The Bill is silent on that point. It might well be that, in the mind of the hon. Member for Burnley, some mechanism would be put in place to reimburse the trusts, depending on the number of carers registered with them. Or perhaps she would simply say to them, “Sorry, if you’ve got a lot of carers in your area, you’ll just have to suffer the consequences.” It is not clear what would happen.
I want to turn to a drafting matter that has not been touched on. Clause 1 is entitled “Duty to exempt qualifying carers from hospital car parking charges”, and subsection (1)
states:
“Health Care providing bodies shall make arrangements to exempt qualifying carers engaged in any of the qualifying activities listed in section 2(2) from charges for parking their cars”.
The question that arises is how wide the scope of healthcare facilities actually is. Clause 1(2)(b) states that the duty in that previous subsection is the responsibility of “any private hospital”. I personally believe it would be a step too far if we were to legislate on what private companies were allowed to charge for and to whom they should give exemptions.
Clause 1 provides for “arrangements” to be made for “qualifying carers”, while clause 4 provides for a “scheme” for “eligible carers”. Why does there have to be a difference? Why does one set of carers get arrangements while another get a scheme? It appears that schemes are more complicated than arrangements. Clause 1(4) requires the arrangements for qualifying carers to be in place within 12 months, whereas in the case of eligible carers, 12 months are allowed for a scheme to be submitted to the Secretary of State, and it does not have to be implemented until a year and a half after the Bill becomes law. If the matter is so urgent, why will it take a year and a half for carers to become entitled to the exemption?
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think there has been an error in the printed version of the Bill. In the printed copy that I have, clause 4(1) states:
“Health Care providing bodies shall establish schemes to exempt eligible carers engaged in any of the qualifying activities listed in section 2(1)(b) from hospital car park charges and submit such schemes to the Secretary of State within 12 months of this Act coming into force.”
However, clause 2(1)(b) states:
“A qualifying carer under section 1(1) is a person who…has an underlying entitlement to the Carer’s Allowance.”
The provision in clause 4(1) has been amended online to refer to section 2(2), which is the correct subsection. Section 2(2) is indeed the subsection that sets out what a qualifying activity is. It states:
“A qualifying activity under section 1(1) is transporting, visiting or otherwise accompanying or facilitating”—