Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Official Report 496KB pdf

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Proposed Responsible Parking (Scotland) Bill (2)

Agenda item 3 is on the proposed responsible parking bill. We will hear from Sandra White on the statement of reasons that she lodged to accompany her draft proposal for the bill. Standing orders require any member who wishes to introduce a member’s bill to first lodge a draft proposal, a brief explanation of the purposes of the proposed bill and either a consultation document or a written statement of reasons why consultation on the draft proposal is unnecessary.

This session is required as the member has chosen not to carry out a public consultation on her proposals and the Parliamentary Bureau has referred the draft proposal to this committee.

I welcome Sandra White to the meeting and ask her to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you very much, convener. You will be glad to know that the paperwork that I am carrying is not all for this; it is from a previous committee.

I thank you and the members of the committee for taking time out of a very busy schedule to allow me to put forward my reasons why, under rule 9.14.3 of the Parliament’s standing orders, I believe that consultation on my draft proposal is unnecessary. I can explain why, but I know that you have a copy of my reasons. I leave it open to the committee to choose whether it wishes me to go through my reasons or whether members just wish to ask me questions, which I am happy to answer.

Please explain a little of why you think that consultation is unnecessary.

Before I start on my statement of reasons, I would like to thank Joe FitzPatrick and Ross Finnie for their work in lodging their proposed bills on responsible parking and parking on raised pavements.

In October 2010, Ross Finnie lodged a proposal for a regulation of dropped kerbs and pavement parking bill. A consultation was undertaken and the results were published on 8 March 2011. Of the 123 responses that were received, 83 per cent were positive and wished the bill to be introduced.

On 28 March 2012, Joe FitzPatrick lodged a proposal for a responsible parking bill that built on the work that had been done by Ross Finnie, whose bill had fallen when he was not re-elected. I was asked to take over the proposal when Joe FitzPatrick was promoted to minister, which I was very glad and privileged to do. The consultation on Joe FitzPatrick’s proposed bill received 414 responses, 95 per cent of which were positive and in favour of introducing the bill.

I must also thank various groups who made up the responsible parking alliance, although I will not go through all of them. Some members of the groups are in the Parliament today, sitting behind me. Guide Dogs Scotland, Epilepsy Scotland and others were involved in helping me to publish the findings of Joe FitzPatrick’s consultation. Those people also responded to a consultation of my own that I was doing at the time in my area of Glasgow Kelvin. Apart from the groups who are named in my statement of reasons, we contacted and received responses from the police, the fire brigade, individuals and community councils. The statement of reasons has links to consultation responses on the Parliament website.

I ask that you look favourably on my request that there should be no further consultation and I hope that we can introduce a bill that will give justice to the many people in Scotland who do not currently have justice, fairness or equality.

Most people know about pavement parking and double parking and the problems that they cause for guide dogs, young mothers with prams, elderly people and wheelchair users. Pavements are for people and roads are for cars.

I will leave it at that, although I am happy to answer any questions that members have.

Good morning, Sandra. How does your proposal compare with the proposal that Joe FitzPatrick lodged? Is it exactly the same?

It is exactly the same. There were suggestions that we could introduce the bill much quicker if we looked at the deregulation and criminalisation of parking, which Joe FitzPatrick looked at. That would need to be carried out by individual local authorities, so in the interests of fairness, justice and equality, it would be much better to take the issue forward for all local authorities and not treat them individually.

In that manner it perhaps goes slightly further, but my proposal is exactly the same as Joe FitzPatrick’s.

You mentioned that there were 414 responses to Joe FitzPatrick’s consultation, of which the vast majority were favourable. Did any key issues come out of that consultation and, if so, how have you taken them into consideration?

Four hundred and fourteen responses is the most responses a consultation on a member’s bill proposal has had, and 95 per cent of respondents were in favour of the bill. I have also had comments from people who have come to my constituency office with issues, some of which I have taken forward with Glasgow City Council.

I have visited areas where people have had problems. For example, there is an elderly people’s home in my area, outside which cars are parked with all four wheels on the pavement—and the drivers rev up under residents’ windows. Residents who use wheelchairs and walking sticks cannot get out at all, and ambulances and other emergency services cannot get in. Part of the bill is about educating drivers so that they know that parking in that way is not the done thing.

I have dealt with individual cases as they have come up, and the bill takes account of people’s responses.

Did particular concerns emerge from Joe FitzPatrick’s consultation? Did anything emerge that made you want to extend or change his proposals?

No. Any negative responses can be considered at stage 1 and I am sure that we will come to some arrangement. Some respondents said that some streets are so narrow that cars cannot park on both sides of the road. That is something that we will have to look at when it comes up at stage 1. I am sure that common sense will prevail.

I do not think that when people park in the way that I described they are deliberately being obstructive. It is about education. Anyone can see that people in wheelchairs should be able to use pavements. In one case, a man who was blind was walking along the pavement and his stick hit a car that had been parked on the pavement. The stick was broken in half, which left the man stranded on the pavement for more than two hours, because he could not move on without his stick. I am sure that the person who parked the car did not intend that to happen, but their parking was not just irresponsible but dangerous. I am glad that such cases will be talked about when we get to stages 1 and 2 of the bill.

We heard that there have been consultations on the issue. Since you took on responsibility for the bill proposal, what contact have you had with stakeholders? Are you still in dialogue? Who are the significant stakeholders?

I have certainly had contact and have worked closely with Joe FitzPatrick—I had been looking at a similar proposal for Yorkhill, in my constituency, so I had spoken to Joe about that. I have had lots of meetings with people such as the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, the responsible parking alliance—someone from the alliance is here today—and Capability Scotland. I have also talked to community councils and the individuals who have contacted me. I still keep up that contact, of course, and I am still getting letters, emails and Twitter comments from people who have heard about the bill proposal and support it.

The consultation responses were gathered in and I worked with Joe FitzPatrick and his assistant to produce the information that is on my website. I will continue to work with stakeholders.

Post-consultation, active dialogue continues.

It absolutely does, yes.

Given that much of the legislation on parking is reserved to Westminster, what discussions, if any, have you had with the Scottish Government and others about how the bill would be implemented and enforced?

I have had meetings with the non-Executive bills unit—I still call it NEBU, but I think that it is now called the non-Government bills unit. I have also spoken to the minister, who is very supportive of the proposal and was at the launch. We think that under the Scotland Act 1998 the Parliament can consider the bill. I have had some discussions—that is probably the word—with the non-Government bills unit about ironing out some difficulties that it highlighted, but I am still insistent that the Scotland Act 1998 allows the proposed bill to be considered here. At present, as I said, the legislation is there to allow individual councils to criminalise parking. I believe that, under the Scotland Act, we can do that Scotland-wide.

As there are no further questions, I thank Sandra White. We will consider what we have heard from her later in the meeting and reach a view on whether we are content with her statement of reasons.

Thank you, convener.