The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-06-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what statistics his Department holds on the use of fixed penalty notices in each local authority area.
Brandon Lewis
The most recent official statistics (for 2009-10) show that 9 million parking fines were issued a year by local authorities in England. From 1997-98 to 2010-11, local authority total income from sales, fees and charges in England from parking rose from £608 million to £1.25 billion; net profits from parking rose from £223 million to £512 million in the same period. A survey by LV= car insurance last year estimated that councils hand out 10.7 million fines a year across the UK, and British motorists pay out over £30 million each month in parking fines.
Councils in England were forecast to make £635 million net profit from parking charges fines in 2013-14. Yet legislation passed by Parliament is clear that parking charges and fines should not be used to raise general revenue. However, some councils are raising money illegally from parking.
Last July, the High Court ruled that one London borough had illegally hiked parking charges to raise general revenue. The BBC television programme, Inside Out, also drew to my attention parking contracts signed by local authorities where outsourced parking wardens are rewarded for issuing more fines – in flagrant breach of the Government’s operational guidance to councils. The Local Government Association’s own participatory budgeting tool has also encouraged councils to raise parking charges and fines as a source of general revenue.
Such practices are a breach of fundamental constitutional principles from Magna Carta, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights: taxes should not be levied without recourse to Parliament, and the justice system should not be corrupted to raise money.
Higher parking charges and more parking fines were the explicit policy of the Labour Government. Labour DCLG Ministers called for councils to charge for more services, including parking, bemoaned that: ‘Only one in five councils are using charging to the full potential… [such as for] reducing congestion’ (Speech to the Local Government Association, 2 July 2008). Planning guidance issued by the Labour Government in 2001 (so-called PPG13) told councils to hike parking charges and adopt aggressive enforcement to discourage drivers.
My Department holds information on councils’ income from penalty charge notices. In my answer of 12 March 2014, Official Report, Column 260W, I placed in the Library a table showing the amount of money raised in parking fines in each local authority in England over time, which illustrates the need to reverse Labour’s approach.
Since 2010, this Government has already:
· Scrapped Labour’s Whitehall policy that pressured councils to hike car parking charges as a ‘demand management measure’ to discourage car use (PPG13).
· Removed Whitehall restrictions which restricted the provision of off-street parking spaces;
· Abolished Labour’s Whitehall policy which inhibited parking charge competition between council areas, and instead introduced a new policy that says parking charges should not undermine the vitality of town centres;
· Introduced a policy that parking enforcement should be proportionate;
· Issued new planning practice guidance on removing street clutter and encouraging the provision of shopper-friendly parking space provision; and
· Introduced the local retention of business rates, which means that councils benefit from business and retail growth in town centres, rather than just hiking parking charges.
In addition, the Government recently announced a further series of reforms:
· Stopping the abuse or misuse of on-street parking CCTV on an industrial scale. Parking CCTV spy cars were introduced by the last Labour Government.
· Reforming operational parking guidance so it is less heavy handed with motorists, prevents over-aggressive action by bailiffs, positively supports local shops and clearly reinforces the prohibition against parking being used to generate profit;
· Introducing mandatory 10 minute “grace periods” at the end of on-street paid and free parking, and off-street municipal parking;
· Implementing a new right to allow local residents and local firms to demand a review of parking in their area, including charges and the use of yellow lines;
· Proposing a widening of the powers of parking adjudicators, and updating guidance so the public know when they can be awarded costs at tribunals;
· Trialling a 25% discount for drivers at appeal stage, reversing the current disincentive for drivers with a legitimate case to appeal;
· Changing guidance so drivers parking at an out-of-order meter are not fined if there are no alternative ways to pay;
· Maintaining a freeze on parking penalty charges for the remainder of this Parliament; and
· Updating the local government Transparency Code to increase information about local parking charges and the number of parking spaces.
Unreasonable parking charges and fines push up hard-working people’s cost of living. If parking is too expensive or difficult, shoppers will simply drive to out of town supermarkets or just shop online, undermining the vitality of town centres and leading to ‘ghost town’ high streets. But, by rejecting Labour’s approach, this Government is standing up for hard-working people and local shops.