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London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. I hope not to detain your Lordships for too long. I need to declare an interest as joint president of London Councils, the representative body of the 33 London borough councils—that is, the 32 boroughs and the City. I am delighted to see in his place my fellow joint president—or co-joint president; I am not sure how to express it—the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, would have been here but he has to be abroad. On this occasion, I am also speaking on behalf of Transport for London, which, with Westminster City Council, is the joint promoter of the Bill. All the 33 authorities have passed the necessary resolutions, and the mayoral consent needed to get to this stage has been given. The Bill contains a number of important measures for the councils and for Transport for London in their roles as highway, street and traffic authorities. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has made a valuable contribution to the penalty-charge provisions of the Bill from his questioning of that issue. First, however, I should like to mention one other topic—that is, filming in London. The promoters of the Bill have worked closely with Film London, the capital’s film and media agency funded by the UK Film Council and the London Development Agency, and have come forward with clauses which will enable the London authorities to close streets for the purposes of filming. The provisions take up and modify existing legislation which was originally introduced to enable the Tour de France to take place in England last year. Unfortunately, the provisions were not drafted widely enough to enable closures to take place for filming. Your Lordships will appreciate the importance of the film industry to London and to the country as an income generator. Huge expertise is concentrated here and we have already made films set in the centre of London. It would be nice if the outskirts of London were used a bit more. When I was a member of the London Assembly we looked at the constraints on filming and we heard what a difference a supportive local authority can make. I am delighted this Bill will assist. The main area of discussion today and the largest part of the Bill is Part 5, the provisions proposed to deal with the problem of those who persistently evade parking and other penalty charges. The problem is serious. There is a hard core of persistent evaders who rack up thousands of pounds-worth of penalty charges which are never paid. They do this in not only the parking regime, but congestion charging, bus lane infringement and other traffic regimes. There is evidence to show that those responsible are quite often involved in criminal activity as well; I have heard tell of that on a number of occasions. I do not understand why some people will fail to pay their car tax, which is quite easily noticed, since being stopped for this apparently leads to their being discovered to be responsible for a whole raft of other crimes—non-driving ones as well—but it seems that there is a mindset about evading every rule rather than being smart about the ones evaded. Part 5 provides what is, unavoidably, a complex framework for enabling the London authorities to recover outstanding penalty charges. In summary, the authorities would ultimately be able to immobilise and remove offending vehicles to the pound if three or more outstanding penalty charges have been incurred and remain unpaid—““outstanding”” is defined in the Bill. Based on the experience of the congestion charging regime, which has similar provisions, the authorities have every reason to believe that it is unlikely that innocent motorists will be caught up in these procedures. However, they recognise that there may be the very occasional case where, through no fault of his own, an owner of a vehicle finds that action has been taken against it under Part 5. The obvious example is where someone buys a vehicle second-hand and charges were incurred by the previous owner. To deal with this, at every stage of the procedure, the authorities have introduced a provision which would entitle the person claiming the release of the impounded vehicle to pay a bond rather than the full amount of the outstanding penalty charges. Those, in extreme cases, could amount to thousands of pounds. The bond would be recoverable by a claimant if, through the representations and appeals provisions in the Bill, he were able to establish that he was not responsible for incurring the penalty charges. While the representations and appeal process is on-going, he would be able to continue to use the vehicle without fear of it being removed to the pound again, because the authorities will issue a certificate of immunity to be displayed on the dashboard. Your Lordships will not be surprised that the actual level at which the bond will be set is not set out in the Bill. It will be decided jointly by the London borough councils and Transport for London once the Bill attains Royal Assent. The promoters have assured me that, on introduction of the scheme, the level of the bond will be less than the total cost of three outstanding penalty charges. The view is that the figure will be in the region of £250, an amount which anyone who can afford to drive is likely to be able to access without too much difficulty. The other issue which has been raised with the promoters by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is the clarity of information given to claimants of vehicles who have discovered that their car has been impounded. In particular, I believe he is understandably concerned about information given about how representations and appeals can be made. I entirely agree with him about the importance of ensuring that people—in this case, drivers—know their rights and are not baffled by legalese. Where a bond is paid and the vehicle is released the claimant will be entitled to make representations to the authority and subsequently, if necessary, appeal to an independent adjudicator on a number of grounds. For example, this will enable somebody who has bought a vehicle second-hand to allege that it was the person from whom he bought the vehicle who is responsible for the debts. The promoters will take particular care to ensure that the rights to make representations are clearly explained. The wording used on penalty charge notices under the existing regimes was revised recently to give more clarity in this respect. The promoters will ensure that the complex procedure in Part 5 will be set out in a form that can be readily understood by those who fall within its scope. I hope that will serve to alleviate any concerns about the Bill, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I hope the Bill can be passed this afternoon. Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Hamwee.)