Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to allow appeals of parking charges under the parking code of practice, once introduced, to be made retrospectively from the date on which the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 came into force.

Section 7 of the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 gives the Secretary of State the power to appoint a single appeals service to handle appeals against private parking charges. However, as a parking charge is an invoice for an alleged breach of the terms and conditions that applied at that particular time, the Act does not provide the power to cancel parking charges retrospectively.

Additionally, the appeals window for many historic charges would have closed by the time the new appeals system is operating, which would risk court action for motorists with longer standing appeals.

My Department is undertaking work to better understand the requirements of the new appeals service, and as part of that will consider how best to transition from the current appeals services, including ensuring that cases still being handled under the current services are treated fairly and in line with the new Code and its enforcement mechanisms.