My Lords, I follow my noble friend and, in deference to my other noble friend sitting on the other side of me, I am sure that he did not mean to say that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea makes a profit from parking because it would, of course, be illegal. I am quite sure that it does not do that. I felt obliged to say that.
Before I speak to the amendment more fully, and with the permission of the Committee, I want to make a small correction to something I said in Grand Committee last Thursday—as I have been requested to do. In col. GC 452 of that Committee’s meeting, I said—or I am reported as saying—that the company, onefinestay, believed that regulation should apply to properties that are the “sole or main residence” of the owner. That is not the company’s policy, and I have agreed to put on record at the first opportunity that the position of onefinestay is that the regulation should apply to all residences, including primary and secondary residences, not simply to one sole or main residence. I have put that on record. I am certain that we will return to this subject at another date and I need say no more about that today.
I return to the thorny issue of parking. For 40 years, until last May, I represented a town centre ward in a London borough. Many, probably most, of the houses and streets in that ward were built before the motor car was invented. Pretty well all the houses there were built at a time when it was inconceivable that the people living in them would be able to afford to own and run a car, let alone two or more, in come cases. One of the consequences is that the basic problem now in what used to be my ward is that there is simply not enough road space to accommodate residents’ own cars, let alone all the other demands on the road space. As a reward for my long service on the council, during my last year there I was given political responsibility for implementing—and, I have to say, changing a little—parking policy. It encouraged me to accept retirement, and I fervently hoped last May that I would never, ever again have to deal with parking issues and parking problems. It follows that I am not
entirely grateful to Mr Pickles for ensuring—sounding very much more like Friday night in the pub than anything I would hear on the streets—that I am here talking again about parking policy.
I want to make some fundamental points that I know are not widely perceived. Good parking services in most councils all over the country are there to work on behalf of the local residents and, in most cases, on behalf of motorists, too. I strongly believe that, although I understand only too well why there is a popular impression to the contrary. Having had to deal with the sort of problems that I described, I know from experience that good parking services may not provide the road space necessary to solve the problem but can go a long way to making life more tolerable for residents and manageable for non-residents who need to use those roads and streets.
As has been said—indeed, I began by saying it—local authorities are not allowed by law to make a profit from parking. With deference to my noble friend Lady Hanham, who is sitting next to me, most local authorities are unable to make the sort of income that Westminster or Kensington and Chelsea are able to make. Nor, indeed, do most councils have the sort of problems that those two authorities have to deal with. Most local authorities, including my former authority, do not make a substantial profit—or income; I shall get myself into trouble—out of parking services by the time they have covered all the expenses that are necessary. Such surplus income as may arise is, and has to be, used for transport-related actions. That is important to understand.
We come now to this clause. I think that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made reference to the Government’s consultation on local authority parking policies which took place at the very end of last year and the early part of this year. I think I am right in saying that eight organisations, as distinct from individuals, responded to that. Six of those eight were totally opposed to the Government’s proposals. The two that were not opposed—the motoring organisations—also did not fully support the Government’s proposals, which makes me even more concerned about why the Government—my Government—are still insisting on going ahead with this measure.
As my noble friend Lord Bradshaw has just said, if anything should be the responsibility of a local authority, it should surely be parking services. The local authority, and those elected to represent the local residents, best know the local circumstances and the local conditions, which vary not just from authority to authority but, frankly, from area to area, even from street to street. It is they who are in a position to determine what should and should not be done in implementing parking policy in a local authority area. Given my 40 years’ experience, I wonder why the Government are so foolish as to want to enter this minefield. For that reason, my noble friend Lord Bradshaw put down the proposal that this clause should not stand part of the Bill—that is, to delete the clause altogether. Frankly, I still think that would be the best thing that could happen. If the Government are minded to go ahead with the clause, I certainly accept that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, would
go some way to mitigate it. Therefore, if that is the case, I would largely support those amendments, but I still believe that it is better to leave this matter to local authorities, whose job it is to deal with it.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also said that yesterday afternoon we received a copy of the draft regulations from the Minister. I am very grateful for that and am pleased that we received it in time for this meeting, although I am sure that the Minister and noble Lords will understand that I certainly have not had time in the intervening 24 hours to have a detailed look at it or even to consult those who know far more about it than I do. I hope that the Minister will tell me that I am wrong on this because I want to be wrong, but, from my first impression, it looks to me as if the draft regulations would allow CCTV enforcement of a school clearway—the zig-zag lines—but not elsewhere. In other words, you can use a camera to enforce penalties with regard to the 10 yards round a school clearway but not a little further down the street. From my experience as a councillor with a number of primary schools located in streets such as I have described, that is simply ludicrous. Cars park all the way down the road. The residents want to have enforcement to stop cars doing that or to deal with car drivers which park inconsiderately and foolishly all the way down the road. However, if these regulations were enforced, and if I am correct—as I say, I hope that I am not—we are going to be in a position of having to tell those residents who want the local authority to enforce them, “I am sorry, we can only enforce them for 10 yards. We can’t enforce them down the rest of the road”. I am no longer a councillor, thank goodness, but I invite the Minister to explain to some of my former constituents why the regulations can be enforced for 10 yards but not for the rest of the road. That is just one point that occurs to me, which I hope the Minister will tell me I am wrong about. However, I fear that I may not be.
This illustrates the danger in the Government interfering with all this. The local authorities best know how to deal with this issue and most of them do so well. Of course, mistakes are made and silly things happen sometimes; they should not, but they do. However, we now have a very good appeals system that works fairly. Nobody has suggested that there is anything significantly wrong with that. Why do we not leave the situation as it is? For all these reasons and many more, my noble friend Lord Bradshaw and I wish to give the Government the opportunity to think again and not to enter what I assure them is a minefield and an area where they simply will not win, and to leave it to the local authorities which best know their own areas to carry on dealing with the things that they have had to deal with for many years.