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Education and Skills Bill

The difficulty with the parking regulations is that, although the same strictures on local authorities are in place, they are not enforced. It has become government policy not to enforce the requirement that receipts from parking regulations are used only on parking control functions, so they have become a cash cow for local authorities. I encourage the Minister to ensure that when he writes the regulations he gives the Audit Commission, the district auditor or whoever is appropriate a power to inquire into whether a local authority is acting in accordance with the regulations. That is a deficiency in the parking regulations that the local authorities walk through.