High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) knows that he was a little naughty with his intervention. He was trying to make people look bad, and this is not a time to do that. I can honestly say that all my colleagues, on both sides of the House, are fighting the corner for our constituents and trying to put their point across. The sort of point the hon. Gentleman makes is not particularly welcome.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend emphasise that not just constituents who live on the proposed line of route but almost all constituents, including mine, are concerned about the enormous bill to the British taxpayer, to which they will have to contribute if this Bill goes through?
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The costs of the project are a matter of concern right across the board and to all Members. Hon. Members ought to bear in mind that today the Minister has brought savings to the Dispatch Box—[Interruption.] He indicates to me that they are minute savings, but we know that size is not everything—savings are important. I hope that will go some way to showing that Ministers’ eyes are open at least to looking at cost savings ideas. I hope that they will be open to looking at other savings, not just monetary ones.
Mr Chope
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Will she confirm that it is a matter of regret that there is no agreement on the costs between HS2 and the promoters of the extended tunnel? Surely it should be possible for rational engineers, albeit from different sides of the argument, to reach a conclusion over the additional costs of a tunnel.
Mrs Gillan
I think that engineers are talking to engineers. With the help of the Department, I have certainly facilitated meetings at which the tunnel has been discussed. The problem is that we do not have access to the costings prepared by HS2 Ltd, so we cannot make any comparisons. The truth of the matter is that we can make savings in time and money by reducing the need for those 550 petitions and we can save an area of outstanding natural beauty. If we can protect other areas of the country by kicking up a fuss, we should protect the one that is nearest to our capital city and the one that is so fragile that it would be irreparably damaged if this scheme were to go ahead as currently envisaged.
The office of the right hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) is also concerned that uncertainty still exists for its constituents. During the last petitioning period, it came to light that some people who were affected by the proposal had heard nothing from HS2 Ltd. They heard about their properties being affected only by word of mouth from neighbours. All of us in this House wish to hear that such behaviour will not be repeated in this or any future case.
Following this debate, there will be a consultation on the environmental statement for the additional provisions running from 19 September to 14 November. However, the petitioning period for those who are affected runs only until 17 October. If 56 days have been allocated to look at the environmental impacts, people whose land is affected should not be disadvantaged and expected to respond with a petition in a shorter time frame. Will the Minister consider extending that petitioning period to the same closing date as the consultation on the environmental provisions?
Let me put this matter in context. This project has been going for nearly five years, and because of errors and omissions by HS2 and the Department there have been so many consultations and so many changes to periods of consultations that the closing dates and timetables continue to confuse people. It would be a good idea if we had just one date for the additional provisions. I hope that the Minister will give that thought some consideration.
What assessment has the Minister made of today’s motions and their compliance with key aspects of European environmental legislation, specifically the habitats directive and the environmental impact assessment directive, and the UK’s obligations under the Aarhus convention? As I understand it, the EIA directive requires the entire environmental effects of a project to be measured and consulted on rather than it being done in individual stages through salami slicing. Perhaps the Minister will address that in his response.
I said that I have no intention of dividing the House on this issue as it deals merely with changes to the process for scrutinising the project, but I must again make the point that this project as proposed is deeply unpopular not just with my constituents but with many others who, like me, do not think that the business case, the route and the lack of connectivity to other transport hubs justify the vast expenditure.
Transport for London Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This private Bill is promoted by Transport for London. It was deposited on 26 November 2010, and ordered to commence in the House of Lords. It was read the First time in the other place on 24 January 2011, and it was read a Second time on 13 December 2011, when it was debated. It was a further two years until the Unopposed Bill Committee took place on 28 January 2014. It was read the Third time in the other place and transferred to this Chamber on 4 March, when the First Reading took place. It is therefore fair to say that the Bill has had a long gestation period.
The Bill’s purpose is to provide Transport for London with a broader set of powers so that it can meet its business needs more flexibly and take advantage of more efficient arrangements for the stewardship of its financial affairs. Transport for London has identified various opportunities for maximising the value of its assets, but at the moment they cannot be fully realised unless it acquires new statutory powers or restrictions on the exercise of its current powers are removed. The Bill is also an opportunity to save money for taxpayers and fare payers. It has only four substantive clauses, but its principle is of importance to TfL, not least because the benefits deriving from the Bill will enable TfL to deliver much better value for money for the fare payer and the tax-paying public at large.
The first three clauses broadly concern bringing the Bill into operation. The first substantive clause is clause 4, which allows Transport for London subsidiaries to borrow and grant security over assets and revenue streams, enabling TfL to have cheaper finance for projects and greater flexibility in how it borrows. TfL currently has the power to borrow and it has a borrowing programme, but it may offer lenders only a non-specific charge over revenues, not over properties.
Borrowing on a secured basis will allow TfL subsidiaries to achieve lower interest rates than can be obtained through the Public Works Loan Board or through issuing bonds—the original aim under the legislation initiated by the previous Government—which are two of the significant debt financing options available to TfL. The clause will allow TfL to borrow money in circumstances where granting security is done predominantly or exclusively on a secured basis, and unsecured borrowing is either not possible or very costly. For example, property developments are usually financed by the lender taking a charge over the land being developed, which accordingly leads to a lower interest rate and means less risk to all parties.
Clause 4 allows TfL’s subsidiaries to borrow for a discrete purpose and to structure security so that a creditor has recourse only against the subsidiary borrowing and not against TfL and its other subsidiaries. That protects the fare-paying and tax-paying public from any liability that arises on TfL debts.
Clause 4 allows TfL to purchase subsidiary companies that already have secured debt. TfL will no longer be required to restructure secured debt when it purchases a company with such existing debt. TfL had to acquire Tube Lines Ltd and Tube Lines Finance plc at very expensive rates—I well remember the fiasco, as I was a member of the London assembly at the time. Had clause 4 then been in operation, TfL would have been spared significant costs, which ultimately have been borne by fare payers and taxpayers and resulted in lenders receiving enhanced value for their loans for nil consideration to TfL.
Clause 4 includes important safeguards and limitations. It provides that TfL subsidiaries must obtain the consent of the Secretary of State to grant security, except in respect of categories of property included in the schedule to the Bill, which Members can go through in detail if they are interested. The exempt property may generally be described as property that is ancillary to TfL’s core function of providing passenger transport services and includes such categories as property that is used for the purposes of car parking or retail units, for example. The consent of the Mayor of London is always required, irrespective of the type of property being changed.
Clause 4 provides that the rights of existing TfL creditors are preserved in full. A secured creditor may have priority over an existing creditor only where the existing creditor consents to the arrangement, so all parties are protected. TfL subsidiary borrowings will still be subject to the relevant provisions of the Local Government Act 2003. Borrowings must only be for any purpose relevant to a local authority’s functions or for the prudent management of its financial affairs. TfL subsidiaries will also be subject to existing borrowing limits set by the Secretary of State, so the public sector borrowing requirement is protected and security is granted.
Clause 5 expands TfL’s power to form different types of entities for the purpose of carrying out its functions. I understand that this is the most controversial clause for those who object to the Bill. I understand that the sponsors have had meetings with several of the individuals who are concerned and that undertakings have been given in that respect. Currently, TfL may only form bodies corporate, which includes companies and limited liability partnerships. TfL is seeking a new power to form, or join others in forming, limited partnerships and to invest in those partnerships once formed. TfL would like the option of using a limited partnership when seeking third-party investment, which seems a sensible process.
Pension funds and foreign entities are likely investors, so we are likely to see greater investment in joint arrangements with TfL, which will represent good value for the taxpayer. Those investors often prefer to invest in partnerships, rather than company structures, because of the tax transparency that partnerships afford. If TfL can offer a partnership as the joint venture vehicle, it is likely that there will be increased interest in the investment opportunity and that the maximum value of the asset will be realised. TfL proposes that it may form a limited partnership only for the purpose of carrying out its functions, which prevents speculative arrangements.
There is a limited tax benefit from using a limited partnership, but it is confined to stamp duty land tax, which is payable when land is transferred into a partnership. Stamp duty land tax is levied only on the proportionate share of the land being acquired by fellow partners, rather than the whole part. That benefit is conferred on any partner of a limited partnership irrespective of their status and is not unique to TfL. Indeed, many local authorities use limited partnerships for joint ventures and have been supported in doing so by the Treasury.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am fascinated by what my hon. Friend is telling the House, but surely there is a bigger picture. Would it be better for TfL effectively to be owned by the people of London? They could have shares in TfL, so it would therefore be funded to a larger extent by equity capital without the need to borrow.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. That would be a very radical move away from TfL’s existing capability and the arrangements that are made. I am sure the Mayor of London will be listening to the debate and will consider that suggestion appropriately, but it is beyond the scope of Second Reading, which is limited regarding proposed borrowing changes.
Transport for London’s subsidiary share of the profits generated by a partnership will be liable to tax in the same way as if a company were used instead of a limited partnership, thereby maintaining appropriate tax transparency. Several individuals, and particularly the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, have been concerned about whether the Secretary of State should give permission for such entities to be entered into. I understand that a written undertaking has been given to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the RMT on the basis that an amendment will be introduced in Committee that would require the Secretary of State’s permission for such an organisation to be permitted, which I hope answers one of the principal objections.
John McDonnell
What those who work in the industry want is a consistent plan for the development of the transport infrastructure, but what the Bill does is give more power to TfL to enter into speculative developments on the sites that it owns, along with developers. In the case of Earls Court—on which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith will wish to elaborate—we have seen property development for short-term financial gain override the needs of the travelling public and the need for long-term investment in the future of the transport infrastructure. That example illustrates the loss of confidence in Transport for London among the public that will result from its exercise of the new powers, if they are given to it. We may well see a speculators’ charter in relation to properties that are currently in public ownership under the auspices of TfL.
People are worried not only about the desire to gain income, but about the fact that the current property developments are based largely on the selling off of land for the building of residential properties. Transport for London, as a public body, might well want to enter into a partnership with, in particular, local authorities, in the hope of combining the advantages of improving the transport network with the provision of residential homes. However, it seems from the examples that we have seen so far—notably in Earls Court—that the residential homes will not necessarily be for local people: in fact, that applies to a relatively small percentage. Most of the sites are being used for speculative development, and many are being bought by overseas landlords with a view to letting properties at extremely high rents.
People fear that if TfL is given these powers, it will go on a development binge with the private sector throughout London, without taking into account either the needs of the transport infrastructure in the long term or the needs of local communities. The Bill seems to take no cognisance of the need for TfL to bear in mind the social criteria or social objectives relating to any future development when using the powers.
As the hon. Member for Harrow East pointed out, there also seems to be a lack of accountability in the case of some of the partnerships. We received that letter on Friday specifically because concern after concern had been raised consistently over the years—for instance, regarding the fact that even the Secretary of State did not have the authority to be consulted about the exercise of some of these powers. We have now been told, in a letter that we received at 3.30 yesterday afternoon, that an amendment will be tabled to deal with that. It would have been helpful to have seen at least a draft of the amendment; all that we have is a letter of comfort, or discomfort, depending on people’s judgment of it .
If we look at TfL’s record of participation in developments with private sector entities, we see that it is the commercial entity that has gained the profit and TfL that has been left with the responsibilities and, often, the liabilities. In the case of some of the partnerships that have already been entered into, ownership of some of the sites is so diffuse that it is difficult for the public, in particular, to hold anyone to account when it comes to some aspects of the deals.
Mr Chope
I am listening with fascination to the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that the whole purpose of Transport for London should be to concentrate on its core business—providing transport infrastructure for the people of London? It is unlikely that Transport for London will be capable of doing things that are not its core business as well as they are done by specialists in those alternative businesses.
John McDonnell
The concern that many of us have is that Transport for London is not a property developer. It is not a developer with expertise in developing sites for high-value residential properties, yet that is the venture that it seems to want to enter into across London on most of its sites. There is an in-built lack of expertise in Transport for London. Many of us think not only that Transport for London is putting sites at risk by removing the possibility of their being used to develop transport infrastructure, but that Transport for London as a whole will be at risk from some of the liabilities that it will take on as a result of going into limited partnerships, which are not protected, with developers. The Bill has consequences not just for specific site development but for the stable funding of TfL in the long term.
I say to the hon. Member for Harrow East that the Bill seems to be an attempt at a quick fix by an organisation that does not have the expertise to enter the activity that it wants to enter. I would be more convinced that it had that expertise if the progress of the Bill had been more efficient and effective. The legislation has been hanging around since 2011. At this late stage, the clauses have still not been drafted properly. Clause 4 has been redrafted three times in that period. We have just received the letter of comfort on clause 5, but no amendment. That does not inspire confidence. This organisation could sit down with some of the most rapacious developers in the history of property development and secure deals without satisfying not just community interests but the long-term financial security of the sector.
I agree with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope): when an organisation is called Transport for London, it should concentrate on providing transport for London, rather than go into property speculation in this way. The argument may be that Transport for London is under financial pressure from the Government or others and needs to look at other ventures, but we must take into account its record of working with the private sector to gain additional income or increase efficiency.
There was the debacle of the public-private partnership under the last Government—this is not a party political point. That demonstrates an inherent lack of expertise—I put it no more strongly than that—in the organisation; it lacks the expertise to be able to do deals with the private sector that deliver the service and that avoid the scale of liabilities that we saw under that partnership. It was extraordinary. Members who were here may recall that throughout that period the House was not kept informed. On both sides of the House there was shock at the scale of the incompetence and risk that TfL ventured into in those developments.
Those are the main concerns. The organisation is strapped for cash, by the sound of it, although the Government advised us earlier in the year that it received a significant grant. However, TfL says that it is strapped for cash and needs another source of income. It is looking at developing its sites to provide that and it wants to do it through partnerships with the private sector. As a result there are concerns that the overall operation of TfL will be put at risk. Those are the general concerns.
Let me turn to the individual elements of the Bill. I advise Members to go to the minutes of evidence taken before the Unopposed Bill Committee in the other House under Lord Sewel. TfL, with the Department for Transport present, took the noble Lord through the details of the Bill. As the hon. Member for Harrow East has said, it went to clause 5 in particular, and it said:
“Clause 5 would allow TfL subsidiaries to borrow and charge against assets and revenue streams. This will provide TfL with greater flexibility on how it borrows. Under secured borrowing, TfL subsidiaries may borrow for a discrete purpose, and the security could then be structured so that the creditor has recourse only against the subsidiary borrowing and not against TfL or other TfL subsidiaries.”
It went on to say:
“TfL subsidiaries may not grant security without the consent of the Secretary of State, other than in respect of those matters that are specified in a new schedule proposed to be included in the Bill.”
The hon. Gentleman referred to that.
Let me take Members to that new schedule. This is not a delaying tactic; I would like TfL to come back with some clarity on all this. The schedule means that it can, without the Secretary of State’s approval, enter into agreement with regard to subsidiaries to borrow and charge against assets and revenue streams. As I have said, it can do that with regard to activities identified in this schedule without Secretary of State approval. Let me give a selection of them. It can borrow against assets including
“property related to a tolling scheme…property related to the generation of power…property related to sponsorship activities being carried out by third parties”.
It can also borrow against
“property related to the use of land for commercial letting”.
I have no idea of the scale that is envisaged, but it means that TfL, without Secretary of State approval, can become a sizeable landlord with commercial lets and borrow against those revenue streams. I would like TfL to say what is meant by this and I would welcome some clarity as we move into the next stages. What is the scale of operation that it is looking at?
The schedule also refers in sub-paragraph (n) to
“land which is not operational land”.
Again, it would be useful to know from TfL what its definition of “not operational land” is and what the scale of that is in its portfolio.
I raise this because many of our individual constituencies will contain pieces of TfL land which are set aside for future transport developments, and it looks as though this will enable TfL to raise revenue or borrow against those pieces of land without any Secretary of State approval whatsoever. It would be useful to know the scale of that and to have some form of report setting out where these pieces of land are. They could be fairly sizeable.
Again, I would welcome clarity about the purpose of this particular venture in this particular case. As Members have said earlier, we all have sites in our constituencies that TfL may want to borrow against and therefore develop with a private sector subsidiary. If it then removes a transport operation from that site, it will have a knock-on effect on other sites because of the shift of functions, as is planned at Earls Court. I am concerned that there seems to be a lack of clarity from TfL in its dialogue with the petitioners on some of these issues with regard to the supply of information.
In the presentation to the Unopposed Bill Committee in the other House, clause 6 was explained as follows:
“Clause 6 of the Bill will allow TfL to form or join with others in forming limited partnerships. TfL would like to be able to use partnership structures to seek third-party investors in its property estate, and to manage secondary income generated from the estate.”
TfL mentioned, I think to reassure the noble Lord in charge of the Committee, that
“Pension funds and development partners are identified as likely investors, who often prefer limited partnerships to other legal structures to invest in.”
I am sure that we will deal with this matter in Committee, but I would like to ask Members to look—if not today, then in Committee—at some of the concerns raised by the petitioners about the concept of limited partnerships and, in particular, at a petition from Mr Richard Osband and other parties. Mr Osband was with us on Friday when we met TfL. He is a knowledgeable person who has done a large amount of research in this area. He admits that he is not a lawyer, but he has vast experience in property development and commercial activities. He tried to explain his concerns, which I now share, to TfL regarding limited partnerships.
The issue that Mr Osband raised was that a registered limited partnership may not carry out any activities at all. The partnership is between one partner and a general partner, and the general partner largely bears the main liabilities. If the other partner becomes active in some way in the management of the process, it will then become part of the definition of the general partnership and will bear liabilities. Mr Osband argued that the limited partnership concept was opening up TfL to bearing almost unlimited liabilities as a result of the process that the legislation will enable it to enter into. On Friday, we were mystified as to why there was a need for limited partnerships. The legislation itself provides for the ability to enter into partnerships with companies and others. These would be proper legal entities and they would ensure that the burden of risk was shared with the partner rather than falling significantly on to TfL.
We are now at a late stage, and the petitioner has made his position clear. On Friday, he was simply inviting TfL to get further legal counsel’s opinion, because he and a number of others had contested the original counsel’s opinion that TfL had brought forward. I have yet to hear a convincing argument from TfL as to why it would want to enter into limited partnerships, given the element of risk involved. TfL said on Friday and in some of its other discussions with Mr Osband that this was the preferred route of the developer. I am afraid that that does not inspire confidence that any public investment in these developments would be secure.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
As the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said, these extensive powers must be subject to scrutiny and any safeguards in relation to their being exercised must be included in the Bill. We do not want things to happen in future that we had not expected, because, perhaps, we did not think that Transport for London or its subsidiaries would behave in a particular way. That is why I welcome the fact that we have a full Second Reading debate on this Bill. The promoters of a lot of private Bills that come before this House get agitated because some of us think that such Bills should be subject to scrutiny, but an increasing number of our colleagues now recognise that without such scrutiny we and our constituents can be taken for a ride.
I do not represent a London constituency, although many years ago I was the leader of a London borough, so I take an interest in what happens in London—and of course I am resident in London during much of the week. I go along with the hon. Lady in giving a lot of credit to TfL for the improvements in transport in London over recent years. There have been enormous improvements in the reliability of the services provided, the extent and range of those services, and the sensitive way in which the Mayor and TfL have responded to the developing needs of the populace of London. That is all the more reason for us to ask why, given that TfL has made such an enormous amount of progress, we should want to encourage it, through this Bill, to move its focus away from its main task and responsibility, which is to provide transport for the people of London.
My hon. Friend the Minister set out the financial context and made it clear that, ultimately, Transport for London will need to be self-sufficient and not dependent on grants from the national taxpayer. I am sure my constituents will be pleased with that objective, because it will save them money as national taxpayers and TfL will have to fund its future operations from the income it receives from fare payers, its investments and operational efficiencies. I am all in favour of that.
I was interested to hear my hon. Friend say that, of the £16 billion saving that TfL needs to find by 2021, £12 billion has already been identified. He then said, however, that he thought the Bill might save TfL £50 million, which is of a rather different order from the actual gap between the two figures, namely £4 billion.
TfL should try to save some money. It has a lot of assets and if some of them are not core assets that it requires for its operations, the first port of call should surely be to try to sell off those surplus assets so that they can be utilised by other people. This Bill, however, seems to be designed to discourage TfL from selling off its surplus assets. It encourages it to put them into vehicles such as subsidiary companies and limited partnerships, which are not open to the same public scrutiny as TfL through its annual accounts. Obviously, that raises public accountability concerns.
The Bill’s promoters have a heavy burden of responsibility and they will have quite a job to persuade the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and me. We do not always agree on political issues, but the fact that we are both expressing concerns from different angles should cause TfL to think what can be done about it.
Ms Abbott
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The fact that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington agree on something is a sign either that it is absolutely the wrong thing to do or that it might be absolutely the right thing to do. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman is so opposed to TfL attempting to create arrangements for a long-term revenue stream rather than a one-off profit from simply selling the asset. As the taxpayer subsidy goes down, surely it is prudent for TfL to try to ensure long-term revenue streams for itself, which is what the arrangements are all about. They may not be perfect, but how can the hon. Gentleman deny that that is a reasonable aspiration for TfL?
Mr Chope
The short answer to the hon. Lady’s intervention is: once bitten, twice shy. I think that most of us in this House—certainly those of us who have served for a certain time—feel that we were bitten by the enthusiasm of successive Governments for the private finance initiative and the public-private partnership. We were told that they were new ways of financing our public services and public infrastructure and that they could only be good news for everybody. I speak as a member of the Conservative party, which promoted PFI, but what a disaster some of those PFI projects have turned out to be, largely because people thought they could get something for nothing and that, instead of saving on revenue expenditure, they could start borrowing and use rather obscure vehicles and arrangements to do so. Then, however, after reading the small print, we found out that, instead of being transferred, the risk—that was the principle the Treasury kept talking about in relation to PFI: it said it was not possible to have PFI unless there was a transfer of risk—had actually been retained.
As a London Member, the hon. Lady will be all too well aware of the problems in London associated with PFI/PPP projects in the health service, which have been a disaster in many respects. The people or the patients whom we should have helped are finding that the services they want are not now as good as they would like because of the costs of those projects, which in some cases continue to be a millstone around the necks of quite a lot of hospital trusts.
I have answered the hon. Lady by referring to a different sphere, but as soon as people start talking about new practices and methods, as the Minister did when he began his remarks about how the Bill will release a lot of revenue and capital, we need to be suspicious. At the end of the day, the only way to get better quality transport in London is by investing in it, which means using money from fare payers or taxpayers, or encouraging Transport for London to reduce its costs and find alternative revenue streams. Of course, one way would be to sell off surplus assets, and we should use the provisions of the Bill to encourage that, rather than to discourage it.
I do not know about the situation in Earls Court exhibition centre. I have no specialised knowledge about it, and I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who represents the Hammersmith and Fulham interest in it. As a result of the last London borough elections, the issue of political risk has once again raised its head. The people engaged in that project thought that the council was benignly supportive of their proposal, but now that there has been a change of council, the new democratically elected council has said that it wants to revisit it all. I do not know the extent to which the council can do that, or whether the contract was already a done deal.
Mr Andy Slaughter
(Lab) (Hammersmith): I have resisted intervening because I want to get my full whack of time, but I have to come in on that point. There was always going to be a political risk in relation to that massive site—it covers two boroughs, with the mayoralty and various other interests, such as that of TfL—because it was a 20-year project. TfL signed up to a 20-year project, and tied its hands. It, above all people with political masters, should have known that that was the case.
Mr Chope
That is fascinating. I am glad that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. When there is talk about reducing risks—the statement from the promoters states that the Bill will reduce risk and the costs of interest—we need to look at such assertions with quite a lot of scepticism.
To finish my point about TfL as the freeholder of Earls Court exhibition centre, let me ask why it is still the freeholder: why does TfL need to own Earls Court exhibition centre, and why does TfL not sell it? I do not know whether it could sell it to Hammersmith and Fulham council. In my view, TfL’s core business should not be to own an exhibition centre. If that had been the situation in my days in Wandsworth, we would very much have regarded it as one of those things to sell and get rid off to benefit local taxpayers, on the basis that if a freehold asset is sold, the receipts from it can be utilised immediately for the vendor’s top priorities. If TfL did not own the freehold of Earls Court exhibition centre, would it think of buying it? That is the sort of question that should be asked by those people who become star-struck by the idea that they are charged with developing some great property.
There has always been a glamour associated with owning assets. Municipalisation, whether of race courses or arts and entertainment centres, was often associated with the desire of the mayor and councillors to be able to get free tickets and hospitality by using what they saw as their role in looking after those important assets. My philosophical view is that they should never have had those assets in the first place. They should have sold them off and then enjoyed going out, paying for a drink themselves and saying, “Great. We’ve reduced the size of the local state and its apparatchiks in our area.” I am suspicious and sceptical about all of this. There are some fine people working for TfL, but if they think that they have skills that can be deployed in the property sector, they should go and get a job in the property sector.
I am particularly concerned about clause 4, which is the first clause of substance in the Bill. It proposes that what TfL cannot do itself should be allowed to be done by its subsidiaries. Members often speak of their concern about Henry VIII clauses, and this clause is the private Bill equivalent. It would allow TfL to set up subsidiaries at its own behest without any accountability, and those subsidiaries could then be used to do what TfL itself is not allowed to do. Why are we countenancing that? Why should the original safeguards, which were written into primary legislation—section 164(a) of the 1999 Act—be removed? My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said that if one had to go to the Public Works Loan Board or get bonds, one would have to pay higher interest rates than those one could get using these new subsidiaries as vehicles, but I think that is an unproven assertion. Let us consider other ways in which those things could be done.
Clause 5 would extend the power to invest in subsidiary companies to include limited partnership vehicles of one sort or another. Why are we doing that? Surely it would be much more transparent for TfL to set up a limited company that is properly accountable and then ensure that it produces accounts so that people can keep an eye on what it is doing. As soon as we get into the murky waters of partnerships and deal making that is not subject to public scrutiny, the people are not well served. It might be that among the well-paid employees of TfL there is a group of people who are much better than the directors of British Land at making deals to enhance the value of land in their ownership, but I somehow doubt it. Rather than encouraging TfL to aspire to set up subsidiaries that are like British Land, we should say that if it wants to set up subsidiaries, they should be proper companies that, as under the existing law, are subject to limited liability and open to public scrutiny.
We know that when we allow public organisations effectively to engage in devices to get themselves out of a short or longer term financial fix, it often results in tears. I remember when Hammersmith and Fulham was mortgaging all its lamp standards. It sold them—was it to a Japanese bank? I cannot remember—and it then leased them back because it obviously needed to have lamp standards. Those were the early days of what one might describe as a sort of barmy behaviour by Labour councils—that was one of the things that ultimately contributed to Hammersmith and Fulham becoming a Conservative-controlled authority.
There are examples of councils selling their assets then leasing them back and paying a lot more for them in the long term, but in the short term it looks good on the accounts. The council has a capital receipt from the sale of the asset, although local taxpayers will have to pay for the next 50 years for the consequences. That was at a time when the Department of the Environment, as it was then, made clear to the banks that we would not guarantee those assets. The banks thought, “Fantastic. We will buy all these lamp standards from Hammersmith and Fulham, and because we are buying them from Hammersmith and Fulham, if there are any difficulties, the money it owes us will be guaranteed by the Government.” The Department had to make clear to those foreign banks that if Hammersmith and Fulham, or any other council, defaulted on its obligations, the Government were not going to stand behind it.
I fear that some of the same thinking is creeping into this Bill, which is that in order to get over the problem of the £4 billion shortfall we should allow the proliferation of these vehicles. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out, if one couples clause 4 with the schedule, the mind boggles at all the things that could be charged by a TfL subsidiary without the consent of the Secretary of State—always remembering, of course, that under its existing powers TfL is not allowed to subject those things to a charge. If that measure were to go through unamended, it would create the potential for enormous mischief not just to London taxpayers, but to people who use TfL facilities. If Transport for London gets strapped for cash, it will have to put up its fares, reduce staffing or whatever, so the situation would not be without consequences.
I have a number of concerns about the Bill and I hope that some of them can be ironed out during the opposed Bill Committee. Underlying them all is the fact that I think it would be better if Transport for London concentrated on its core business and sought more equity investment—in other words, shareholder investment. Why does Transport for London not set up a subsidiary company, as it can do at the moment, and say, “We are going to sell shares in this limited company to the people of London”? Why not sell shares to users of Transport for London services? Why does it not raise that sort of money and, for good measure, say, “As an incentive, we will throw the assets of the Earls Court exhibition centre into the subsidiary company”? People who enjoy going to exhibitions at Earls Court could buy into that subsidiary company and perhaps get discounted entry prices, or whatever.
There is a lack of imagination in some of this, possibly because this process has been dragged out for so long that people have got into a tramline way of looking at it. Why do we not think more radically? Why do we need to be stuck with TfL, however good it is, and the same structure? Why do we not allow British taxpayers and property owners to buy shares in TfL, instead of using this sort of device, which will probably give the benefits to sovereign wealth funds, foreign banks, Russian oligarchs and whoever? They will be benefiting at the expense of the people of London. As somebody who was born in London, has spent a lot of time in London and had the privilege of leading a London council, I have the interests of the people of London at heart.
Mr Slaughter
Absolutely. I do not know whether I am right in suggesting that Earls Court was the fons et origo of that, but in any event the potential for it across London is huge. Moreover, as the hon. Member for Christchurch pointed out, the potential for it to go wrong is huge, and I think that that is what is going to happen.
Mr Slaughter
I am coming to that point. I have given the House the benefit of what could be described as my knowledge of how things have progressed so far and what concessions have been made, but it is clear that clause 5 is intended to enable such vehicles to be set up, along with deals with pension funds and development partners for the management of secondary incomes to create income streams.
Obviously—this brings me back to the point that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington was making—if TfL manages its property portfolio in the best interests of the farepayer with the aim of keeping fares down and, indeed, reducing them, I do not object to its finding ways of establishing the best return on assets, provided that those ways are legitimate and sound. In some cases, that might involve not selling an asset and investing the money at what would possibly be a low rate of return, but embarking on some form of joint venture. However, let me now deal with the rest of what I am against. I promise that, before I finish, I will respond to the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about whether sales per se are simply a better option, and whether we trust them.
There is a sense in which I would say yes to that. I do not want to be rude to TfL’s management, because I think that many of them are very good at what they do, particularly on the technical side. On the whole, however, they are no match for the major property developers of London. I am afraid that the same could be said about local authority regeneration and planning officers. Property developers see them coming and fleece them for everything they have, which is very unfortunate. It is particularly unfortunate because it is our money. What is presented in the first instance as a way of maximising return for the farepayer ends up with the poor old farepayer— and the taxpayer—picking up the major share of the bill. I think that when I say a little about Earls Court the House will understand exactly what I mean, because that is the best example.
It surprised me to learn that, unlike local authorities and other public bodies, TfL does not have a duty of best value under section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972. It says that it still tries to obtain best value for a site—presumably from a commercial point of view as much as for any other reason—but for a public body such as TfL this is a balancing exercise.
Of course we want TfL to maximise the return on its assets in the interests of its core business, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, but we also want it, as a public body under democratic control, to behave responsibly in environmental, social and economic terms. I fear that we are getting the worst of both worlds. We are getting poor-quality development, poor-quality decision making and poor-quality financial return. Therefore, the point about TfL’s area of competence is a serious one. I do not make it as a debating point to have a go at TfL. I wish it every success. But I have seen the evidence with my own eyes over many years.
Another reservation is to do with the collateral effects. Again, I will be brief on those, because they have been dealt with. According to the committee minutes, there will be some tax benefits in avoiding stamp duty, at least for TfL—it is a moot point whether we think that is a good thing to do or not—but when the benefits of avoiding tax go to the partner, that is a concern. As is the case with the Earls Court partner, major multinational property companies are avoiding paying UK tax by being registered in Jersey. TfL is facilitating that. That is plain wrong. A lack of transparency comes from the limited partnership model, rather than the limited liability partnership model. That is also plain wrong.
I also think, to put it crudely, that TfL is getting into bed with some dodgy characters. If they are not dodgy characters, then the people those people are getting into bed with are certainly dodgy. Capco, developers of Earls Court, has a partnership with the Kwok brothers, who are on trial for fraud in Hong Kong. When I put it to TfL last Friday that it should not be in that company, it said, “We have no association with the Kwoks”, but they signed a section 106 agreement for the site they were developing.
Let me give this example because it makes the point. The Earls Court area is subject to a masterplan. That was devised by Capco and everyone fell into line: the Mayor of London fell into line, as did TfL and the two Conservative-controlled boroughs. Therefore, we had the obscenity of a planning framework being designed around a planning application and of allowing a developer to act as predator on almost 80 acres of prime land in central London without any competition. The developer dictated its terms over a period of years, feeling that it had such pliant partners that it could do whatever it had to do.
As the hon. Member for Christchurch, who is long in the tooth and rather shrewder than a lot of politicians, said, that may work for a year or two or even five, but it will not work for longer than that and sooner or later there will be a change of regime in Hammersmith and Fulham and the apple cart will be upset. Possibly, in a year and a half, there will be a change of control at city hall and these schemes will still be in their infancy. Yet TfL has signed up to that masterplan, which I can evidence is not just a terrible scheme for the whole of west London but a terrible financial deal for the public sector partners.
All that land is being lost. Those premier exhibition centres in London contribute 16% of exhibition space in the UK and 30% of exhibition space in London. We will lose over 750 good-quality affordable homes, which will be demolished to make way for unaffordable homes. We will also lose the main engineering and maintenance depot for TfL and even TfL admits it does not know how it will cope without it. The first I heard about the move to Acton was when the hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned it today. It may have been a surprise to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray). It was certainly a surprise to me.
At the Friday meeting and previously, I was told by TfL that there were no plans, and that the operational decisions had not been taken and probably would not be taken until 2020. However, it is a question not only of manufacture and maintenance but of the stabling of the trains. At the moment, TfL says that they have nowhere else to go. Therefore, we have a peculiar situation in which TfL has signed and voluntarily bound itself up to that masterplan, a terrible financial plan, a terrible social deal for my constituents and a terrible deal for the economic life of west London even though it is not in a position to deliver on it and does not look as if it ever will be. I cannot believe that by 2020 there will not have been some change in political control that would rule that out entirely. That is what I mean by the naivety, for want of a better word, in the way it has operated these schemes.
We have some of the players from the earlier debate here. The Minister and the shadow Minister and myself are present, and I wish we still had my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), because we had a very similar debate about the plans for HS2. As was largely not the case with Old Oak Common but is largely the case with King’s Cross, they involved going into an area that was already populated and already had housing that people wanted to live in and jobs that people wanted to do, and they were sold on the belief that it was a good commercial deal for the owner of that site. In my view it is simply unacceptable for that to happen. It is unacceptable that there should be that loss of homes—affordable, good-quality homes that people have occupied for 40 or 50 years—and their being demolished simply to hand over a site.
Yes, TfL got a terrible deal, but Hammersmith and Fulham council got an extraordinarily negligent deal that has to be investigated. It sold 23 acres of prime residential land for a net sum of £50 million, except within that £50 million it has to pay for the relocation and the purchase of the properties on that land, and with every month that property prices rise, that net sum is decreasing. Hammersmith and Fulham council—under its new Labour ownership, but gifted by its previous Conservative administration—could end up actually owing money for having given away 23 acres of prime land and having to displace 2,000 people who did not want to be displaced. That is what is happening in west London at the moment but it is on the basis of that strategy and plan that TfL wants to go forward with this kind of proposal. Can you wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am not terribly happy by it pursuing this course of action?
Mr Chope
What the hon. Gentleman has said is fascinating. Does he accept that what he has just described is available to us because of the transparency of the existing arrangements? However, if this Bill goes through, it may not be so easy in the future to be able to describe exactly what happens because there will not be that transparency.
Mr Slaughter
I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although it has not been that transparent: it has taken rather a lot of work, over the last six of seven years and I am probably prematurely grey as a consequence. It has been like getting blood out of a stone, and so much work has been done, not primarily by me, but by the residents, the RMT, and people like my colleague my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and the petitioners. They have worked day and night on this and have harried these people who are so irresponsible with the public assets that they hold—all public land at Earls Court, all being squandered and given away to developers, for losses of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds.
Buckinghamshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Gillan
May I commend my right hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in motoring matters and who I know has a fine collection of cars himself? The council has a code of practice, readily available on its website, entitled, “Filming on Highways: Buckinghamshire County Council Code of Practice”. The council has already drawn up draft proposals in the eventuality that the Bill is passed by the House. When consulting the Department for Transport, it has entered into provisions and given undertakings about placing well-sited notices and giving as much warning as possible. Like my right hon. Friend, I know how annoying it is to find one cannot go somewhere, and one can see all the film vans. I therefore hope that the notices will have been adequately covered in the rules and guidelines that will be readily available to the public, and the council gave the Department for Transport assurances about notification to fire, ambulance and police services, and so on. We hope that the disruption will be minimised and a great deal of thought will be given to road users, as my right hon. Friend wants.
Mr Christopher Chope
(Christchurch) (Con): The film order can last for five days—or is it seven days?—and there can be six film orders each year, adding up to 42 days a year. If someone can find ingress and egress from their home interrupted for 42 days a year, is that proportionate?
Mrs Gillan
Before I reply to that intervention, may I thank my hon. Friend for the helpful advice he gave when he was approached by Buckinghamshire county council to discuss the Bill? His expertise in opposed private business has always been invaluable, as was his contribution to the Bill prior to that.
I think that closure for 42 days must not be taken in isolation. Do not forget that the council has to consider section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, which also applies. That section puts a duty on the council
“to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of vehicular and other traffic”,
including providing adequate pedestrian access to people’s homes and taking into account the needs of the disabled. In practice, because the council must give consideration to the provisions of section 122, closure of such duration would be unlikely and would probably not be demanded.
The provisions of the Bill have the effect of extending, with modifications, the existing powers of the highway authority to close roads for special events. Those powers were brought in specifically to enable a wonderfully successful event—the Tour de France—to be hosted in England for the first time in the 1990s. I am sure we all saw the great success of the recent Tour de France in this country. The relevant provision of the 1984 Act also allows closures to facilitate the holding of “a relevant event”, which is defined as
“any sporting event, social event or entertainment which is held on a road.”
The council takes the view that, sadly, that does not include film-making. The Bill would have the effect of categorising the making of a film as a relevant event, thereby allowing the council to make the subsequent closure orders.
The Bill goes a little further than that, in the same way as the Acts for London, Kent and Hertfordshire, by allowing what will be known as “film notices” to be issued where it appears to the council that it is expedient for the closure to come into effect without delay. As I mentioned, that is particularly useful in the film industry because of the unpredictability of our weather. The existing restriction, which allows special events orders to continue in force for up to three days, is altered to allow for seven days for a film order. Similarly, a restriction on the number of orders that can be made in any year on any stretch of road is relaxed to allow for up to six film orders. Under the existing rules, only one special event order can be made per annum, but that number can be increased with the consent of the Secretary of State.
How will our residents who are affected by this legislation be treated? As I have indicated, whenever the council exercises the powers under the Bill, section 122 of the 1984 Act protects the users of the highway. That, I am sure, is the safeguard we would be looking for, because it requires the council to have regard to the desirability of securing and maintaining reasonable access to premises.
As I said, the council has made a commitment to the Department for Transport that it will follow the procedures that it has to follow for temporary street closures under other legislation. I referred to the code of practice for location filming in Buckinghamshire, and I want to give the House a bit more detail on that. It includes, for example, provisions about litter removal, historical or cultural and protected locations, night filming, noise and nuisance, and parking. It also contains a section about residents, including disabled residents, and businesses requiring consultation. The code has recently been updated, as requested by the Chairman of Committees when the Bill was considered in Committee in the Lords. As I understand it, we would be perfectly prepared to place a copy of the draft rules and regulations, and the code, in the House of Commons Library if that was wanted.
Mr Chope
Does this require consultation with residents associations? Is there any provision to ensure that residents associations can be compensated for the inconvenience that their members encounter? There is a lot of filming in the area where I live, and there is provision for residents associations to receive money from the film company.
Mrs Gillan
I will place the code and the terms and conditions in the Library so that my hon. Friend can read them, because I am getting to the end of my speech and I want to allow enough time not only for any colleague who wishes to speak but for the Minister to respond.
In order to understand whether there was support for the proposed Bill, throughout the summer of 2012 the county council held a six-week consultation, and a huge number of bodies were consulted. A total of 19 responses were received. Nine responses were absolutely positive, seven were positive but expressed some concerns which have been addressed, one was neutral, and two were negative. It was considered that none of the concerns raised was significant enough to prevent the promotion of the Bill. Given that no one has objected to the legislation, it is good to see that it is welcomed by the people of Buckinghamshire as much as it has been in Hertfordshire, Kent and London.
I hope that I have done justice to Buckinghamshire county council in sponsoring this Bill. It is a simple Bill that has precedent. I hope that the House will find favour with it and give it fair passage.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pity that I was too late to intervene on the Minister, but perhaps he will intervene on me.
The leader of Buckinghamshire county council, who knew that I had concerns about the Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill, wrote to ask me what I was going to do about the Buckinghamshire Bill. I said that I thought it would be much better if Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire got together to promote a joint Bill, because that would be much less expensive, but Hertfordshire did not want to play ball. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said on introducing the legislation and as the Minister has just mentioned, there is now a competitiveness issue.
Mrs Gillan
Perhaps I may tell the Minister that the idea of bringing forward a Bill for the whole country is perfectly sensible, because the issue is important. I appreciate that such locations are not just in Buckinghamshire, although Buckinghamshire is best. The Road Traffic Regulation (Temporary Closure for Filming) Bill, which has been introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), would cover the whole country, although as a private Member’s Bill it may not get through and as yet no Bill has been published. As there is only one day a year on which a Bill of this nature can be published, Hertfordshire went ahead and published its Bill, so Buckinghamshire had no choice but to publish its own Bill on the due date the following year. That was a long intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her short intervention, but in a sense I am even more disappointed. Why did the Minister not refer to such a private Member’s Bill? It might well deal with the issue by giving all local authorities a power to introduce such provisions without the need to use the private legislation route.
Sir Greg Knight
Does my hon. Friend not agree that if we had a Bill covering the whole country that perhaps gave councils the power to preserve outdoor film sets by banning unsightly wind farms, the House might pass it with acclamation?
Mr Chope
I look forward to supporting my right hon. Friend’s Bill on that topic. I think that there may be a chance to present such a Bill even on Friday if he gives notice of it tomorrow.
To return to the point about the private Member’s Bill, the Minister did not say whether the Government will support it, which is rather a missed opportunity, if I may put it like that. Whether in relation to pedlars—we know all about such iterative Bills—or filming on highways, it is much better to try to have general legislation to which local authorities can opt in if they wish, without the need to engage in the expensive and often protracted process of private legislation.
Having said that, because there are no petitions against the Bill, it will go to an unopposed Bill Committee and will not even come back on Report unless the Committee finds some reason to amend it, and it will then go straight through on Third Reading.
However, that is an expensive process. I hope that by the time the Bill returns for Third Reading we will have more news about the private Member’s Bill to which my right hon. Friend referred. [Interruption.] I see the Minister nodding in agreement. Private Members’ Bills are often rather extensive in ambit, and therefore controversial and difficult to get through, but it sounds as though that Bill will have a narrow ambit. If it is supported by the Government and the Opposition, it could have a fair wind and result in our spending less time looking at private legislation.
Sir Greg Knight
If this Bill goes ahead, is there not a case for giving the council more powers? Clause 6(2) allows it to impose a charge for placing objects on the highway, but only to cover its reasonable expenses. Taking into account my hon. Friend’s earlier point about local community groups, perhaps the council should be given the power to levy a fee that includes a donation to the local community.
Mr Chope
I am against that, because I do not see why we should burden the blossoming British film industry with additional stealth taxes. However, I support film companies working closely with residents and residents associations and, where appropriate—I think that this is best practice in the industry—making ex gratia payments to compensate them for the inconvenience.
That happened recently in a street that I am familiar with where a company is shooting a film about the Krays—“Legend” is the working title—which I think will be very popular. The buildings in the ganglands where the Krays operated have long since been demolished, so the company had to find some lookalikes. They came along to the street in question and painted all the houses grey in order to make them look as dingy as they must have done in the 1950s. This is not an advertisement for “Legend”, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I wanted to explain that the film company, in order to ensure that local residents did not feel that they had been taken advantage of, made a donation to the local residents association as well as to individual residents who were particularly inconvenienced. If you would like to speak with me afterwards, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will give you the details of the residents association and the fantastic Christmas parties it can throw as a result of the donations it has received, and not only from that film company, but from many others.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I can see that you feel that there comes a time when all the points that need to be made have been made. I made many of the points that I would like to have made on this Bill when I spoke to the Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill. In conclusion, I hope that this is the last time we have to deal with the Second Reading of an individual local authority Bill for filming on the highways and that in future they can all be dealt with under delegated legislation.
Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
After the momentous events that we have just seen, I invite the House to turn its attention to responsible parking in Scotland.
Mark Lazarowicz
Time is limited, I am afraid. I might give way later, depending on how much progress I make.
Although the Bill is limited in scope compared with other issues that Scotland will have to discuss and decide on shortly, it deals with an issue that many constituents feel strongly about and that affects their daily lives, as I shall explain briefly later.
Before doing so, I will explain to the House why I thought it necessary and appropriate to introduce the Bill in the House of Commons. Under the Scotland Act 1998, transport in Scotland is generally the responsibility of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, but some aspects are reserved, such as the subjects covered by the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.
In most respects, that reservation makes sense. It ensures, for example, that the same rules of the road apply across Great Britain. However, it also includes some provisions on parking. There are conflicting views and opinions on whether the Scottish Parliament can legislate on irresponsible or obstructive parking. Some legal advice has suggested that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to legislate in that area.
Mark Lazarowicz
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I will make a bit more progress. Perhaps I will take interventions at the end of my remarks if I have time.
My Bill aims to cut through the thicket of legal argument by making it clear that the Scottish Parliament has legislative competence in this area. It would devolve to the Scottish Parliament, should it so wish, the power to introduce regulations to make irresponsible parking a criminal offence by amending schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, and to exclude from the reservations to the UK Parliament provisions relating to parking on pavements and related issues. If the Scottish Parliament chooses to do so, that would include the power to impose fixed penalties.
I emphasise again that the Bill does not change the law on irresponsible or obstructive parking in Scotland, but it makes it clear that the Scottish Parliament can do so if it wishes. I want it to be able to do that without any risk of legal challenge, because many of our constituents feel strongly about this issue and I expect it has been raised with many Members in their constituencies.
Let me be clear: I am talking not about off-road parking that causes no inconvenience to anyone, but parking that blocks entire pavements or impedes wheelchair users from using ramps, which is frankly a public nuisance. Even worse, such behaviour can be a potential cause of danger to pedestrians, particularly those who are visually impaired or disabled in some way. If blind or partially sighted people are forced into the road to get by, they cannot see oncoming traffic. Equally, parking at dropped kerbs blocks the place where wheelchair users can cross the road most easily. It is not just the disabled who are affected by disruptive parking, but the elderly, parents with pushchairs, and children and pedestrians more generally.
Mark Lazarowicz
In practice, there is difficulty implementing and enforcing different interpretations of the legislation. That is why the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) will promote a similar private Member’s Bill for England and Wales in the next couple of weeks. If my Bill progresses, it will go into Committee, which will investigate the points in more detail. That will allow the Scottish Parliament to go through the same procedure at an appropriate stage, which could be fairly quickly since the nature of its constitution enables it to make legislation more quickly. Irresponsible parking is not in the interests of motorists as it can make roads more congested and choke traffic. As I said, this issue affects many parts of the UK, and the hon. Member for Cheltenham will promote a Bill for the rest of Great Britain. My Bill seeks to allow progress to be made in Scotland, for the reasons I have given.
The hon. Member for Hexham asked about the legal position. I tend to agree with the view that this issue does not fall outside devolved competences, but there are opinions to the contrary and I want to ensure once and for all that there is no doubt about the Scottish Parliament’s ability to bring forward legislation of this nature.
As I have said, the Bill is supported by various non-governmental organisations in Scotland including, Guide Dogs, Living Streets and Sustrans. My initiative also has the support of the MSP who has introduced a Bill in the Scottish Parliament. Although we have diametrically opposed views on independence, we agree that, whatever Scotland decides on 18 September, the proposal is for a simple, straightforward change to make our streets and pavements safe and more accessible, which is long overdue.
The Bill should be a non-party issue. I have therefore been in touch with the UK and Scottish Governments. I am grateful for the contact that I have had with them. I understand that the Government’s position is that primary legislation is not necessary to achieve the objectives I have set out, and the Scottish Government might believe that the powers are a devolved competence. That is a matter of some disagreement, but the reality is that, whatever is said in the House, MSPs of different parties have, in different ways, tried to introduce such legislation for more than seven years. They never get anywhere because of the difference of opinion on the competence of the Scottish Parliament to legislate on such matters.
I want action to be taken to tackle this problem in our communities. If the Minister can offer a better way forward than my Bill, I will be content with it. I recognise that, in practice, the changes I seek can be made only with the active co-operation and support of both the UK Government and the Scottish Government. However, I want action, so I wait with interest to see what the Minister says later in the debate.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am certainly not going to talk this Bill out, because I hope we will have a chance to get on to my Bill, which would ensure we had to spend a minimum of 2% of GDP on defence. That is a very topical Bill, and even if we do not have a chance to debate it extensively, I hope it will get a Second Reading on the nod.
My first problem with the Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill is its title, as everything the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said in introducing it suggested he was trying to address the issue of irresponsible parking, so I think he has got the wrong title for his Bill.
Mark Lazarowicz
I was advised by the Clerks that “Irresponsible Parking” would not have been acceptable but “Responsible Parking” would be.
Mr Chope
Clause 1, however, refers to “Obstructive parking”. If that phrase is all right in clause 1, surely it would have been all right in the title of the Bill.
I have more serious reservations about this Bill, however. As has been said already, it is premature because of the proximity of the referendum. However, it does not matter which way the people of Scotland Vote: if they vote for independence, which I sincerely hope they will not, they will take over the responsibilities set out in this Bill; and, as I understand it, a deal has been done—I am not saying it has been approved by this House—by all the leaders of the main political parties to the effect that if the people of Scotland vote against independence, they will be allowed what is called devo-max. I do not know exactly what devo-max involves, but I think it probably includes allowing the Scottish Government to decide on such issues as obstructive parking, rather than having them dealt with by the United Kingdom Government.
Philip Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a slight irony in the fact that Opposition Members are on the one hand arguing that we should not have independence for Scotland and that we are better together, while on the other hand they are acknowledging that this is an issue that is the same right across the UK but that it should be dealt with by more independence for Scotland? Is there not some slight irony and contradiction in the arguments they are putting forward?
Mr Chope
Well, there is nothing new in that, as my hon. Friend knows.
I was surprised, however, that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) did not deploy the argument, in support of the no campaign in the referendum, that if Edinburgh was to become a diplomatic capital, the amount of obstructive parking by cars with diplomatic number plates would make the situation far worse than at present. If the people in his constituency and Edinburgh as a whole think there is a problem with obstructive parking, they should be very determined to vote no in the referendum to ensure it does not get any worse, with a whole lot more diplomatic vehicles there. That is a point that I make on behalf of the hon. Gentleman; it is a pity that he did not refer to it himself.
A further issue is that the Bill duplicates existing legislation. On too many occasions—not only on Fridays—the House tries to legislate on activities that are already against the law. The problem is that the existing law is not being properly enforced. I think the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is already against the law to obstruct the highway or to park on the pavement, thereby preventing disabled vehicles, buggies and people who are blind or have other handicaps from being able to move along the pavement. That is already against the law, and if that law is not being enforced, that should be a matter for the law enforcement authorities rather than for the lawmakers. People keep saying that we want more lawmaking, but let us think about whether we really want to litter the statute book with another piece of duplicate legislation.
There is a strong argument for applying the same road traffic laws across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and I am not quite sure why Scottish Ministers want to get involved in introducing separate offences for obstructing the highway.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is touching on some important points. Does he agree that Opposition Members have probably fallen into the Scottish nationalists’ trap? The nationalists are saying that they do not have the power to make these changes, simply in order to hide their own uselessness in governing Scotland. Rather than challenging them and telling them that they do indeed have that power and they need to pull their finger out and do something for the people they are supposed to be representing, Labour has fallen into the nationalists’ trap and accepted that more legislation is needed, thus giving the nationalists an excuse for not doing what they should be doing.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why would we want to give the Scottish Parliament more powers when it seems to be agonising at great length over issues as trivial as the one we are discussing today? I do not think it has demonstrated that it can be decisive and in control of events.
Mr David Davis
There is another way in which the Bill is a gift to the Scottish nationalist argument. No one has argued that this problem is unique to Scotland. Indeed, it occurs across the whole country. If the Bill were passed, it ought to be called simply the Responsible Parking Bill, rather than the Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill. Why should Scotland be different in this respect?
Mr Chope
I agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe in the United Kingdom. I was lucky enough to be educated at a Scottish university, and I would like to think that my degree will still be regarded as a United Kingdom degree, rather than one from a foreign country. I have given my reasons for not thinking that the Bill is in a fit state to go further in the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
I think I will look at the wording of that when I see it in Hansard. This is an important road and a lot of work has already gone on to widen the A1, as well as a lot of work that is being undertaken at present. We are now talking about the area north of Newcastle and it is important that when the works are being carried out, measures are put in place to deal with the environmental consequences and the objections that people might raise.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
8. What steps his Department is taking to improve journey times and passenger capacity on the Waterloo to Weymouth rail line.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
There are no specific improvements to journey times and passenger capacity currently planned on the Waterloo to Weymouth line. However, the rail investment strategy requires additional capacity into Waterloo to meet extra demand of 9,700 passengers in the morning peak period by 2018. This could benefit the Weymouth line.
Mr Chope
I thank my hon. Friend for that rather disappointing response. Will he explain why we are going to spend a fortune in taxpayers’ money speeding up the journey times between London and Birmingham when those journeys are already 50% faster than those between Southampton and London?
Mr Goodwill
In every part of the country that I travel to, I am told that there are capacity constraints, but there is no simple solution to the problem. I am aware that the journey time from Christchurch into London is two hours and 10 minutes, which is longer than my journey from York to King’s Cross. Of course, the problem is often that faster services have fewer stops. For example, the fastest train on this line does not stop at Christchurch.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
8. What is the latest estimated cost of the proposed education centre in Victoria Tower gardens.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
The latest estimate of the cost of constructing and equipping the education centre is £6.93 million, excluding value added tax but including the usual provision for contingencies.
Mr Chope
Will the hon. Gentleman tell me how expenditure of some £7 million on what will be a temporary building can possibly be justified? Would it not be much better to put the education centre into the space that is currently occupied by the loss-making day nursery overlooking Parliament square?
John Thurso
The hon. Gentleman and I served together on the Administration Committee during the last Parliament, and I know of his enthusiasm for the education centre. We considered a wide range of options, all of which we have considered again during the current Parliament, and this option provides by far the best value. It allows us to increase the number of children who go through the education centre from 45,000 to 100,000, which is a significant advance.
A teacher who had taken children around the Houses of Parliament said that it had been a
“fantastic experience that allowed children to have firsthand experience of how the Houses of Parliament work. It was great for them to see it as a working building—online it is static and empty. They were very much struck with awe and wonder.”
Engagement with children is the future of our politics.
Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Clappison
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Hertfordshire county council has given an assurance that it will follow similar procedures to those set out in the Road Traffic (Temporary Restrictions) Procedure Regulations 1992 on giving notice of when roads will be used during the course of filming. Those requirements relate to posting notices in the street, notifying the police and making certain advertisements of when the roads will be closed. The duties for when the roads are actually closed are set out in clauses 3 and 4, to which I will turn shortly.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Following on from the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), proposed new subsection (6C) in clause 4 makes it clear that the county council is seeking powers to enable it to close a road with a minimum of only 24 hours notice. Does my hon. Friend think that that is reasonable?
Mr Clappison
As my hon. Friend will know, that is the film notice, as opposed to the film order, and the various requirements relate to film notices. I hope he will take some consolation from the fact that a film notice can continue for only 24 hours, whereas a film order can continue for longer. As he has said, notice of a film notice has to be given at least 24 hours before it comes into effect. The purpose is to deal with situations in which weather may be a factor and the film producers want to take advantage of temporary weather conditions.
Mr Clappison
I have been in agreement with interventions by my right hon. and hon. Friends, but may I put a different case? My right hon. Friend gives the example of entertainments and the like, but they do not confer any wider economic benefit. Filming confers a wider economic benefit on the community because it will help prosperity and employment to be established in Hertfordshire.
I also disagree with what my right hon. Friend said about keeping people away from the filming. My experience is that film makers are happy for members of the public to be present to watch from an appropriate distance, provided they do not interfere with the filming. That may not always be the case, but I know of examples in my constituency where it has been.
Members of the public in Hertfordshire take not only great pleasure from witnessing films being made, but pride from the fact that well-known local landmarks are used for filming. My right hon. Friend will not be old enough to remember “On the Buses”—I remember it, I am sad to say—but in Borehamwood, we take great pleasure from the fact that the principal figure in the series happened to be a bus driver, the late Reg Varney, who was a great character. For the filming, he drove his bus up and down Shenley road in Borehamwood, and if one watches those films, one can see Shenley road as it was then, with members of the public standing around and witnessing the film being made. It is all there in that very good series. I will not digress any more about “On the Buses”, but I am sure that there are many other good examples.
Legally, the Bill will have the effect of categorising the making of a film as a “relevant event”, therefore allowing the council to make closure orders. The existing restriction on special events that allows such events to last for three days will continue in force, but it will be extended to seven days for film orders. The 1984 Act allows a road to be closed for three days, but the Bill will allow it to be closed for seven days. Up to six film orders can be made for any one stretch of road under the provisions.
In addition to such film orders, the Bill makes provision for film notices, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has already referred. Going beyond existing provisions for special events, film notices will enable the council to issue restrictions on road use where it appears to the council that it is expedient that the closure should come into effect without delay, although the duration of up to 24 hours is shorter than the seven days for film orders.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend accept that it is possible to close any road for only three days once a year under the Road Traffic Regulation Act, but under his Bill it will be possible to close a particular piece of road on six occasions for a maximum of seven days each time—in other words, for 42 days a year?
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend makes a good point. If he has been listening, I hope that he will accept that I have been careful to say that the power is being extended. That is one of the details that it is important to debate, and no doubt he will want to come back to that point. I suggest that that is so to fit in with the needs of the film industry. I suppose that it will be hoped that roads will not need to be closed for the maximum period or for the maximum number of six occasions in a year. That provision is to fit in with the convenience of, and to promote, the film industry, which has to be balanced against the other factors that he mentioned, including the interests of local road users.
Mr Clappison
There is a procedure for making the orders by the local authority. I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I must say that many businesses are dependent on the film industry, particularly in my constituency, because there is so much film making there. People are so used to the film industry that they accept that some inconvenience is associated with attracting to Hertfordshire, and in particular to my constituency, important productions that are of so much general benefit to the public and the local economy. As far as I am aware—I will probably have an avalanche of mail complaining about it—there is a general acceptance of that in my constituency, as well as great pride in our connection with film making and a wish for it to continue. He makes a good point about the generality of the powers, but there are special circumstances to take account of in the case of my constituency.
I hope that I have been frank enough for my hon. Friends about the proposals in the Bill. As I have said, film notices go beyond the existing provisions for special events that I have mentioned in current legislation. Film notices enable the council to issue restrictions on road use where it appears to the council that it is expedient that the closure should come into effect without delay, which is particularly valuable to the film industry.
To turn to the detailed provisions, clause 3(2) provides that a “relevant event” under section 16A of the 1984 Act will include film making. Hon. Friends who are familiar with the 1984 Act will know that roads can already be closed, although for a shorter duration, for the several events specified in section 16A, covering
“the holding of a relevant event,…enabling members of the public to watch a relevant event, or…reducing the disruption to traffic”.
The film order will be added to that list of special events.
Clause 4 deals with restrictions on film orders and notices. Subsection (2) allows for film orders to remain in force for up to seven days, compared with the three days for relevant events under existing provisions, as we have already discussed. Subsection (4) provides that no more than six film orders may be made in any one year, that a film notice shall continue for only 24 hours and that notice of a film notice must be given at least 24 hours before it comes into effect.
Among other matters, clause 5 provides that a breach of a film order or notice will be an offence in the same way as a breach of an order relating to a relevant event under the existing provisions in section 16C of the 1984 Act. I understand that there has been some discussion and, I am happy to say, constructive dialogue between the Bill’s promoter and the Minister, as I hope the Minister will confirm.
Clause 6 provides for the council, as a highway authority, to give permission to film makers for the temporary placing of objects on a highway, subject to conditions imposed by the council and certain defined conditions set out in subsection (3). The general purpose is to ensure that that is done safely, because safety is of overriding importance. Subject to such conditions, clause 6 allows the council to authorise equipment, such as static film cameras, lighting rigs or camera trucks to be placed on roads during filming.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
May I say at the outset that it is not my desire to divide the House on Second Reading? However, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and the promoter of the Bill will take on board the concerns Government Members have expressed in interventions.
Essentially, the issue is: what is proportionate and reasonable? At the moment, national legislation enables activities to take place on the highway for a maximum of three days and ensures that no piece of road may be affected more often than once a year. As I made clear in an intervention, the Bill would make it possible for an individual piece of highway to be closed for as long as 42 days a year, without any compensation for businesses or residents who were inconvenienced or suffered a loss as a result. The question is whether this House needs to give such wide powers to a local authority through private legislation.
One can envisage what would happen if Westminster bridge was closed for 42 days a year for filming. One could make any number of arguments as to why it would be a wonderful location for filming. If it was closed for 42 days a year, one can imagine what the consequences would be for local residents and other users of that highway. I venture to suggest that the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 was drafted in the way it was to maintain a balance between the interests and needs of local residents and the wider interests that might be served by closing a road for a particular purpose on a particular occasion.
A lot of films are made in Hertfordshire, so the county council feels it needs to increase the powers that are available to it or, as my hon. Friend said, clarify those powers. However, the Bill goes far beyond clarifying the wording of the 1984 Act. A clarification could be made by adding one or two words to that Act and without changing the amount of time for which a road may be blocked. It is a misrepresentation to suggest that the Bill merely seeks to clarify an ambiguity in the existing legislation. It goes far beyond that and I hope that in Committee it will be given a degree of scrutiny commensurate with those extra powers.
I have been approached by Buckinghamshire county council. I do not know why it thought it necessary to write to me for advice on introducing a private Bill, but it had the courtesy of so doing. I wrote back to the council leader and said that the Bill that he was seeking to bring forward was very similar, if not identical, to this one. If it is presented tomorrow, as we heard it might be, we will see. I suggested that rather than his county council bringing forward a separate Bill, it might get together with Hertfordshire and any other county council that is interested, speak to the Minister and see whether it could bring in more general legislation.
If the Minister wishes to intervene, I shall be happy to hear his answer. Perhaps we will hear in due course whether he thinks it would be appropriate for the national framework legislation to be changed so that instead of having the rather unhealthy competition between rival councils that are vying to present neighbouring towns as the most friendly to film-makers, which ultimately comes at the expense of the convenience of local people, there would be a more objective way of assessing what is reasonable and what is not.
There is another point that concerns me about the Bill. When I am not in my constituency, I live in a part of London that has a network of streets that were constructed largely in the late-Georgian period. The streets have retained their character and are often used for film sets. To compensate residents for the inconvenience associated with the use of local roads for film sets, which involves not being allowed to park and sometimes having access impeded by film crews, film companies pay a significant sum to the local residents association. It means that the association can function and hold Christmas parties and such things that it might not otherwise be able to afford. In a sense, there is a quid pro quo. Film companies are not acting for charity but to make money for themselves, so why should there not be a system for compensating those who are inconvenienced as a result of those activities? I would be interested if at some stage the promoters of the Bill considered whether some provision could be included to ensure that residents and businesses that are unduly inconvenienced, or perhaps inconvenienced on more than one occasion each year, are entitled to some compensation or recognition in monetary terms that they are making a contribution that should be recognised by the film company.
Like a lot of other Bills, this Bill merits considerable scrutiny. I am also puzzled by the explanatory memorandum that states that clause 3
“enables closures for the purpose of enabling members of the public to watch the making of a film.”
If we start closing roads to enable spectators to watch the making of a film, it seems to me that we are getting a long way from the Bill’s core purpose alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, which is to enable people to make films. If we start saying that additional roads must be closed, or additional time taken up because we must provide for people who want to watch the making of films, that is going further than might have been intended by the architects of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. I hope that in due course that issue can also be addressed.
Sir Greg Knight
My hon. Friend made an interesting point about compensation. Does he know whether under existing legislation a local authority could charge a whopping licence fee to the film makers, thereby making money out of the process?
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. My intervention will be brief, but I gently point out that the local council is the owner of Elstree studios. As long as those studios are in business and doing as well as they are at the moment, I believe the council’s revenues are considerably assisted by that. My hon. Friend mentioned local benefit, and my constituency contains a school that has been established to try to get young people into jobs in the film industry. That gives a lot of pleasure and satisfaction to local people.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that further information. I had not realised that Elstree studios is a municipal enterprise. When my hon. Friend’s council next says that it is short of funds, he will be able to say, “Why don’t you sell off your interest in Elstree studios?”
Mr Clappison
It is a Conservative council with a substantial Conservative majority and an excellent record on finance, and it continues to provide very good services with a very good value for money council tax.
Mr Chope
I certainly do not want to get myself into deep water—deeper water—with Hertfordshire county council. My hon. Friend has explained that there is in a sense a potential conflict of interest between the county council as the highways authority, the regulator and the body setting and charging the fees and the county council wearing its hat as owner of the studio. That issue merits some detailed scrutiny by the House. It is wonderful that my hon. Friend has been so open and frank in exposing these issues for scrutiny and I am sure that plenty of people will want to take advantage of that in due course.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) on moving the Second Reading of this private Bill. We welcome the opportunity presented by the debate, and we have listened to a number of the interventions. This Bill will certainly enable the successful film-making industry in Hertfordshire to prosper. I suspect my hon. Friend will enjoy many happy hours in Committee scrutinising this Bill.
Let me make it clear from the start that the Government do not oppose the Bill. We accept that it largely replicates previous legislation, including the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2008 and the Kent County Council (Filming on Highways) Act 2010, but we had some initial reservations about the limited procedural protection offered to property owners and the travelling public. These are similar issues to those raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who can be reassured that the Government have had discussions with Hertfordshire county council. We are grateful that the council reassured the Government that when it puts in place film orders and film notices, it will—to the extent that there are no mandatory requirements in law—follow the procedures similar to those set out in the Road Traffic (Temporary Restrictions) Procedure Regulations 1992.
I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) musing on why Buckinghamshire county council should have asked him to sponsor a private Member’s Bill on a similar subject. I can assume only that, after his long hours of parliamentary scrutiny, it considers him to be the House’s expert.
Stephen Hammond
I am happy to have that correction put on the record, but equally, I am sure that his advice was sought for exactly the same reason, given my hon. Friend’s extensive hours of scrutiny over various private Members’ Bills. I heard his comments and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) about the potential for looking at national legislation, and given that I am known as a most generous Minister, I am happy to offer the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) for a meeting if they wish to pursue the point. None the less, the Government wish this Bill well on its Second Reading, and we have no objection to its moving forward through the House of Commons.
London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
I do not wish to detain the House for too long because the Bill has been subject to very detailed scrutiny at all its stages in this House and in the other place. I hope that, like the two previous London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bills, this Bill will be passed this afternoon, giving the councils and Transport for London very useful powers that I am sure will be welcomed by everyone who lives in London.
London councils and boroughs bring forward proposals for Bills, and this one started out in May 2007. At that time, I was sitting as deputy leader of Brent council, where we gave the Bill some detailed scrutiny. After the proposals were refined in summer 2007, the Bill was finally lodged in November 2007. It can therefore be said that it has had a long gestation period of some six years.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and his colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and others, who have subjected the Bill to very detailed scrutiny. It is fair to say that it has been a long process. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has sought tirelessly, not only on this private Bill but on others promoted by London local authorities and, indeed, authorities throughout the land, to ensure that such Bills are given detailed scrutiny, as is entirely appropriate. It may be said that they get far more scrutiny than legislation proposed by the Government that is much more important, if that is possible. I am sure that his constituents will rest easy knowing that his assiduous work on this Bill on their behalf means that when they next visit this great city there will be less clutter on the streets, apart from electricity charging points, safer skips and cleaner air as a result of the increase in the use of electric vehicles that will no doubt arise.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous remarks. This Bill started off with 39 clauses and now has 20. Does he accept that other legislation we pass in this House would invariably be much better if it were similarly truncated?
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Before the Bill started, 15 clauses were removed by the Lords Select Committee that considered it, 10 of which formed one part of the Bill, and three were dropped by the promoters in agreement with people who objected. Detailed elements of the Bill have been subjected to tidying up and making sure that they are appropriate to the times we live in.
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), and the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for their contributions to this debate.
Finally, I would like to mention something that will no doubt cause great distress to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and his colleagues and perhaps some joy and relief to others, including our Whips. I have been told that apart from a short four-month period in 1991, ever since the first London local authorities Bill was deposited in November 1988 there has been at least one such Bill before Parliament. When this Bill obtains Royal Assent, as I trust it now will, that continuous record will end. The torch is being carried on to some extent by TfL with a Bill that is currently in the Lords, but for the London boroughs, for the moment, that is it. As it happens, tomorrow is the day by which private Bills must be deposited in Parliament. I have it on very good authority that a London local authorities Bill will not be deposited.
With that, Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you and your colleagues for your forbearance and hope that the House will shortly see fit to give this worthy Bill a Third Reading.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
We have up to three hours in which we could debate the Third Reading of this Bill—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman. As we all know, Third Readings never drag on for that long, and I would be tempted to put the Question way before then, so he ought to get his points in and not detain the House for too long. I know that he is desperate to get on to the Second Reading of the next Bill.
Mr Chope
As always, you anticipate my remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The whole process of private legislation should perhaps by revisited by the Procedure Committee, because this Bill shows that too often Bills are brought to this House and presented without being sufficiently thought through in advance. Great chunks of the Bill have been removed as a result of the scrutiny that this House has given to it. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that on Third Reading we do not talk about what is not in a Bill but only what is left in it. However, it is important to put it on record that all the provisions relating to pedicabs, for example, which were very controversial, have been completely removed. As I indicated in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), a Bill that originally had 39 clauses now has only 20, so it is much tighter.
There have also been a significant number of amendments. I commend my hon. Friend for the constructive way in which he has dealt with the points that have been raised. Obviously he and I have not agreed about everything, but where we have been able to agree we have amended the Bill accordingly.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend not rather destroyed his own argument? If the Bill has been improved in the process of scrutiny that already exists, surely there is no need for the Procedure Committee to look at our procedures.
Mr Chope
As my right hon. Friend is a former distinguished Chairman of the Procedure Committee, his intervention will probably carry considerable weight. I can understand why the Committee might not want to get involved in looking at private legislation. However, quite a lot of right hon. and hon. Members’ time has been taken up with this legislation, and the implication of my remarks was that some of that time could have been spared if the contents of the Bill had been thought through more carefully in advance before it was presented. I have noticed a distinct drying up of the number of private Bills being brought before the House. I hope that the thorough scrutiny to which they have been subject has become part of a deterrent process whereby people realise that one cannot just dream up some idea, put it in the form of legislation, present it, and hope that it will go through the House without anybody taking too much notice of it. If the Procedure Committee wants to look at the issue, then obviously it will do so.
The next Bill we are debating deals with filming on the highways in one particular locality. It is often asked why we need Bills dealing with a particular locality that could have a more general application through an enabling Bill passed by the Government that would enable local authorities, if they so wished, to opt into certain legislation. However, that is a debate for another day.
Having had such constructive engagement with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, it would not be appropriate to seek to divide the House on Third Reading. As I have I said all along, there are parts of this Bill that I support. I merely wanted to ensure that it was a better Bill when it left this House than when it arrived. I think that anybody looking at this objectively will agree with me and with you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it is a better Bill that is worthy of a Third Reading.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Stephen Hammond
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely correct in his understanding; of course he would be, as he has so skilfully managed the Bill so far.
Stephen Hammond
I am going to make some progress because I think that my hon. Friend is going to refer to amendment 20. If he waits for a moment I will deal with that.
We have always made it clear that HS2 will provide a significant opportunity for vocational skills across the lifetime of the project, giving a real boost to British industry. This Government are committed to raising skill levels and creating an environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to succeed. Amendment 26 would place an obligation on the Government to report on their progress in delivering those opportunities and to demonstrate what we mean when we say that HS2 is an engine for growth. I have always been convinced, as have many Members across the House, that we will be able to do that. HS2 is a generational scheme, and as such we need to make sure we have the right home-grown talent that allows us to deliver it. I am delighted that there is cross-party support for amendments 25 and 26, and I hope that the whole House will be able to support them.
Mr Chope
Will my hon. Friend turn his mind to amendment 30, which seeks to limit the amount of expenditure on preparatory works to £5 billion—a pretty substantial sum, but obviously not as large as £50 billion? Will the Government undertake not to spend more than £5 billion on preparatory works?
Stephen Hammond
I might be prepared to consider that. However, my hon. Friend needs to be absolutely clear that this is about the preparatory works on phases 1 and 2 as opposed to preparatory works for the whole scheme were it to go further and create a network. His amendment does not cover that, and that is why it is unnecessary.
Stephen Hammond
It is rare that I disagree with my right hon. Friend, but in this case I do. What this Bill does is explicitly place reporting obligations on the Government for the preparatory work. Moreover, it is the hybrid Bill, which my right hon. Friend has mentioned, that will provide the opportunity to scrutinise all stages and costs.
We have created the reporting duty precisely to ensure that Parliament can scrutinise the expenditure and see that we are spending it responsibly. Planned expenditure on design works for the financial year 2013-14 is about £2.5 million, and for 2014-15 it is about £9.2 million.
There are a number of other amendments in this group and I know that other Members want to get in. I sympathise with the spirit of amendment 8, but it does not clarify the exact level that most people recognise as the number of people employed by small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, it would restrict a small or medium-sized enterprise that had fewer employees, but that hoped to secure a high-value contract that would result in many UK jobs. The amendment goes beyond the direct nature of the contract.
Stephen Hammond
On amendment 31 and the transparency of the project, I do not believe it is necessary to produce six-monthly reports of spending estimates in addition to the annual reports to which we have already committed. Given what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has said, I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) would not want us to waste money or create bureaucracy just to produce six-monthly reports. Such a requirement would be onerous on the Government.
Stephen Hammond
The Government accept that we need to come to the House to explain our actions and report on our preparatory expenditure. As has been discussed extensively this afternoon, the initial target cost for phase 1 is £17.16 billion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has tabled amendments on the monitoring of tax avoidance and the payment of bonuses to those who work on High Speed 2. We must manage the costs, but we must balance that with ensuring that the staff reward arrangements attract the right talent. We need to ensure that those who work in the public sector demonstrate the highest standards of integrity and meet their tax obligations.
Following the review of the tax arrangements of public sector appointees last year by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, all Departments and agencies have a duty to seek assurances about the tax arrangements of their long-term specialists and contractors to ensure that they are paying the right amount of tax. The Government are committed to tackling all forms of tax avoidance and have taken a wide range of measures to close tax loopholes.
It is essential that we guard against the payment of bonuses that are not in line with the Government’s goal of reducing the public sector remuneration package. However, we must ensure that we have the right reward structure in place. We must not put provisions in legislation that would tie the hands of the whole supply chain. I am happy to confirm to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham that Sir David Higgins will move to High Speed 2 on the same salary that he received at Network Rail and that he has guaranteed that he will not accept any bonuses. I hope that that satisfies her.
I hope that the House will support amendments 25 and 26.
London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
Christopher Chope Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendments 2 to 9 and 20.
Mr Chope
It gives me great pleasure to move amendment 1 and to discuss the other amendments in the group. I begin by paying tribute to the promoters, who said earlier today that two of my amendments in a subsequent group will be accepted, and I think that is a perfect answer to all those people who look askance at Members of this House who force debates on issues such as this and table amendments. The promoters have, by their actions, demonstrated the worthwhile nature of that behaviour.
The concerns of my hon. Friends lie in trying to find out more about the proposals before us and ensuring that the same standards of high-quality legislation are applied to private legislation as are applied to normal public legislation. I shall refer to some examples later and I hope that the House will agree that there are examples of legislative provisions that are too woolly or imprecise to deserve to be put on the statute book.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
The critics to whom the hon. Gentleman refers have obviously never had the opportunity of being in the Chamber and listening to the amendments that he and his colleagues have tabled. They have clearly demonstrated their worth over many, many years.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not wish to crow, other than to say that it is important that just because a Bill is a private Bill it should not be subject to less scrutiny than a public Bill. As was said on Second Reading, why should a local authority impose a statutory regime in its area different from the national regime?
I am delighted to see the Minister, who will be able to respond to some of the concerns about why a regime for dealing with skips different from the regime that applies elsewhere in the country that has to be introduced private legislation rather than through a public Bill promoted by the Government.
Before I get too distracted from the subject matter of the amendments, I should say that amendments 1 and 2, which can be considered together, are an example of why the Bill is unnecessarily complex. The Bill applies to the whole of London other than the City of London, yet it is proposed that its provisions should be brought in at different times in different areas. If we are to have a regime for skips, for example, in London, surely the changes should apply to the whole of London at the same time rather than piecemeal. Yet clause 3(2) states:
“Different days may be fixed under this section for the purpose of the application of the provisions mentioned in section 1(3) to different areas.”
Likewise, clause 3(3) states:
“Different days may be fixed under this section for the purpose of the application of the provisions mentioned in section 1(3) to an area.”
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I understand my hon. Friend’s point. Is it possible that what he mentions is done to enable authorities to trial something, to make sure that the system works efficiently and properly before extending it? If that is true, is it not sensible?
Mr Chope
It may be that my hon. Friend, as so often, anticipates the response to come from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who speaks on behalf of the promoters. We shall have to wait and see. On the face of it, the issue is worthy of an explanation. If the legislation is untried and experimental, that should be clearly set out in the Bill.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Might not confusion result from the fact that measures are to be introduced on different days in different parts of London? I might not be as generous in my thinking as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but could that not be a deliberate ploy to try to confuse people and set up a money-making racket?
Mr Chope
It could be, but I am not going to try to follow my hon. Friend by making accusations against the promoters or London authorities by suggesting that the Bill is designed to confuse and ensure that they can get more in penalty income than they might otherwise be able to. Again, the fact that my hon. Friend raises that as an issue demonstrates the climate of suspicion regarding a lot of local authorities in relation to the imposition of penalty charges, which I recall from having read an article are now giving hundreds of millions of pounds in income to London local authorities alone. Many people feel those measures were brought in almost by subterfuge through Bills such as the one we are considering tonight, and now many years later people can see that has resulted in a significant financial burden and quite a lot of injustice. That is why I think it would be better to have simplicity and clarity, which would require that any provisions in this Bill be introduced in all areas of London at the same time on the same day, rather than causing the confusion to which I have referred.
Philip Davies
I just wonder whether my hon. Friend’s amendment will achieve what he seeks. Are these parts of the Bill making something clear to people, rather than being a necessary part of the Bill? Even if my hon. Friend’s amendments were accepted, would it not still be possible for these measures to be introduced on different days? I am not entirely sure where it is made clear they would have to be on a specific day. Are these two parts of the Bill just making something clear to people?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend raises another point that I had not thought about, which is that these subsections may be superfluous anyway and it is implicit within the powers being given under clause 3 that an appointed day could be a different day for different parts of London in different circumstances, in which case, in trying to keep legislation simple there would be another argument in favour of accepting my amendments 1 and 2, as in leaving out subsections (2) and (3) of clause 3, they would make the Bill clearer. We will have to wait to hear the response to the debate before assessing whether these amendments are of such significance that we would seek to divide the House on them. Speaking for myself, I think it would be reasonable to await the full explanation before rushing to judgment.
Amendment 3 is significant. It is the first of the amendments addressing part 2 of the Bill, and clause 4 in particular, which deals with the attachment of street lamps and signs to buildings, and changing the regulations relating thereto. At present, the regime is pretty restricted under the highways legislation, but this Bill seeks to give much wider powers to local authorities, enabling them to permit the attachment of street lamps and signs to buildings even when that is not approved or supported by the owners of those buildings. This power is potentially quite significant, because the owner of a building could suddenly find they are required to have a street lamp or sign attached to their building.
We know from earlier stages of the Bill that the Society of London Theatre was very concerned about the impact of the measure on theatreland, and it is to the credit of the promoters that they decided that they would therefore exempt theatres, which is why clause 4(14) specifically states:
“This section and section 5 shall not apply in respect of a theatre.”
In a few moments I will talk about amendment 4, which follows on from that. Amendment 3, however, deals with subsection (13), which states:
“A London authority may not, under section 3, appoint a day for the purposes of this section until a code of practice dealing with the exercise of the powers of the said section 45 and the said section 74 as modified by this section has been published by a joint committee.”
My amendment would ensure that the code of practice must not only be published by a Joint Committee but be approved by the Secretary of State for Transport—an appropriate and proportionate safeguard.
Mr Nuttall
Amendment 3 specifically suggests that the approval of the Secretary of State for Transport should be sought. My limited understanding of these things is that the normal practice is to specify “the Secretary of State” and leave the actual office open. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would like to expand on why he has specified the Secretary of State for Transport.
Mr Chope
I am not learned in any sense of the term, but this amendment has been selected and I thought that rather than just referring to “the Secretary of State” it would more appropriate if it specified the Secretary of State for Transport. If the Minister wishes to intervene to suggest that it should be the responsibility of a different member of the Government, so be it. The point I am trying to make is that this is a significant issue. It is recognised by the promoters as sufficiently serious in its potential implications as to mean there should be a code of practice to deal with the exercise of the powers. The code should go further, in the sense that it should be approved by the Secretary of State for Transport. It would be unreasonable to expect this code to have to be approved by this House, through a statutory instrument, but it is reasonable to say that there should be a safeguard and that the Government can ensure that the code of practice accords with what is reasonable and proportionate. The Secretary of State for Transport could then be held accountable by this House for approving a code of practice if it did not meet the reasonable conditions we think ought to apply.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend comes at this with far more expertise and knowledge than I do, because whereas I never have been and never will be a Minister, he has been—indeed, he was in the then Department of Transport. Will he therefore outline how he would expect the Secretary of State to take on this responsibility? Would it just be a meaningless rubber-stamping exercise?
Mr Chope
Whether it was a meaningless rubber-stamping exercise or something of substance would depend very much on the Minister. Although we would say that the code would be approved by the Secretary of State for Transport, in practice it would be brought before a more junior Minister, who would carry out the approval in the name of the Secretary of State. It is not for me to comment on the assiduous way in which various junior Ministers operate, but I have no doubt that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), would be extremely assiduous if he was the Minister charged with this responsibility. The paper would be put before him by his officials and he would ask probing questions, perhaps on an iterative basis, whereby it might take a few days or weeks before the matter went through. He would take the responsibility seriously and examine the code, raising any concerns he had and suggesting any modifications that he wanted to have.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
My hon. Friend rightly says that I would be entirely assiduous should this onerous burden be placed upon me, as I am with any such instrument; I carefully read these things and scrutinise them. I can tell him that the Government’s view, having examined the amendment, is that there would be no need for the Secretary of State to approve the code of practice; the code could stand by itself.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the first part of his remarks and I hope that in due course we can explore further the second part, in which he said that there was no need for the code of practice to be approved and that it could stand by itself. Quite, but would it not be an additional safeguard to ensure that it received the approval of the Government rather than just a Joint Committee, as suggested? I shall leave the matter there and we can perhaps explore it in due course.
Amendment 4 would add a new subsection after clause 4(14) so that clauses 4 and 5 would
“not apply in respect of any building in a conservation area.”
The provisions already exclude any application to listed buildings and, as we have discussed, theatres, but a building in a conservation area has traditionally enjoyed the same protection as a listed building outside a conservation area. The essence of a conservation area is that all the buildings should be considered together in the context of the local environment. One might be concerned that if a lot of street lamps and signs were attached to buildings in a conservation area, that could detract from the character of the area quite significantly. My challenge to the Minister in responding to the debate is that if it is reasonable to exempt listed buildings from clause 4, why has that not also been extended to buildings in conservation areas?
The next amendment in the group comes under the category of bad drafting and an attempt to take extremely wide powers. Amendment 5 would amend clause 5(4)(b), which deals with the serving of notices under clause 4 on people who would be affected by the application of the clause on the attachment of street lamps and signs to buildings. It states:
“If, for the purposes of serving a notice…the name or address of the relevant owner cannot be ascertained after reasonable enquiry, the notice…may be served by…addressing it to him by name or by the description of “owner” of the land (describing it)”.
That is probably similar to a lot of the letters one gets through one’s letterbox addressed to “The Owner” and asking, “Have you thought of selling your house or letting it through some great agents?” It would seem to be perfectly reasonable. Alternatively, one could leave
“it in the hands of a person who is”
on the land as a
“resident or employed on the land or leaving it conspicuously affixed to some building or object on or near the land.”
That is a standard way of serving notices, by affixing them to a property. Giving it to a person who is resident is fine, but what concerns me is how we are to judge whether to give a formal notice to somebody who “appears to be” the resident. That is such a large loophole. Anybody could say, “I saw somebody there, they appeared to be the resident, I served notice on them. I don’t know who they were, I didn’t ask them any questions, but they appeared to be the resident.” That is granting a power that is far too wide—unnecessarily so—and could undermine the whole purpose of the clause, which is intended to ensure the reasonable service of notices and that the owner or resident of affected premises should receive the proper notice. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East on how we will judge whether people appear to be resident, and why it is necessary to have this extraordinarily wide power, which allows a notice to be left with somebody who appears to be resident; implicit in that is the idea that they may not be resident.
Philip Davies
I totally agree with my hon. Friend; this is a ludicrous state of affairs. Also, the Bill says “appears to be resident”—appears to whom? A person may appear to be resident to someone who is issuing a notice, but there is no regard to whether anybody else would think that the person was resident. Is this a good enough test?
Mr Chope
Exactly. My hon. Friend makes a very good point.
Clause 5(5) falls into the “ludicrous and superfluous” category. It says:
“This section shall not be taken to exclude the employment of any method of service not expressly provided for by it”,
but of course the clause is only permissive; subsection (1) says that a notice
“may be served by post.”
What does clause 5(5) add to the statute book, other than completely superfluous wording? I would have thought it a statement of the obvious. Do we really need to include on the statute book lots of statements of the obvious, like this one? Amendment 6 would therefore leave it out.
Jim Fitzpatrick
The hon. Gentleman is making a strong argument for the amendment. If I heard him correctly, he said that he had received an indication that some of his amendments may be accepted by the sponsor. Is this amendment one of those that he anticipates being acceptable to the sponsor?
Mr Chope
I hope so, but I have not yet received formal notice about this amendment. The two amendments about which I have received formal notice are in the second group, and I will not go into those now. From the hon. Gentleman’s comments, it seems that he is supportive of the amendment—I am not sure whether he is referring to amendment 5 or 6; perhaps he could indicate that more clearly.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I was not indicating whether we supported or opposed the amendment; all I was saying was that the hon. Gentleman was making a strong argument.
Philip Davies
On amendment 6, which would leave out subsection (5), has my hon. Friend had any thoughts about what might be included in those other methods of service? Might they include notices being served by e-mail, or by some other electronic means? If so, does he support that?
Mr Chope
I find that a rather testing intervention, because I am rather against the idea of using e-mails to serve notices. From my limited experience of receiving and sending e-mails, I think it is often not clear whether they have reached their destination or got lost in the ether. Quite a lot of mine seem to go into something—I cannot remember what it is called—
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. They go into the spam folder, so they are effectively never received, because they are automatically deleted—or they certainly are on my computer, but I do not want to be drawn into that issue. The promoters may have it in mind that they could serve notices in that way to anybody who appeared to be resident, but I do not know how they would find out how to do that. I look forward to hearing from the sponsor on that point.
One of the reasons why it can be frustrating for people following private legislation is that during the Committee stage of a Bill which is the subject of a petition it is not possible to go into the detail of the drafting, unless a petitioner has expressed concern about it or members of the Bill Committee take an interest and ask the promoters what a particular clause or subsection means. When the Bill comes back to the House on Report, it is often the first chance that we have to examine the wording and why the promoters consider it necessary.
Clause 6 deals with damage to highways as a consequence of adjacent works. It provides that
“The 1980 Act shall apply in Greater London as though for section 133 (damage to footways of streets by excavations) and its heading there were substituted—
Damage to highway by carrying out of works”.
The current wording of clause 6 is:
“If a highway maintainable at the public expense is damaged by or in consequence of any works on land adjacent to the highway, the highway authority for the highway may make good the damage”.
The effect of my amendment 7 would be that the highway authority “shall make good” the damage, because the highway authority has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the integrity of the highway. I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on highways maintenance. We had a meeting today to discuss the fraught issue of highway maintenance, the number of potholes that there are, and the rather varied performance of local authorities up and down the country in addressing the problems caused by deteriorating road surfaces and the creation of potholes.
Most people say that it should be the responsibility of the highway authority to put the road back into good order if that is what has happened. Amendment 7 would make it mandatory for the highway authority to make good the damage, and amendment 8 would enable the highway authority to recover the expenses reasonably incurred by it in so doing.
Philip Davies
May we stick to amendment 7 for the time being? I agree with my hon. Friend’s general premise. Motorists get a raw deal in this country, considering the amount of tax that they pay. Might the amendment lead to a perverse situation where the damage may be minor, yet the local authority would be forced to carry out work, which may be considered disproportionate? Might that be an unintended consequence of my hon. Friend’s amendment?
Mr Chope
I do not think it would be an intended consequence. I concede that my hon. Friend may have got me on that. Essentially, the question is whether we would describe minor damage as being covered by the amendment, or whether we are talking about significant damage. I drafted my amendment on the basis that we are talking about damage of such significance that it should be made good. We know that an unevenness on the road surface may soon deteriorate when heavy vehicles go over it or when it is subject to water penetration. What might start off as relatively minor damage may, if not addressed in timely fashion, become a significant pothole and a hazard to road users. My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I do not think that it really counters the general thrust of amendment 7, which is to try to ensure that the highway authority takes responsibility for making good any damage caused by works adjacent to the road.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend, rather uncharacteristically, is rushing through his amendments and catching me out as a result. To return to amendment 8, which would insert the word “may”, is he indicating that clause 6, as drafted, would force the highway authority to recover the expenses? Is the purpose of his amendment to allow some flexibility?
Mr Chope
Yes. If we were to leave out “may” and insert “shall”, as amendment 7 proposes, but not make amendment 8, obviously the highway authority would be required to make good the damage and be forced to recover the expenses reasonably incurred. I do not think that it would be sensible to oblige a highway authority under the terms of a statute to recover the expenses, which might prove difficult. It would be better to say that it “may” recover the expenses, which is why amendment 8 seeks to insert “may” in front of the word “recover” in the provision. That way, the highway authority would have a responsibility to make good any damage caused to the highway by adjacent works, but it would have discretion over whether or not to seek to recover the resulting expenses. I hope that is clear.
Philip Davies
It is clear, but I wonder whether my hon. Friend could expand a little on why he thinks the highway authority should not recover the expenses reasonably incurred.
Mr Chope
In a sense, that is the other side of the coin my hon. Friend has just used. The answer is that it might not be worth the candle. Why should we force a local authority to try to recover a relatively small sum when the cost of doing so could be disproportionate? That is the best answer I can give to the good point he makes.
Let me turn to amendment 9. This is another example of where the Bill’s drafting is unnecessarily wide. If a highway is damaged as a result of adjacent works, surely the person responsible for paying to repair it should be
“(b) the person carrying out the works; or
(c) the person on whose behalf the works were carried out.”
Why should
“(a) the owner of the land in question”
be the subject of the recovery of expenses if he neither carried out the works nor had the works carried out on his behalf? That seems unnecessarily oppressive, because the owner of the land might know nothing whatsoever about the work being carried out or any damage resulting from it. That incorporates a provision of strict liability in circumstances in which I do not think it is reasonable.
That is why I have tabled amendment 9, which would leave out subsection (a) and ensure that the expenses reasonably incurred could be recovered from the person who carried out the works or the person on whose behalf the works were carried out. That might often be the owner. However, if that person was not the owner, he would not and could not be liable. I look forward to hearing from the promoters of the Bill why they think it is reasonable to expect the owner of the land to be liable in the circumstances that I have described.
Mr Nuttall
Is my hon. Friend aware of the definition of “owner”? Is it a leasehold-owner or someone who owns the freehold?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes another good point. I do not know. The explanatory notes define “owner” in relation to part 3, but he is asking about part 2. That is perhaps an omission. There may be more than one owner. As he suggests, they may be a leasehold-owner, a freeholder, or, indeed, a sub-lessee. That is a reasonable point of inquiry. It might also be another reason why leaving out any reference to an owner would be the best way forward for the promoters of the Bill.
Amendment 20 is in the same group, which is headed “Highways and general”—“general” in this case. It relates to part 4, which has only one clause—clause 15, on the subject of gated roads, which says:
“Any person who opens, closes or otherwise operates or interferes with a relevant barrier without lawful excuse shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale…In subsection (1) a ‘relevant barrier’ means any barrier lawfully placed in, or over a highway by or on behalf of a traffic authority in London for the purpose of preventing or restricting the passage of vehicles or any class of vehicles into, out of, or along a highway.”
My amendment 20 would leave out all that. If we are to have specific legislation creating a criminal offence for people who open, close or otherwise interfere with such barriers, it should introduce that offence right across the country rather than in a particular part of it. I have no evidence to suggest that there is a bigger problem relating to gated roads in London than anywhere else.
Furthermore, introducing specific offences litters the statute book of criminal law with rather a lot of unnecessary trivia. In this case, if somebody goes along to a barrier and cuts off the padlock or forces it open in some way, they will be guilty of criminal damage, which is obviously already an offence in criminal law. The provision would potentially criminalise somebody who might open a barrier because it was not locked and then find themselves guilty of an offence.
Philip Davies
I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly. Does he agree that there may well be a perfectly good, legitimate reason for somebody to do that if it is to preserve their health and safety or for other emergency purposes, and yet the provision does not give any wide-ranging exemptions for such people?
Mr Chope
Absolutely. The clause refers to anyone who
“interferes with a relevant barrier without lawful excuse”,
which raises all sorts of questions regarding how to avoid the build-up of congestion caused by an accident or another incident such as a fire. If somebody says, “We need to open this barrier so that the traffic can flow more freely,” they might—unless they are authorised by the local authority—find themselves guilty of an offence. It seems to be a totally disproportionate response to the problem that the Bill’s promoters say exists.
I have seen no evidence of how many occasions gated roads have been opened, closed or otherwise interfered with by people to the detriment of the local authority. As I said at the outset, if there is a problem surely it would be better dealt with under the Traffic Regulation Act 1984, which relates to all authorities, not just those in London.
Rather earlier than some might have anticipated, I have reached the end of my introduction to the amendments, to which I have tried to speak in a constructive way. This is not an exercise in trying to prevent a Bill from making progress; it is an exercise in trying to ensure that the legislation that we put on the statute book is clear beyond peradventure and of sufficiently high quality to merit inclusion. It is very difficult to put these things right after the event, and on too many occasions in the past local authorities and Transport for London have been given wide powers that were not sufficiently explored beforehand, to the detriment of the general public. That is why, on behalf of road users and residents in London—I declare an interest as the owner of freehold property in London—I propose these amendments. I hope that the Bill’s promoters will address them as constructively as they have agreed to address at least two of the amendments in the next group.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for tabling these various amendments in, I trust, a spirit of exploring the intentions of the Bill’s promoters. I trust that my explanations will be sufficient for him not to press them to a vote. The Bill has been subject to a great deal of scrutiny both in this House and in the other place, so I will confine my remarks to the amendments.
I gleaned from my hon. Friend’s remarks that he tabled amendments 1 and 2 because he wants an explanation, not because he wants to press them to a vote. They relate to the commencement date for the regulations on lamps and signage. The Bill’s promoters across London are very keen for ultimate flexibility as to when the regulations should be introduced. The amendments would constrain London authorities to introduce them all on the same day across London, which would be draconian. The purpose of this part of the Bill is to say that there will be a need for lamps and signage to be restricted, but at different times for different authorities. That does not alter the fact that authorities have to advertise and give notice of their wish to introduce these schemes, but they do not have to introduce them in the same way right across London.
Bob Blackman
There will be times when signage or lamps are required, possibly on a temporary basis, and therefore one needs to introduce them, and give notice of that, and then take them away again. Those signs might be for emergency roadworks, or a particular purpose such as special events that take place in London. There are regularly demonstrations and road closures for special events, and it would be foolish to have those signs unnecessarily in operation throughout London and the affected areas. I trust that that provides a suitable explanation. It does not change the fact that local authorities must still advertise the reason for lamps and signage, as is wholly appropriate.
Amendment 3 suggests that after the Localism Act 2011, which enables local authorities to take many actions themselves, and after devolving power to London, we suddenly drag power back to the Secretary of State to force the Minister—or someone else—to consider the minutiae of things that go on in London. To me that seems to be overkill, and it does not take place in any other part of the country. The Secretary of State and Ministers have plenty to do without considering the minutiae of a code of practice that London local authorities will come together and agree, cross-party and for the good of all Londoners and London. I trust that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will accept that such things are best kept to a local level, rather than involving the Government. I understand that the Government have not stated that they want to interfere in such a process, and I am sure the Minister will confirm that in due course.
Mr Chope
Is not the point that provision is already set out in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to deal with such issues? That is national legislation but the Bill seeks to modify it for London. My amendment would ensure that there is a proper safeguard for that proposed modification for London through the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend refers to localism, but surely such things should apply equally to all local authorities, not just those that bring forward Bills such as this.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The Minister is getting carried away. He cannot intervene on someone who is already intervening. I think we have got the message for Bob Blackman to respond.
Bob Blackman
It just reinforces and restates existing legislation, and I think it is sensible to have the relevant legislation all in one place so that people can understand everything that applies. The subsection is nothing new and does not amend the 1972 Act. That Act has gone through many changes, through London Acts and so on, so it is sensible to retain the subsection.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend says that the subsection just restates the existing law in section 233 of the 1972 Act. That section applies throughout the country, so why is it necessary to reapply an existing provision in a local Act? Why do we need clause 5(5) at all? He says that it is useful to have everything in one piece of legislation, but that provision is already in the 1972 Act. Unless there is something in the subsection that adds to or subtracts from section 233 of that Act, what is the point of having it? How can that be good legislation?
Bob Blackman
For clarity and continuity it is sensible to restate, not change, the position that already exists. There is nothing new in clause 5(5), but if I were reading the Bill, I would want to know that there was complete clarity about its purpose.
Amendments 7 to 9 deal with cost and repair. There is nothing more frustrating for people than to see a development cause damage to a public highway, and for there then to be a lack of clarity about who will fix it. This is a problem in large parts of London. However, the effect of the amendments will possibly not be what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch intends. The local authority has a clear duty to maintain the highway so that it is in a good state of repair. In many parts of London it is not in a good state of repair. Where a developer or someone acting on behalf of an owner has caused damage, it is clear that the first option should be for the developer to repair the damage it has caused. Amendment 7 would remove the obligation on the developer to fix the damage it has caused and put the onus completely on the local authority to obtain the funding from the developer or the owner affected. This is, therefore, an unwanted measure.
Existing national legislation is worded in exactly the same way as the proposed legislation. Amendment 7 would place London local authorities in a worse position than the local authority in, for example, Christchurch. I do not see any reason why London authorities should be placed in a worse position than authorities outside London. The position should be consistent for all three amendments: the first call is for the developer to fix the problem it has caused. If it does not fix it, then the local authority should step in, make good the damage, and charge the people who caused the damage in the first place. In all these cases, this is entirely consistent with national legislation. The obligation to fix it should be on the people who caused the damage.
Mr Chope
The explanatory memorandum states that
“Clause 6 would replace section 133 with provisions for London that would enable the highway authority to recover their expenses of remedying such damage to any part of the highway, not just the footway.”
That seems to be what is being changed, rather than the means by which the damages can be recovered. Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a lot of rather superfluous wording, if the purpose is just to be able to extend an existing power from the footway to the whole of the highway?
Bob Blackman
The key point is who repairs the damage initially, or how the money is recovered. The point is that it should be the developer who causes the damage—frequently, heavy lorries delivering goods to a site cause damage to the highway as well the footway—who repairs it first. If they do not repair it, then the local authority steps in, makes good the damage, serves a notice and recovers the money. Unfortunately, the effect of all three amendments would remove the position of the developer doing any work at all, and put the onus fairly and squarely on the highways authority to make good and then try to recover the costs. That would be terribly frustrating for all concerned.
Mr Chope
I think we are at cross-purposes. My hon. Friend rightly said that the polluter should pay, but my concern is that if the polluter does not repair the damage to the highway, it might go unrepaired, unless my amendment 7 is carried, as it would require the local authority to repair the damage.
Bob Blackman
The highways authority already has a duty to keep the highways in good repair. As I read the amendment—I was only able to read it today—my concern is that it would not allow the developer to fix the problem.
Bob Blackman
No, it wouldn’t. It says that the local authority “shall” step in and do the work, irrespective. That wording is incorrect and is why I shall resist amendment 7, as well as amendments 8 and 9, which are all consequential amendments.
On amendment 20, London has many gates placed across roads to prevent the flow of traffic through residential communities. The roads are normally accessible by the emergency services—the fire brigade, ambulance service and police—and other appropriate authorities, but sometimes there is a severe problem. At the moment, if someone damages a gate, they can be held liable for criminal damage, but if they merely open the gate for their own convenience—to access the road or bypass a congested road—it defeats the purpose of that gate, which is to prevent large parts of London from being used as rat runs. The promoters therefore seek an enforcement option. If, on being directed by the emergency services, someone opened a gate, clearly they would not be guilty of an offence, but if they opened a gate for their own convenience—or for other people’s convenience, for joyriding or whatever—they would be guilty of an offence, and it would be up to the local authorities to enforce those actions.
I accept completely that there is an issue of interpretation around the reason for opening the gate, and there is always the potential for somebody to receive a penalty for incorrectly opening one, but it is entirely fair and proper to make it clear that people should not open one unless they have authority or good reason to believe that life or limb are in danger.
Bob Blackman
Clearly, this is a matter of interpretation. The purpose of placing barriers across a traffic highway is to prevent the incursion of normal vehicles, but I cannot envisage someone ever being prosecuted for opening a gate that is normally locked in order to give access to an ambulance, the police or the fire brigade. However, the promoters are keen to ensure that people understand that if they interfere with a locked gate that is there for the purpose of preventing traffic from passing through, that will be an offence and they can be prosecuted.
Bob Blackman
Having made something of a study of such gates in London over the years, I can say that they are almost all locked with padlocks—except where someone has stolen the padlock, in which chase the gate will often flip open and shut. Young people—in general it is young people—have a habit of occasionally using such gates as a form of entertainment. We need to make it clear that such gates are there for a purpose. This issue is a matter of interpretation. We are talking about gates being interfered with—that is, opened to allow the incursion of traffic.
Mr Chope
On reflection, would my hon. Friend agree that the biggest problem with the clause is that it criminalises the good samaritan? As the explanatory memorandum points out, it is an offence to drive along a road in breach of a road traffic regulation, so if somebody finds one of these gates open and closes it to prevent other people from committing road traffic offences by driving through that open gap, they will be liable to a criminal penalty under this clause.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. That is one of the problems with the clause: it will potentially make criminals out of people who seek to do good. That cannot be right. It also prompts the question of what signage would be in place. In the context of the other clauses, we were talking about trying to remove signs, but there now might need to be new signs to warn people that such activity is a criminal offence. I entirely support the amendment and I look forward to hearing from others.
Philip Davies
Among your many other great qualities, Mr Speaker, you are clearly a mind reader. I was only just thinking to myself that I must be brief so that we could get on to the next group of amendments. I commend you for that.
I find myself in a rather difficult position. I usually agree totally with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) in his amendments, which are always thoughtfully considered and well argued. He usually manages to persuade me. I am rather torn on this group of amendments, however, as although he has persuaded me on some of them he has not on others. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has done a great job in making the case for the proposers of the Bill and articulating their side of the argument and, in some cases, he has persuaded me.
I am not entirely sure how this might operate, as I am not an expert in the procedures of the House—unlike you, Mr Speaker, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch—but I want to tell my hon. Friend which of his amendments I think are strongest and on which he might, if possible, wish to divide the House. Some of the amendments are stronger than others.
Some of my hon. Friend’s amendments are superficially attractive, as they generally are. He made a good point with amendments 1 and 2, which highlight provisions in the clause that are either bad or unnecessary. However, there is some merit in having some flexibility for the London boroughs in organising how they do business. There might be good reasons for trialling measures or introducing them at different times, and that flexibility should be allowed. The provisions might be superfluous but I do not see from listening to the arguments that they are particularly dangerous.
Mr Chope
At the risk of hastening my hon. Friend on, will he specify which he thinks are the best amendments in order of preference? If his remarks are cut short, we will then have heard him putting the best first so that we can consider on which of them we might wish to divide the House.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I certainly will do that. To cut to the chase, his strongest amendment is amendment 5, on the issue of serving notices and whether someone is a resident or, as the Bill states, “appears to be” the resident. For me, the situation is completely nonsensical. On what basis does somebody appear to be a resident? One of us might be delivering leaflets in our constituency, as we do, and might have just left the door of a place only for somebody from the local authority come along to serve the notice. Seeing that we are leaving the door, they might serve us with the notice because they presume, quite wrongly, that we are the resident. All sorts of ridiculous scenarios could ensue. Sometimes, such provisions are just for the convenience of the laziness of local officials, so that they can use the justification that as far as they could see somebody appeared to be a resident and they therefore did not have to take any reasonable steps to ensure that that person was a resident. Surely the least any resident affected by these provisions can expect is that the authority concerned makes a proper effort to serve them with the relevant notice. If it was enough for someone to appear to be a resident, the local authority could, for its convenience, idly hand that person the notice, come what may. That is a ludicrous situation that we in this House should not tolerate, so I hope that my hon. Friend will consider pressing amendment 5 to a Division; that would be doing us a great service.
My hon. Friend’s other particularly strong amendment is amendment 20, on gated roads. This is a very important issue. As I mentioned in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, there are often well-meaning, well-intentioned provisions in legislation that have totally perverse outcomes. As I said, if a person drives through a red light to allow an emergency vehicle through, they are liable to prosecution for the offence of going through a red light. People might think, “It would be ludicrous if anyone who went through a red light just to allow an emergency vehicle through was prosecuted. Surely that would never happen,” but people have been prosecuted in those very circumstances. It does actually happen.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East says that when someone opens the gates for a good, common-sense reason, they will not be prosecuted. I do not doubt that that is his genuine belief, but we cannot pass legislation on the basis of what we think is likely to happen; we have to look at what the legislation actually states. We cannot allow perversity in the law. What if there is a terrible accident, and someone says, “For goodness’ sake, open that gate! An emergency vehicle is coming along in five minutes, and we need this person to be dealt with as soon as possible,” so a person opens the gate, and then finds themselves with a criminal record because they had done something they were not allowed to do under this legislation? That would be ludicrous, and we would be enshrining that kind of perversity in law.
On the other hand, someone who is encouraged to open a gate because an emergency vehicle is coming in five minutes’ time may say, “No, I’m not opening the gate, because I know the legislation, and I will be committing a criminal offence if I do.” We may end up with that kind of idiotic situation as an unintended consequence of the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will try to find a way for amendments 20 and 6 to be put to the vote.
My hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) were very gung-ho about amendment 9, and I feared that they might seek to put it to a vote. I advise a certain amount of caution, because including a reference to the owner of the land in the legislation is quite sensible. Clause 6 does not say that the highway authority has to go after the owner; it just allows the authority the flexibility to do so, if that is the right person to pursue.
Let me briefly show why that may be a good idea. If the provision mentioned only the person carrying out the works and the person on whose behalf the works were being carried out, the following scenario could arise. Say a landowner’s permission is sought for work to be carried out. Although they are happy for that work to be done, and may well have encouraged it to be done, it may not have been carried out on their behalf, and they may not be the people carrying it out. However, they could quite easily be just as liable as the other people for the damage done, because they gave their consent for the work, although it was inappropriate.
Another scenario may come into play. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch may unintentionally create a loophole with his amendment, because a wealthy landowner who does not want to be liable for any damage caused may get someone who has no means whatever to request that work be carried out, and get another person who has no means whatever to do the work. When the damage is done, the local authority has no means of recovering its money because the people who carried out and officially requested the work have nothing. The owner of the land, who actually wanted the work done in the first place, though that may not be evident at the time, gets away scot-free. I therefore fear that my hon. Friend could be creating a loophole, which would be unfortunate. Knowing him as I do, I am sure that would be an unintended consequence of what he is trying to achieve. I urge caution on him in pursuing amendment 9, even though I appreciate that my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Bury North feel that it is a particularly strong one.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
When the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was initially moving his amendments in a self-deprecating fashion, saying that he is sometimes criticised for the role he plays in private Business, I said in an intervention that that is not the view on the Opposition Benches. We value the service he provides, ably assisted by his hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley. I sometimes query whether the length of time taken is necessary, but I do not in any way, shape or form challenge, question or criticise the right to table amendments and make sure that legislation such as this is scrutinised.
Having listened to the arguments from the hon. Member for Christchurch and his hon. Friends and the explanations from the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), I regret to inform the hon. Member for Christchurch that should he press any of the amendments in this group to a vote, Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will not be joining him in the Lobby.
Mr Chope
With your encouragement, Mr Speaker, this has been a very civilised debate and we have covered the ground. As I said, this is the first opportunity we have had to look at much of the detail of the Bill. I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for having responded to the points that were made. I have been convinced by many of the arguments, and he produced answers to many of my concerns.
With regard to the two amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) identified as being worthy of further consideration by testing the will of the House, my inclination is not to press amendment 5, because my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said that clause 5, to which the amendment relates, is a complete replication of the existing law set out in section 233 of the Local Government Act 1972, in which case to divide the House would probably be to seek its indulgence in a way that I would prefer not to do. I hope that it will be possible in due course to seek the House’s view on amendment 20, which would mean having a Division after we consider the next group of amendments.
Having listened to the debate, it seems to me that the issue of gated roads has national application, rather than being confined to London. If we are to create a completely new offence, as both my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) have said, we must ensure that the legislation is as plain as a pikestaff so that everybody knows where they stand. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said, we cannot be in the business of passing laws that are a matter of interpretation.
I think that it would be wrong to create through legislation a new criminal offence that could have the effect of penalising a good Samaritan. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, it is idiotic that a person who closes a gate after him, when it had been open, could find himself on the wrong side of the criminal law. There is too much control by political correctness. We now have a situation in which firemen are not prepared to go and rescue somebody because that might be against health and safety regulations. We do not want a situation in which a person does not close a gate in their neighbourhood that is normally closed because they fear that to do so might be to commit a criminal offence. For those reasons, and thanking everybody who has contributed to the debate, I seek the leave of the House, at the appropriate moment, to test its opinion on amendment 20.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am clear that he wishes at some stage to test the will of the House on amendment 20, but could I ask him to be clear on whether he wishes to do so in respect of amendment 1?
Mr Speaker
With this is will be convenient to consider amendments 11 to 19.
Mr Chope
These amendments relate to part 3 of the Bill, which deals with “Builders’ Skips”. It is important that we have a proper control regime for builders’ skips. It is also important that we are absolutely clear in our own minds about what the impact of the proposed changes to the Bill would be. For example, amendment 10 would add to section 8(1) so that the relevant highway authority could require the relevant person to provide them with the name and address of the owner of the builder’s skip
“where that information is not clearly and indelibly marked under the provisions of section 9”.
Section 9 provides that a skip must be
“clearly and indelibly marked with the owner’s name and with his telephone number or address”.
It seems to me that the best way of resolving this matter is to ensure that the skip must be, as amendment 15 suggests, clearly and indelibly marked with the owner’s name, telephone number and address. If that is done and there is no breach of the provision, it will not be necessary for the highway authority to exercise the power set out in clause 8 because the information that it is seeking to ascertain will already be in its knowledge and the knowledge of anybody else who looks at the skip in question. That would improve the wording of the Bill.
Amendment 11 challenges the current provision, which states:
“A requirement under this section shall specify the period within which it must be complied with, which must be a period no shorter than 3 working days beginning with the date on which the request was made.”
Mr Chope
I will take my hon. Friend’s intervention shortly, but I am going to anticipate it in my next comments. Prior to his looking at this because it was drawn to his attention by my amendment, nobody had thought through how reasonable a period of three working days would be in these circumstances. As a result of my tabling amendment 11 to insert 14 working days instead, he and the promoters of the Bill have seen the unreasonableness of the original proposition and the reasonableness of the amendment. He indicated in a letter that I received this morning that he would be willing to accept the amendment.
Bob Blackman
I congratulate my hon. Friend on tabling this amendment. The promoters are happy to accept it, and I do so on their behalf without the need for a Division.
Mr Chope
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend.
Amendments 12 and 13 deal with the level of penalty for any person convicted of an offence under clause 8(6), which says that
“in the case of an offence under paragraph (a)”
the fine should be “not exceeding level 3”. However, under paragraph (a) the penalty would apply to somebody
“on whom a requirement is imposed…if…without reasonable excuse he fails to comply within the period specified”.
That means that he would not be providing the information within 14 working days. That is, I submit, a relatively minor contravention that should merit, if indeed it is prosecuted at all, only a fine not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale. Obviously, if a person responds to the requirement and, in so doing, gives information that he knows is false in a material particular, that is much more serious. The gravity of that could be reflected in a fine not exceeding level 3 rather than a massive one at level 5. I look forward to my hon. Friend explaining why the fine levels in the Bill were chosen.
Philip Davies
Will my hon. Friend clarify what sums are involved at levels 1, 3 and 5 so that we may better assess a reasonable amount that somebody should be fined?
Philip Davies
Does my hon. Friend have in mind a scenario in which a skip that has been properly lit is vandalised by people who prevent it from being lit? As it stands the owner would still be liable even if he had done everything he could to ensure that the skip was properly lit. Does my hon. Friend think that “taking any reasonable steps” would protect somebody who was doing their best?
Mr Chope
That is exactly the scenario I had in mind. The owner might employ security guards to look at the skip regularly, but if the light was stolen or vandalised at some point would it be reasonable to say that the owner should be liable to a penalty charge?
When I spoke to amendment 10, I referred to amendment 15, which would strengthen the Bill because it would make it incumbent on the owner to take reasonable steps to ensure that the skip is clearly and indelibly marked with his name and telephone number and—rather than or—his address. Having a name and telephone number on a skip is not as good as having a name and address on a skip. I do not understand why the Bill’s promoters and drafters did not require both the telephone number and the address of the skip owner to be displayed. I would have thought that that would be much more preferable. That shows that these amendments are designed not to undermine the Bill, but to try to strengthen it where appropriate.
Amendment 16 relates back to clause 9(6)(d). Subsection (6) sets out, for the purposes of the London Local Authorities Act 2007, a number of provisions relating to
“the grounds on which representations may be made against a penalty charge 40 notice arising”,
one of which is paragraph (d), which notes that
“the contravention of the relevant provision in question was due to the act or default of another person and that he took all precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the contravention by himself or another person under his control.”
That seems brilliant, but subsection (8) states:
“Where the ground mentioned in subsection (6)(d) is relied on in any representations…the relevant highway authority may disregard the representations unless, before the representations are considered, the person making the representations has served on the relevant highway authority a notice in writing giving such information identifying or assisting in the identification of that other person as was then in his possession.”
That seems oppressive in the extreme. It would be fine to leave in subsection (6)(d) without subsection (8), and that is the purpose of amendment 16, which I hope will be acceptable to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).
Philip Davies
Does my hon. Friend accept that if amendment 14 is accepted and requires someone to take “any reasonable steps” with regard to a properly lighted skip, we would not need subsection (8)? Amendment 14 is a much neater way of doing what the promoters of the Bill seem to be trying to do with their other provisions.
Mr Chope
Exactly. Sometimes the imagination of those who draft private Bills runs away with them and they think of all possible scenarios. Requiring someone who has taken all reasonable precautions to avoid a contravention to set out in writing their information about other people who might have been up to no good, goes too far.
On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who I am sorry is not in his place, made a point about the immobilisation of builders’ skips—I think the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) also raised that issue. If a builder’s skip is unlit, not properly guarded, causing a nuisance, filled with rotting rubbish or whatever, is it sensible to immobilise it? That is the challenge I put to the promoters of the Bill with amendments 17 to 19, which would leave out clauses 12 to 14.
If the owners of a skip have offended against provisions in part 3 of the Bill, surely penalty notices and so on will be involved. To immobilise the skip in the meantime, thereby preventing its owner from removing it when it is not lit or causing a nuisance, seems to go slightly in the wrong direction. I am sure I am wrong about that, and when my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East responds to the debate he will put me right and explain why London would be a better place if all skips were immobilised. The fact that this was a cross-party issue and taken up on Second Reading was not properly addressed in Committee, so I hope it can be addressed in response to my remarks. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend in the hope that we can proceed with these amendments in a similar way to the previous ones.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for outlining his various amendments. I will run briefly through the promoters’ view of each. I trust that he will see the logic that they have applied.
The amendments relate to proposals for the decriminalisation of the position on builders’ skips. The power to enforce the rules and if necessary—I emphasise that—immobilise skips when relevant notices are not complied with will instead be put in the hands of the local authority. The authority will have to be convinced that immobilisation is the correct thing to do.
Amendment 10 suggests that information should be provided only if it
“is not clearly and indelibly marked under the provision of section 9”.
I think my hon. Friend has got the wording incorrect, because the requirement set out in the Bill is under section 139 of the Highways Act 1980. The problem, as Members will see if they come to various parts of London and see skips on the roads, is that there may be a name on the side of a skip, but it might not be accurate, because skips are swapped around various companies at various times. The amendment would place a severe burden on skip suppliers to ensure that the details were accurate. On that basis, I do not think it would be sensible to accept it, particularly given the rest of the Bill’s provisions.
The promoters wish to accept amendment 11, and on reflection believe that 14 days should be allowed for compliance. That makes better sense.
Amendment 12 is about the maximum fine for not complying with a request. For clarification, I point out that a level 3 fine is currently £1,000 and a level 1 fine £200. The Government are currently consulting on increasing those levels fourfold, and the Ministry of Justice has raised no objections to the proposal that level 3 be the appropriate fine for the offence set out in clause 8(5)(a). In fact, a level 3 fine is lower than the fine in some equivalent cases. For example, under section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, the maximum fine for the equivalent offence is level 5, which is £5,000. The promoters have sought the right level for an offence of this type. If skips are placed on the road in contravention of highways law, appropriate fines are needed for the local authority to remedy the situation. If the owner did not provide relevant details, the local authority would find it difficult to remove the skip, immobilise it or take appropriate penalty action against the supplier. People need to understand that if they deliberately flout the rules, they will get a severe fine.
Amendment 13 is about the offence of knowingly supplying false information in response to a legitimate request from a local authority for the name of the provider and owner of a skip. The Bill currently provides for a level 5 fine, which is £5,000. The amendment would lower the fine to £1,000. A draconian fine is required to prevent people from knowingly misleading the local authority, so that they cannot leave a dangerous skip on the road without the authority being able to identify who had done so.
Amendment 14 lowers the threshold at which a penalty charge notice could be served when a skip owner does not take reasonable steps to comply with the existing requirements. We need to make it clear that the Bill is a decriminalisation measure. At the moment, there are no “reasonable steps” elements in it. The amendment, therefore, would water down the requirements considerably. The general public—motorists, pedestrians and others—have a right to believe that if skips are placed on the public highway, they will be properly positioned, properly lit and will not be dangerous to motorists or pedestrians. The amendment would water down the proposals considerably and unfairly.
Bob Blackman
The current position is that were that to happen and lighting were removed, a criminal offence would have been committed. The police would step in and take appropriate action against either the owner of the skip or the owner of the property at which the skip was based. Clearly, we want skips that are placed on the public highway to be lit properly and placed in a sensible and not a dangerous position. I will come on to that point later. We can water down the criminal law and remove the ability of people simply to claim, “It’s nothing to do with me, guv. What can I do if someone removes the lighting?” That does not change the fact, however, that someone has driven their car into a badly lit skip, causing immense damage. At that point, it will be a matter of ensuring that the wrong is put right, and that, if it is not, a fine is issued. It is as simple as that.
Amendment 15 would require names, addresses and telephone numbers to be marked on skips. That would change the law in London, meaning that skip owners would face much more draconian measures in London than outside it. [Laughter.] My hon. Friends smile and laugh, but when someone acquires a skip in London, they do not necessarily acquire it from a site in London; they might acquire it from a skip owner outside London, who would then have to take it to London. If the amendment were passed, the owner would be burdened with having to mark the address and phone number in a way that did not apply in the rest of the country.
I know plenty of skip-owning firms that come from way outside London to provide skips, as well providing skips in their own areas. The amendment would provide for a regulatory burden in London that did not exist elsewhere, resulting in the potential problem of people inadvertently falling foul of the law. I agree that there might be an argument for amending national legislation in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch suggested, but he is a promoter of deregulation, wherever possible, and I do not believe that we want to impose unnecessary regulation on businesses outside London. The amendment is therefore unnecessary and should not be pursued.
Amendment 16 deals with penalty charge notices. If we left out subsection (8), anyone served with a PCN could say, “It’s not me, guv. I’m not responsible.” As far as I am aware, whenever a PCN is issued for an offence on the highways, it is for the person served to substantiate whether someone else was responsible. If we left out the subsection, that person could say, “It’s nothing to do with me”, and then the authorities could not pursue those responsible. For that reason, we would resist the amendment.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support of my amendment. Does he accept that exactly what he is asking for is in a sense reflected in clause 9(3)(b)(iv), which provides that
“the skip is removed as soon as practicable after it has been filled”?
It does not say that it should be removed as soon as it has been filled, but as soon as is practicable. That has been accepted by the promoters, but not extended to other provisions.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the big problems is that local authorities have already demonstrated through the use of decriminalised penalty notices that they can be over-zealous and keen to get the maximum amount of revenue irrespective of the justice of a situation, which is why we hear all these stories of traffic wardens hiding and then creeping up on unsuspecting motorists so that they can get extra penalty points imposed and extra fines for themselves and their local authority?
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point, as that is one reason why one is slightly sceptical about this sort of clause. Just this day I received a letter from a constituent raising exactly that point about the behaviour of traffic enforcement officers in Bury; it detailed how they have been served with a penalty notice in circumstances where it would have been easy to deal with the matter in another way if more common sense had been applied. That would have avoided having to give a local resident a penalty notice. Such examples make me want to agree with my hon. Friend’s proposition that people will be suspicious that this provision is there to make it easy for the local authority officer to find somebody. It does not matter who they find on this basis; they can give the notice to almost anybody and they will be able to say, “We have done what we can. It is now your problem. If you weren’t responsible, it is now your responsibility to find somebody who was.” I humbly submit that that is clearly not the right way for things to be done. It should be the responsibility of the responsible officer of the local authority to find out who is responsible, rather than expecting a person on whom a notice has been served to identify that other person for the purposes of determining who has committed the offence.
If I were to enter this little competition of saying which amendment I would press, I would opt for amendment 14, as it is entirely reasonable that where someone has taken reasonable steps to avoid committing an offence, they should not be held liable under this part of the Bill. With that, I will wait to hear what others have to say.
Mr Chope
In summing up an excellent debate, may I thank my hon. Friend the Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for their contributions? If the Minister had contributed, the debate would have been even better, as indeed it would have been had the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) spoken—they demonstrated unusual self-restraint on these important issues, particularly on the issue of “national versus local”.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, the promoters of the Bill are now saying that it would be unreasonable potentially to impose on operators from outside London a requirement to put their name, telephone number and address on a skip, given that the legislation that applies outside London requires only the telephone number or the address. Clearly, there is an inconsistency between the approach of the promoters to those of us who argue that we should have national legislation on these issues rather than localised legislation.
Mr Nuttall
I appreciate that my hon. Friend is summing up, but are we not talking about the same case that was made earlier in respect of amendment 20 and gated roads?
Mr Chope
Exactly the same point applies in relation to gated roads, which is why it is a pity that we have not heard from the two Front-Bench spokespeople on where they think the balance should be between individual local authorities, or groups of local authorities, legislating in this area and a responsibility for the Government to try to introduce a national regime.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has gone through each of the amendments seriatim and tried—
Mr Chope
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is joining in with the debate, albeit from a sedentary position, because he has been referred to already in dispatches, as he might know. We had been hoping to hear from him on immobilisation devices, but he has now put on record his enthusiasm for the word “seriatim”.
Let me take the amendments one by one for the benefit of the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound). My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said that he did not think that amendment 10 would be appropriate because of the conflict between the national and local legislation. This is an opportunity for London to lead the field so that others can follow. It would be sensible, taking amendments 15 and 10 together, to require that in London skips should have the name, address and telephone number of the owner clearly and indelibly marked on them. I am disappointed that the promoters are not interested in accepting those amendments but I am delighted that amendment 11 is to be accepted.
On amendments 12 and 13, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing to our attention that there is a proposal to increase fourfold the maximum fine levels on the standard scales. I think that would have quite a significant impact on the cost of living of the criminal classes. It would also put into a negative position all those provisions where the maximum fine is level 3—£1,000, which is reasonable—