Private Parking Code of Practice

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lipsey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reintroduce the Private Parking Code of Practice for private parking operators that was withdrawn in June 2022.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, on 2 December last year I parked my car at Abergavenny station, buying 14 days’ parking from the ticket office. There was a train strike on the 16th, so I could not get back on the right day, but I rang a number given by the ticket office to extend my stay by a fortnight. The phone message said it had been extended, but when I returned to the car it had been ticketed by APCOA, the operator.

What followed that experience will be familiar to many in your Lordships’ House. Notices from the company fluttered down on me, demanding payment. All used legal language; none pointed out the simple fact that I cannot be made to pay without court action. My “appeal” was turned down, but it was not an appeal in the normal sense: it was an appeal to the company that had delivered the fine in the first place—what a surprise it was turned down. It passed my debt to a so-called debt enforcement agency. I particularly enjoyed its note saying that it had not received a reply from me and would therefore proceed to legal action, when at no stage had these notices contained an address to which I could reply. I had found other ways to write to it to say that it was not getting a penny out of me without taking me to court.

I looked around the same car park the other day. Yes, there was a notice by the spot I parked in; it was in Welsh. Yes, there was a machine to pay at; however, it was covered in polythene that said it was not in use any more. Yes, it said I could pay at the ticket office, except that was not open—indeed, it may soon be closed permanently. As an averagely intelligent person, I could find no accessible way to pay. I therefore parked off-site and, believe it or not, my car was towed away—a bad day for Lipsey.

Of course, this may mean no more than that APCOA, the firm concerned, is impossibly incompetent, but after this experience and reading government documents and press coverage about these companies, I am more inclined to believe in a conspiracy theory, although I am not given to them. These companies have one object and one object only, and that is to maximise the amount of money they can make from charges. They make it either difficult or impossible to pay, and they utter empty threats to bully the poor motorist into coughing up, together with blandishments of reduced charge if he or she does so. I understand that the company’s CEO is a Mr Philippe Op de Beeck. Certainly, his skills and those of his company would befit the mafia: Philippe, “capo dei capi”.

At this point in my speech, I would normally turn my attention to what the Government have done. After 13 years in power, this kind of abuse remains, so far as I can see, legal and unchecked. How the Government manage to criticise my party, the Labour Party, for being tough on motorists, when they allow this kind of abuse to flourish, simply escapes me. I bet there are many more people who are cross about the illegal parking charges levied by these companies than about ULEZ.

Anyway, the Government did finally act: in February 2022 they produced a draft code of practice. The parking companies behaved exactly as you would expect the Mafia to behave: they threatened judicial review, a kind of SLAPP action designed to deter the Government from taking the action they were threatening to take. And did the Government play the part of hero—one of those brave cops who chased the Mafia down the streets of Salerno? No, of course not. They threw in their hand, so actions such as APCOA’s against me could go on extracting money from unsuspecting motorists who had done absolutely nothing wrong.

This is a sad tale—particularly for me, but for many others who have had similar experiences. However, in this case, I am absolutely delighted to say that it may have a happy ending. In July, the Government produced a new consultation document designed to pave the way for a new code, not dissimilar to the old one. The greedyguts of the parking industry will no doubt continue to argue that any charge limits proposed are excessive and make their trade uneconomic. You hear weepy tales of all the poor parking attendants who will be made redundant if the charges have to be reduced at all. Whether the code will deal with every abuse the parkers now commit, we shall see.

I pray every night that APCOA carries out its threats and brings a court action against me—a court action it will assuredly lose, and with it such reputation as it may have. It would be a great story for the pro-motorist press—the Daily Mail or the Express—to report. Not only have I been able to study this subject, but I had an excellent chat with the Minister last night and I thank her for finding such a length of time for an appointment with a Member of this House on what is probably not the most important piece of business this week—although many people might disagree with that. I am very grateful to her, and I think we saw eye to eye.

I hope therefore that the Minister, when she rises, will confirm that the Government really are determined to act, irrespective of judicial reviews, that the parking industry, which has started to realise that it cannot win this one at the end of the day, that the public hates it and that its position is insupportable, will realise that the game is up, and that ripped-off motorists throughout the country will come to realise that they are not powerless against their abusers—not while this Parliament exists to stand up for them.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on securing this debate. It is, perhaps, a slightly strange moment to have it, being right in the middle of the call for evidence to which he referred, which closes on 8 October. We might have perhaps had the debate when we had made a bit more progress, as he indicated—but so be it.

I remind your Lordships of my interests and inform your Lordships of my employer.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but my Motion was put down long before the new document came out.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. None the less, we find ourselves in a very poorly attended debate for 90 minutes, possibly due to its timing, which might have been deferred. So be it.

I was drawing your Lordships’ attention to the fact that my employer, Cavendish Financial, acts from time to time for clients in the parking sector, but purely to offer corporate finance advice and on no other matters. I first spoke on this subject in the debate on my noble friend Lord Hunt’s private Bill, which became the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, on 18 January 2019. I think that I am the only speaker from the Second Reading of that Bill present today.

Very many people have an interest in parking. There are some 250 billion vehicle miles travelled in the UK every year, and, interestingly, vehicle ownership has increased by 57% since 1994. I do not accept the suggestion that this Government are anti-motorist, particularly since the most egregious anti-motorist act was taken by the Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. I was canvassing in Uxbridge and South Ruislip and felt the degree of irritation that people were, in effect, prohibited from driving their cars into central London by the ULEZ charge.

I was motivated, in part, to speak in my noble friend Lord Hunt’s debate because Westminster City Council had moved dramatically to reduce the single yellow lines available in its borough and increase the double yellow lines. My freedom of information request revealed that, in one ward alone, some 433 metres of single yellow lines had been lost to double yellow lines. It is true that many people claim that the main benefit of being elevated to the peerage is to have free parking in SW1. I am not sure that that is entirely fair; none the less, many of us have a strong interest in this matter.

In the debate on the Bill, we heard from its sponsor, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, that there were a lot of issues facing customers, relating largely to appeals, poor signage and collection—as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, mentioned. The Bill received widespread support from all sides of the House but was of course challenged by a judicial review—which the parking operators are more than entitled to do. While I certainly take some exception to a British industry being described as a “mafia” when it is carrying out regular, lawful business, I accept that the challenge does not seem to have been handled well by the then DHCLG. I gather that the officials were slightly out of their depth and, as a result, we have been in abeyance. But there is a call for evidence and I understand that discussions between the new department and the industry have taken place as recently as this week.

So the implementation of the private parking code of practice has stalled, primarily due to the proposed imposition of a reduction in the value of parking charges and the removal of debt recovery fees, without any impact assessment being carried out. DLUHC, as it is now called, has claimed that the increase in the number of parking charges issued over the past decade is indicative of a system that is inherently unfair and not fit for purpose. It is seeking to reduce the number of charges issued and to see more people being able to park with peace of mind. However, its proposal to reduce the deterrent value of a parking charge is counterintuitive; it is more likely to lead to an increase in abuse, reducing the available parking for compliant motorists who do the right thing.

DLUHC also proposed a ban on debt recovery fees, on the grounds that they were not fair, and related that to the fact that motorists who pay the debt recovery fee were contributing to unrecovered costs from motorists who do not pay. That would appear to be the norm across a number of sectors and most industries, certainly including all the retail sector; the difference between the parking sector and a standard business is that the cost of parking enforcement tends to be borne by the non-compliant motorists and not the compliant motorists. So the bone of contention seems to be about the amounts that can be charged and debt collection.

On the amounts to be charged, clearly if they are too low, they will not be a deterrent. At the moment, only 0.27% of parking events led to a PCN, suggesting that the deterrent is high enough to bite. As I understand it, the industry is, in principle, in agreement. The majority of the rest of the code and the trade associations are aligning their codes with the single code, where practicable and, hopefully, with a view to early adoption.

The rest of the code will continue to drive professionalism and improve standards while codifying minimum standards across the sector and adding layers of external oversight. It would be a win-win if the two contentious and unjustified points were removed from the code and the rest was immediately adopted. There is scope for the value of parking charges and debt recovery fees to be reviewed by the scrutiny and oversight board after the code is implemented and its effect properly considered and reviewed.

The code of practice talks about charges as low as £50, dropping to £25 outside of London. Let us think about this. If four people share a car and take it to, say, a railway station and park illegally, would they think it too painful to share a £25 charge for the car to be left somewhere that could inconvenience their fellow citizens? Even in London, £80 falling to £40 means that there would not be enough bite; even TfL recognises this and has just increased its deterrent from £130 to £160.

As for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, about the charges being unpopular, 81% of respondents to a DHCLG consultation undertaken earlier were in favour of charges of at least £80 and even £100 or £120. The current proposals represent a 58% reduction in deterrent for most common breaches outside London. For some reason, charges by local authority councils outside London are set by His Majesty’s Government but not in London. I have no idea why; perhaps my noble friend the Minister can explain it. Of course, with inflation, the £100 set in 2012 should really be £137 now.

Parking fines affect only a small proportion of motorists and businesses—in particular retailers, who need motorists to feel encouraged to come to shop and carry goods home with them easily.

Finally, I mention APCOA, which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, referenced, in respect of one specific matter: Heathrow. It is not exactly a parking charge but it is in lieu of one that, when one goes to Heathrow, one has to pay a £5 penalty for visiting. I do not object to that in principle but I object to the method by which payment is required, which is that one has to go to a website, enter details then hope that it has been processed properly on the basis that you know if it has been but you do not know if it has not. I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that an idea might be to require Heathrow and other airports to have a tap machine that, as one passes, pays the £5 charge, thus negating the necessity of having to go to a website. Most people are slightly stressed when travelling to an airport and have other things on their mind. It would be great if regulation were brought in to make that payment simpler.

Let us hope that common sense prevails and that the code is brought in with sensible levels as soon as possible.