclusive transport strategy aims to create a transport system that provides equal access for disabled people by 2030, with assistance if physical infrastructure remains a barrier. I am delighted also to be the accessibility champion for the Department.
We also want to make walking and cycling the natural first choice for shorter journeys wherever possible. We have set an ambitious vision that by 2030 half of all journeys in towns and cities will be either cycled or walked. To help to deliver that, Active Travel England was launched in August 2020 to work with local authorities to develop and deliver new high-quality walking and cycling infrastructure schemes.
Ruth Cadbury
We all welcome the words about active travel that the Minister has just read out, so why is the budget for Active Travel England, which was launched only last year, being cut by two thirds?
Mr Holden
I cannot speculate on what is going to be in the Budget, and I would urge hon. Members to wait and see what is going to happen later in the week. What I would say is that we have placed huge emphasis on this area already, with major investment going on across the country, and we expect to spend around £850 million by the end of this year, which is a record amount of funding. That represents a step change from previous Governments and Administrations of all colours in this space, and I expect to see that continue.
Recently in Parliament, I met Matthew Campbell-Hill, the new Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee chairman, and Cameron Wood, a constituent of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who are both actively campaigning on this issue. They highlighted to me, as has happened in other recent meetings I have had in Parliament, the real issues that pavement parking can cause for pedestrians and people with buggies and prams, but particularly for disabled people with sight or mobility impairments. This is an issue I have been campaigning on in my own constituency as well, where the blind community is particularly prominent in the town of Dipton.
Pavement parking has been prohibited in London since 1974, except where councils choose to permit it by implementing exemptions and erecting the necessary traffic signs. There is no specific ban outside London, but councils can implement local pavement parking prohibitions through traffic regulation orders, as well as prescribed traffic signs and bay markings. It is also the case that waiting restrictions such as yellow lines can apply to pavements as well as to the carriageway.
The Transport Committee reported on pavement parking in September 2019, with the key recommendation that the Government bring forward proposals to reform the TRO process to make it cheaper and easier for local authorities to use. Having seen it myself, I know that the process clearly needs reform. The Committee also recommended that the Government consult on a new civilly enforceable offence of obstructive pavement parking, and that we legislate across England, outside London, to address this issue more broadly.
Although successive Governments have recognised that there is no perfect solution to this difficult problem, the Government believed in 2020 that it was time to look again at the issue in detail. I am delighted to say that we had over 15,000 responses to the consultation, and each respondent was given the chance to answer up to 15 questions, providing tens of thousands of pieces of feedback and information, all of which needed to be read and analysed. Although I do not think I can please the hon. Gentleman as much as I would like by saying that we will imminently publish our formal response to the consultation, it is a very real and complex problem that we are looking to address at the earliest opportunity. I am actively working on this inside the Department.
At the moment, there are inherent dangers for all pedestrians from pavement parking, including being forced on to the carriageway. This is an issue faced by many disabled people, particularly those using motorised chairs when there are no dropped kerbs, resulting in further damage to pavements, which is a trip hazard. Maintenance is also a burden for local authorities and local taxpayers.
It also needs to be recognised that many towns and cities like ours were not designed to accommodate today’s traffic levels, or indeed cars per se. In some locations, particularly our narrower terraced streets, the pavement is the only place to park without obstructing the carriageway and so allow the free flow of traffic, including for emergency services.
All the measures on which we consulted have challenges in respect of efficacy and deliverability, and we want to take the right steps for future policy. Existing legislation allows local authorities to introduce TROs to manage traffic, and it allows them the freedom to decide what they wish to do at a local level. As the hon. Gentleman said, however, the process is time-consuming and burdensome. We recognise that it has to be reformed, as it is hugely important, and the Department is committed to doing that.
Removing bureaucracy and digitalising a costly, paper-based system is desperately needed to help speed up applications and the process more broadly. This will make it quicker and cheaper for local authorities to implement TROs. We need to reduce the average wait time of six months, which is far too burdensome and bureaucratic. At the moment it takes 12 weeks even for temporary TROs. We estimate that this could easily be reduced by a third, with resultant savings in both administrative costs and time. Digitalised TROs will also provide accurate digital data on how our roads operate, which will be needed to support autonomous vehicles in the longer term, and they will help to provide accurate information to road users in the shorter term. We are actively looking at this at the moment.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton also mentioned the second recommendation on the offence of unnecessary obstruction of the road. I agree with him and other hon. Members that this is a broad and not well understood area of law. The offence includes the carriageway, verges and pavement, and it already exists as a criminal offence. We could amend the regulations to make unnecessary obstruction of the pavement enforceable by local authorities, while leaving obstruction of the carriageway as a criminal matter. That would enable civil enforcement officers to address instances of unnecessarily obstructive pavement parking, as and when they find it. Enforcement against this offence would be more targeted than a general prohibition of pavement parking. This would allow egregious cases to be addressed while not penalising motorists where pavement parking is the only option, and where it is safe for pedestrians and other road users. This could be implemented relatively quickly, as it would require only secondary legislation. Through this approach, pavement parking would not become a general offence, so local authorities would not need to conduct costly and time-consuming audits of their road networks, nor would it be necessary to place traffic signs and bay markings to indicate where pavement parking was still permitted.
However, there is a challenge with this option. Parking offences currently subject to local authority civil enforcement are violations of clearly defined restrictions indicated by traffic signs and road markings, such as yellow lines or white bay markings. By contrast, unnecessary obstruction could not be indicated by traffic signs or bay markings, as “obstruction” is a general offence that may occur anywhere. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, “unnecessary obstruction” is also difficult to define. It would require case-by-case assessment and the Department would likely need to issue properly extensive guidance to steer local authorities in the right way as to what might be deemed unnecessary obstruction, in order to prevent inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Any such inconsistency would also ensure that our mailbags were overflowing with correspondence from people rightly concerned about that issue.
The third option, which we have also consulted on, is a national prohibition, extending the London arrangements to the rest of the country or making local authorities able to implement this as they see fit. That option would establish a general rule against pavement parking except where there is a specific permission of a local authority, or vice versa. I think we would all agree that motorists would also benefit from a consistent rule in this space. That option would need a significant implementation period. Furthermore, it would require primary legislation, as the hon. Gentleman noted. Local authorities would need to audit their road networks to decide where pavement parking remained necessary, implement the necessary exemptions, and place traffic signs and bay markings to indicate all the places where pavement parking was to be permitted—or vice-versa, depending on which route we went down.
Consideration also needs to be given to whether it would be disproportionate to ban pavement parking across the whole country. For example, in rural areas the scale of the road network would mean that the costs of implementing a national ban in this way would be higher, while the issues caused by pavement parking are often likely to be lower, especially on verges in some rural communities. This is a complex area and it is only right that we are thorough in taking our time to consider it.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady rightly presses me on this point. There are things I am actively considering in this area, and these are interim steps. Primary legislation is a long-term aim in this area, but there are certainly things we can do in the interim and things I hope to bring forward in the not-too-distant future.
Overall, local authorities are clearly in the best position to decide where pavement parking should or should not be permitted in their local areas, especially outside London, which is an urban conurbation. It is the Department’s role to ensure they have appropriate and effective tools to prohibit pavement parking where desired. I am fully aware that the Department’s response to the consultation is eagerly awaited, as has been made clear by hon. Members today. Although I cannot pre-empt publication of the Department’s consultation response, I am actively working on this, not just on the primary legislation, but on other measures that could be put in place in the interim period. All the options have challenges in respect of efficacy and deliverability, and it is our job to weigh up all of that and take the right steps forward. We are working through the options and the possible legislative opportunities for delivering them, and as soon as those matters are certain, we will publish the formal response. Although I cannot say this evening exactly when that will be, and I am sorry to let the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton and others down on that, I assure them that this matter is receiving our full consideration. It is a priority for us and we are aiming to publish as soon as is practically possible.
Question put and agreed to.