Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-164)
RT HON
ROSE WINTERTON
MP, MS MIRANDA
CARTER AND
MS SAM
WAUGH
2 APRIL 2008
Q160 Chairman: It would be interesting
to have your views on that.
Ms Winterton: Yes, but if I could
just say in terms of the litter that the idea behind fining people
for dropping litter is that actually it ends up again on the public
highway.
Mr Martlew: Because it is antisocial,
just like parking in a disabled parking bay.
Q161 Clive Efford: When you consider
the response could you consider whether a failure to enforce disabled
parking bays is actually DDA-compliant, so if an applicant gets
their planning permission for disabled parking bays and then ignores
them, are they complying with the disability legislation?
Ms Winterton: That might be another
approach that it might be worth pursuing, and I could maybe do
a note for the Committee on whether this is something to consider.
As I say, I am just conscious that probably the parking enforcement
officers spend quite a lot of their time patrolling public highways
and would we feel it was a good use of their time to also be on
private land, or is it something that we should require the supermarkets
to do separately without using local authority resources.
Q162 Mr Leech: Is it not the case
that when local authorities take on parking attendants they actually
pay for themselves so it would not ultimately be a cost for local
authorities at all but could actually generate revenue for local
authorities?
Ms Winterton: Not necessarily.
That is a very sensitive point as to whether local authorities
make money from parking attendants. What we are doing is looking,
as part of this consultation process and as part of the research
that we are undertaking, at whether we do have powers at the moment
to require supermarkets to undertake parking enforcement and whether
we have powers to send parking enforcement officers onto supermarket
land to start fining people. Again that would be something that
the Committee might feel or responses to consultation might feel
ought to be a matter for local authorities to decide whether they
wanted to exercise those powers.
Q163 Chairman: Actually, Minister,
it is simpler than that, is it not? We will need from the Department
some very clear view as to whether you are going for a national
scheme with a national database, possibly a smart card, certainly
with something that is capable of being read by someone actually
on the spot—with all the implications of that—who
will be responsible for those and how are these people to be defined,
what powers will they have? Will they have extra powers compared
with the police or not extra powers compared with the police,
and if you do not go for a national scheme then what is your alternative.
We can actually help you because it seems to me that there are
a whole lot of areas where there is a great degree of confusion,
and although I am sure in the Department you have great laser-like
intellects at work, nevertheless we proles may be able to assist
you. In the meantime, thank you for coming, it has been extremely
helpful.
Ms Winterton: If I could just
say, certainly the proposal as you know at the moment is for a
national database, that is exactly what we are on consulting on,
but then again it does throw up—
Q164 Chairman: I do not think there
is any doubt that we know what you are consulting on, what we
are not quite sure about is what the evidence going to be, where
you are going to go and what conclusions you are going to draw
and we think we might be able to help you.
Ms Winterton: That would be very
much appreciated.
Chairman: Thank you very much for coming.
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