I cannot give my hon. Friend a precise answer to that question, simply because, in the first instance, I am not in control of the parliamentary process in the other place, as he will be aware.
However, what I can do for my hon. Friend and the House is to give some evidence as to the pace and commitment with which I and my team are working on this issue. My predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), had already, even before the Bill’s Second Reading, asked the director of the RAC Foundation to form a working group to start developing an outline code of practice. That working group contains multiple stakeholders from across the industry, including the two main trade associations—the BPA and the International Parking Community—the Welsh and Scottish Governments, and bodies such as People’s Parking, the RAC Foundation, the traffic penalty consortium, the British Retail Consortium, and the DVLA. The body has already met four times—each time extensively, for over two hours—to debate all the issues. I personally
have spent time with the director of the RAC Foundation and the BPA, and I am shortly to meet the IPC. My officials have had more than 30 bilateral meetings with members of the working group. At my instigation, my officials have hosted a parking operator roundtable in the Department to fully engage the industry to help to develop the code of practice.
All that work has not been in vain. It has informed a draft code of practice, which has already been published and shared with the Public Bill Committee, and I would be delighted to place a copy of it in the Library for hon. Members to see. I hope that, collectively, this will give all hon. Members the reassurance they need that the Government and I are firmly committed to developing this code of practice, and ensuring that the legislation is enacted as quickly and practically as is possible.
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I thank all Members who have contributed today, in Committee and on Second Reading. That has helped to inform the draft code of practice. Every conversation I have had about this issue, every piece of correspondence and any example that I have heard about has fed into how we will develop the code. We can discuss this on Third Reading, but I am pleased to say that almost all the examples I have heard about today will be dealt with in the code of practice, whether we are talking about poor signage, grace periods, threatening letters purporting to be from solicitors, or indeed the relationship with debt collectors and bailiffs. The new code of practice can solve those practical problems.
I pay tribute again to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire for all his work. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House. I am delighted the Government can support the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will not wish to press his amendments to a Division, in view of the reassurances I have given.