Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Official Report 414KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Highland Council) Designation Order 2016 (SSI 2016/245)

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Parking Attendants (Wearing of Uniforms) (Highland Council Parking Area) Regulations 2016 (SSI 2016/246)

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Road Traffic (Parking Adjudicators) (Highland Council) Regulations 2016 (SSI 2016/247)

Item 2 is consideration of three Scottish statutory instruments that are subject to the negative procedure, as detailed on the agenda. The package of instruments will introduce a decriminalised parking regime within the Highland Council area. Does anyone have an interest to declare in relation to the instruments?

I am a councillor in Highland Council and will therefore take no part in the discussion or the decision.

Thank you. Does anyone else have an interest to declare?

Members: No.

The committee will consider any issues that it wishes to raise in reporting to Parliament on the instruments. Members should note that no motions to annul any of the instruments have been received. I invite members to comment. Members are queuing up.

I have a question about paragraph 5 of schedule 2 to SSI 2016/245, which states:

“Fixing of certain parking and other charges for parking area

74.—(1) It shall be the duty of the parking authority to set the levels of additional parking charges to apply in the parking area.

(2) Different levels may be set for different parts of the parking area.”

Under that provision, it could be that people pay only 50p in one part but £1 in another part. It is outrageous that different parking charges could be set in a parking area. I would like someone to explain that to me.

I can always rely on Richard Lyle to ask a difficult question. My understanding is that the aim is to give councils the flexibility to charge different rates in different areas. I do not think that it is about different rates in the same car park. I think that even Highland Council would find that difficult. I take your point, but I think that you are delving in too exactly.

It might be helpful if I speak to an example of where the approach has been implemented. Aberdeenshire Council’s car park in Inverurie is adjacent to Marks and Spencer, behind the railway station. Half the parking there is free in order to provide overflow parking for the railway station, and the other half is chargeable on the basis that people are visiting Marks and Spencer. That seems to work perfectly well. It is a single car park with different charges in different bits. I do not speak to how Highland Council might use the power. I merely make members aware that the approach is working—I think—satisfactorily in at least one place.

I think that Highland Council will be scrutinised quite heavily on this. I am trusting it absolutely.

I am sorry—I should have come to Mike Rumbles first.

I have a question about the policy objectives and the background, as explained in the policy note that has been provided. Paragraph 4 in annex B states:

“To date, 14 Scottish local authorities have introduced Decriminalised Parking Enforcement ... Under these arrangements, local authorities administer their own parking penalty schemes and retain the penalties collected to finance parking enforcement procedures.”

Paragraph 6 states:

“Any surplus is used to improve off-street parking facilities and for general traffic management purposes ... Therefore, the revenue is effectively ring-fenced for traffic management measures and cannot be used by an authority for other purposes.”

However, that does not prevent local authorities from diverting funds that were to be spent in this area to something else.

I would like to know—the committee should be aware of this, rather than immediately passing the legislation—the experience of the 14 local authorities that have gone through the process. Have an increased number of parking charges been raised against motorists? It is fine to give local authorities the power, but do we know whether there have been any unintended consequences? We should ask for further information before we approve the instruments. That is all.

That is a fair point. I think that we should write to the Government with that question and ask it to look into the matter. To undertake to do something and then not do it would be wrong. I think that it is a sensible way forward. Do members agree to that?

Members indicated agreement.

Just for information, I note that what happens in practice in Glasgow is that the council puts in a lot of work in the city centre, where it can make a lot of money out of fines, but scarcely bothers about parking further away from the city centre. Much of the time people can park on a double yellow line in my constituency and nothing will happen to them.

Is that a good thing?

It is a bad thing.

Exactly.

In practice, however, that is what happens. On the charges, the nearer people go to the city centre, the more they pay. As they move further away, they pay less.

The problem is that the instruments are time limited, so we will have to move forward. The important thing is to point out the concern to the Government and ensure that the instruments achieve the intended aim, rather than money being frittered away on other schemes.

Will we have an opportunity to discuss the issue at our next meeting?

There is no motion to annul. We have to take the instruments forward, but we can raise issues with the Government.

I am flagging up that the Government should, if and when the next instrument comes through, provide us with the information.

I am absolutely convinced that another such instrument will come through in the not-too-distant future.

In that case, I am content.

We will ask the question immediately after today’s committee meeting.

On the paragraphs that Mike Rumbles rightly highlighted, we need to have faith in the local authority. The changes have long been anticipated by Highland Council and I have every confidence that it will conduct itself appropriately. We should pass the legislation.

We cannot annul the instruments; they will go through. However, we can make the point to the Government that we are concerned.

10:30  

I do not want to repeat what has already been said. We cannot stop such instruments, a fair point has been made about the transparency of revenues from parking charges and penalties. Before more authorities are given the powers, we should look back and see what has happened with the previous 14. We should ensure that there is proper transparency about where the revenue that has been generated is being spent—that it is being spent in the right way and that any surplus is being invested in the right way. There does not seem to be a proper process of holding people to account in that respect. It is also important that, before we blindly add authorities, we write to the Scottish Government and ask what measures it has to regulate and oversee that transparency.

We are getting a wee bit carried away with ourselves, convener. I would wish anyone the best of luck with interrogating local authority accounts to that level. I do not think that that is within the remit of this committee.

We can rightly ask the question. I suspect that another SSI on the same topic will soon come down the track. We will push the Government for an answer, and we can but report back. I think that it is important that the committee gets an answer on that.

Forgive me, convener. I just want committee members to be quite clear about the process. Perhaps our clerk can advise us on that. The order was signed on 31 August and the parliamentary process is that it will come into force unless a motion to annul is lodged—it does not have to be at this committee; it can be at any point in the parliamentary process—and agreed to before the expiry date. Forgive me—I cannot remember whether the period is 40 or 42 days. The clerk might remind us of that. It is open to any member to lodge a motion to annul: that continues to be the case regardless of our deliberations today. It is important to note that for future reference. I acknowledge that many colleagues are new. Will the clerk confirm whether the period is 40 or 42 days?

It is 40 days.

Right. I wanted colleagues to be aware of that.

It would usually be a member of the committee to which an instrument comes who would lodge a notion to annul. I want to make it clear to the Government that I do not want to do that but am prepared to do so if we do not get the information. It is important that we have the information.

I think that I have given you an undertaking that we are going to write to the Government.

Yes, you have.

There is not an ability to annul this, so we can take the matter forward in that way.

Convener, what do you mean when you say that there is no ability to annul this?

I am told that there is a process for lodging a motion but that no member has done that, so we are not in a position to annul the instruments. That is my understanding. Some comments have been made and there has been a recommendation, which we have said we will take up.

Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to the instruments?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you.