Instruments drawn to the special attention of the House
Draft Private Parking Code of Practice
Date laid: 7 February 2022
Parliamentary procedure: negative
The purpose of this Code of Practice (“the Code”) is to deal with poor practice and behaviour of some private parking operators. The Code implements an obligation on the Government under the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 to develop a Code of Practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. The Department expects the industry to start aligning with the Code as soon as possible and for it to come into full force on 31 December 2023.
We welcome that the Code will improve consumer protection. There have been a number of questions in the House about poor practice in the private parking sector over the last few years, and there is considerable public interest, as indicated by a large number of consultation responses. We have received three submissions from private parking operators which raise a range of concerns, in particular about the impact that the proposed cap on parking charges will have on the industry. We regret that, while the Department disagrees with the sector’s assessment of the impact, it has yet to complete and publish its own Impact Assessment. We wrote to Ministers about the lack of an Impact Assessment but remain unconvinced by their response.
The Code is drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that it is politically or legally important and gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.
3.This draft Code of Practice (“the Code”) has been laid by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) with an Explanatory Document (ED). The purpose of the draft Code is to deal with poor practice in the private parking sector.
4.We have received submissions from three private parking operators, Euro Car Parks Limited, Parkingeye and the Parking Group, which raise a range of concerns about the draft Code. This report considers some of the key issues raised in the submissions and the Department’s response to them. We have published the submissions and the Department’s response in full on our website.1
Background
5.In the foreword to the draft Code, the Minister states that private parking operators currently issue “roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists”.2 The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 (“the Act”) sought to address widespread concerns about this poor practice and behaviour by placing a duty on the Government to develop a Code of Practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities.3
6.The Department asked the British Standards Institution (BSI) to develop the Code, with the support of a Steering Group of expert stakeholders and subject to several consultations in 2020 and 2021. The first of the consultations received around 4,500 responses. The Department expects the industry to start aligning with the Code as soon as possible and for it to come into full force on 31 December 2023. According to DLUHC, the long transition period “is to provide time for parking operators to adapt to the requirements of the Code and for the wider regulatory framework to be established, which is necessary for the effective enforcement of the Code”. The Code will apply to England, Scotland and Wales.
7.A new Certification Scheme will be introduced to which parking trade associations must adhere if their members wish to request access to data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). This means that, in practice, private parking operators which do not adhere to the Code will not have access to DVLA data and will therefore be unable to issue parking charges.
8.Some of the key provisions of the Code are summarised below.
Signage and markings
9.The Code includes standards for clear signage and surface markings so that drivers can see more easily whether parking is permitted and what terms and conditions apply, including information about payments methods, contact details and the parking tariff and the charge that may apply if a driver breaches the terms and conditions. The Code also requires clear and visible markings for parking bays, including Blue Badge bays.
Accessible parking and Blue Badge scheme
10.DLUHC says that under the Equality Act 2010, parking operators must make reasonable adaptations to accommodate disabled people, for example providing lowered payment machines. The Code clarifies the duties on parking operators in relation to the Equality Act and Blue Badge scheme, including requirements if the parking operator chooses to recognise the scheme. Adaptations may be physical but may also apply to the time allowed for making a payment or returning to a car.
Duration of parking
11.The Code introduces definitions for consideration, grace periods and ‘no stopping’ areas:
- The Code requires a minimum consideration period of five minutes, with a longer period for car parks with more than 500 bays, so that drivers have time to enter the car park and decide whether to park there. No consideration period will apply in short-stay areas.
- The Code requires a grace period of at least 10 minutes, in addition to the parking and consideration period, before a parking charge can be issued, in line with the requirements on local authorities.
- The Code allows parking operators to issue a parking charge for stopping only “if they have consent to do so on evidenced safety or security grounds from the parking association to which they belong”, for example at airports where stopping could create security concerns.
Parking charges
12.The Code prescribes the way a notice of a parking charge must be presented to address public concerns about some charges looking like local authority Penalty Charge Notices or using aggressive or pseudo-legal language that deters recipients from lodging an appeal.
13.The Code also introduces new caps on parking charges mirroring those for local authorities. The standard charge will be £50 (£80 in London), while the current £100 parking charge cap (£130 in London) will be maintained where parking is not invited, for blocking a disabled bay, and in residential and staff-only car parks. The Code increases the discount for paying a parking charge within 14 days of its receipt from 40% to 50%, in line with the arrangements for local authorities.
Escalation of costs and recovery of unpaid parking charges
14.The Code prevents parking operators from adding any additional fees to the original parking charge or parking tariff and introduces safeguards on the recovery of debt. This includes a requirement that all Debt Recovery Agencies (DRAs) involved in the collection of private parking-related debt must be full members of an Accredited Parking Association (APA) to ensure their accountability to the sector. Membership of an APA is conditional on the DRA having been certified against a new Certification Scheme which will ensure the DRA’s conformity with the Code.
Appeals and complaint handling
15.The Code requires parking operators to provide a process to appeal a parking charge within 28 days of its delivery, or longer in exceptional circumstances. The Code includes an appeals charter which sets out mitigating circumstances, such as making a mistake when entering the number plate when making a payment, that have to be taken into account during the appeals process. Parking operators must also operate a complaints procedure. In addition, the Government will set up a single independent appeals service to deal with appeals by those who are unhappy with the handling of their appeal by a parking operator.
Enforcement of the Code
16.The ED does not explain how the Code will be enforced. Asked about this, DLUHC explained:
“Parking operators will only be able to request data from the DVLA to enforce parking charges if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the trade association itself has robust processes for auditing operators’ compliance with the Code. To be satisfied, we will expect the trade associations to undergo accreditation by United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) as Conformity Assessment Bodies. The Government will produce a Certification Scheme, based on the Code, which will outline how in practice the requirements of the Code should be measured, tested and assessed. For example, how prospective assessment bodies will evaluate if the content and placing of signage is compliant with the Code.
UKAS, as an independent body, will assess whether the trade associations have the necessary processes in place to ensure that parking operators comply with the Code. The UKAS accreditation process will involve regular audits and inspections and will provide greater guarantees to Government that the new system is robust and rigorous. Once the new accreditation system is in place, the Secretary of State will designate those parking trade associations that have been accredited by UKAS as Accredited Parking Associations, for the purposes of the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, which will entitle their members to request access to data from the DVLA.”
Key concerns raised in submissions
17.The new caps on parking charges and the increase of the discount from 40% to 50% were key concerns raised in the submissions we received. Euro Car Parks said that these changes would “severely reduce the income available to fund parking enforcement”, suggesting that the British Parking Association’s (BPA) impact assessment of the proposed changes had identified a “loss of over 40% of income, equating to the loss of some £150m of revenue for parking operators”. According to the BPA, this “would flow through directly to the bottom line, potentially seeing c3,000 jobs lost across the industry”. The BPA also expected that there would be “a considerable impact on the retail and hospitality sectors as many sites across the country will become commercially unviable”, and that “the proposed changes could result in 46% of parking operators becoming insolvent within a year of the change”.
18.The submissions also criticised the lack of an Impact Assessment (IA). Euro Car Park criticised that the Government had not carried out a “quantitative or qualitative assessment of the scale of reductions and the effect on the industry”. Parkingeye said that it had “submitted an independently verified impact assessment using over 10 years of data across over 2,000 parking sites in the UK to highlight the impact Parking Charge levels have on non-compliance rates”, adding that this “was the first comprehensive, independently verified analysis of this impact to date in the UK”. Parkingeye criticised that “Despite its submission and recognition by […] the DLUHC Select Committee, who itself requested that the DLUHC publish its own impact assessment, there was no engagement from the DLUHC with Parkingeye on this evidence. Furthermore, the evidence was not recognised in either the DLUHC’s response to the Technical Consultation or in the Code of Practice Explanatory Document.”
19.Asked about these concerns, the Department responded that:
“We are aware of the concerns raised by the private parking industry about the impact of the Code, particularly the new levels of private parking charges. We consulted extensively on the proposals and carefully considered all evidence provided before making a final decision. […]
We recognise that the primary purpose of parking charges is deterrence. We believe the new levels of private parking charges provide a sufficient deterrent to prevent non-compliant parking, while also ensuring the system is consistent and proportionate for motorists and workable for parking operators. It should be noted that the £50 charge is the lowest level of charge and applies to less serious breaches outside London, such as parking after the expiry of the paid-for time or free parking period. For more serious breaches and breaches that take place inside London, operators are able to charge at a higher level.
In our response to the further technical consultation, we committed to reviewing the levels of private parking charges as part of the general review of the Code that will be carried out by the Scrutiny and Oversight Board within two years of its implementation. As part of this, we will consider the consequences if local authority penalties change more widely.
We also consider that some of the assumptions contained within the industry assessment may overstate the impact of the new levels of parking charges, including that all parking operator revenue is generated from parking charges. The economic impact on the industry needs to be considered alongside the reduction in harms to motorists from excessive or unfair parking charges. We believe this will boost the high street by making it easier for people to park near their local shops without being unfairly fined. However, we recognise the new Code will create some costs for operators and have been clear that it will not come into full force until the end of 2023 to give them time to adapt to the new requirements, which will help to mitigate the economic impact of the Code on industry.”
20.Specifically with regard to the lack of an IA, the Department said that:
“We included a summary of our assessment of the impact within the explanatory document that was published alongside the Code. […] We intend to undertake an impact assessment of the changes introduced by the Code once the single appeals service has been designed to ensure that we have all the necessary information to complete the assessment.”
21.We are unable to assess the accuracy of the BPA’s estimate of the impact on the industry. While the Department considers that the BPA’s estimate may overstate this impact, it is clear that private parking operators will see a reduction in their income as a result of the changes introduced by the Code. Given these differing views, we regret that the Department is yet to complete and publish its IA. We are not convinced by the Department’s approach to conduct an IA only once the single appeals service has been designed; it should have been possible to conduct a robust IA on the basis of reasonable assumptions and modelling, which is standard practice in the production of IAs.
22.Information on the expected financial impact of regulatory changes is essential for effective parliamentary scrutiny, and the failure to provide an IA at the time of laying secondary legislation before Parliament is an issue we have raised previously with a number of departments.4 We therefore wrote to two DLUHC Ministers about the lack of an IA at this stage. We wrote to Neil O’Brien MP as the Minister responsible for the Code. We also wrote to Eddie Hughes MP who, as the Minister who leads on secondary legislation in the Department, “assess[es] and approve[s] all SIs that are due to be laid in Parliament”. Both Ministers told us that the ED assesses “the impact of each section of the Code and provide[s] an assessment of the industry’s own analysis”. We note that while the ED does refer to the BPA’s concerns that changes to parking charges “could result in significant loss of income to operators, with potential significant impacts to business viability”, the ED does not provide any financial analysis of how the changes made by the Code could affect the private parking industry. This lack of financial information is regrettable.
23.We find the Ministers’ explanation that there is no “strict requirement” for an IA because the Code is not a statutory instrument and there is no provision in the Act for treating it as such, unacceptable: This claims a legal technicality, hides behind the process and so goes against the spirit of why departments are required to provide IAs for significant regulatory changes. As the Code is subject to parliamentary procedure, the Department should have made available to Parliament all the information, including financial analysis, that is needed to scrutinise the changes made by the Code effectively. (The full correspondence with Ministers is enclosed at Appendix 2)
24.We have a long-standing concern about the inadequate provision of impact information. In our recent special report Government by Diktat,5 we explained that such information is fundamental to our and Parliament’s ability to scrutinise secondary legislation effectively, to understand the range of alternative policy options available to departments and their consequences. We argued that IAs have the potential to offer reassurance in that they may demonstrate a department’s evidence base for the decisions they have taken. Given that the failure to provide IAs has occurred persistently across several departments and each having the potential to cast doubt over policy development, we will be looking further into this issue over the coming weeks and will take up our concerns with the Government.
Lack of Engagement
25.Euro Car Park criticised that Ministers had not engaged with the industry and that despite many requests, there had “not been a single meeting” with Ministers. Euro Car Park said that this did “not properly reflect the importance of private parking or the impact which the proposals will have”. The Department told us that:
“[W]e committed to produce the Code in close consultation with those who manage and use private parking services. To that end, we contracted the British Standards Institution [BIS] in 2020 to appoint a steering group of expert stakeholders to agree the Code through consensus. BSI ran a consultation on the Code itself and Government ran a further consultation on issues that were too contentious for the steering group to reach consensus on. Ministers came to a final decision on some outstanding issues where agreement hadn’t been reached by the end of steering group process by weighing all the different views put forward.”
Conclusion
26.We welcome that the Code seeks to improve consumer protection in the private parking sector. We regret, however, that the Department has failed to complete its IA, which could have provided a detailed and robust assessment of the expected impact of the changes. This would have been particularly helpful, given that the Department disagrees with the assessment produced by the private parking industry. We are drawing the Code to the special attention of the House on the ground that it is politically or legally important and gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.
Draft Boiler Upgrade Scheme (England and Wales) Regulations 2022
Date laid: 24 February 2022
Parliamentary procedure: affirmative
These draft Regulations propose a new three-year Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) which is to support the installation of heat pumps and, in limited circumstances, biomass boilers in domestic and small non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, up to a capacity limit of 45 kWth. The Government has set an ambitious target for the installation of 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028, as part of the measures needed to achieve the next zero emissions target by 2050. The Department expects the new BUS to fund up to 90,000 installations between 2022 and 2025. Around 200,000 heat pumps per year are to be installed in new buildings following the introduction of the Future Homes Standard. This would still leave a considerable gap in relation to the target of 600,000 installations per year by 2028. While recognising the transitional nature of the BUS, the House may wish to question the Minister on the role the scheme will play in making progress towards this ambitious target, and on how realistic the Government’s current projections and targets are, given that they are to be achieved within only six years.
The draft Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.
27.These draft Regulations have been laid by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) with an Explanatory Memorandum (EM) and Impact Assessment (IA). The instrument proposes a new three-year Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), previously referred to as the Clean Heat Grant, which is to support the installation of heat pumps and, in limited circumstances, biomass boilers in domestic and small non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, up to a capacity limit of 45 kWth.
Background
28.According to BEIS, the aim of the BUS is to reduce the high upfront capital costs of low carbon heat technologies in the transition away from fossil fuel systems, as part of the Government’s commitment under the 10 Point Plan to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.6 This is to support progress towards the UK’s 2050 net zero ambition. The BUS will replace tariff-payments under the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme (DRHI) which will close to new applications on 31 March 2022 (see paragraph 39).
29.BEIS says that the current UK market for low carbon heat is relatively small, and that the technologies are largely unable to compete on cost with conventional gas, oil and direct electric heating. According to BEIS, this is partly because low carbon heating currently does not benefit from economies of scale or mature supply chains to the same extent as conventional technologies. The Department says that, as set out in the Heat and Buildings Strategy,7 new regulatory and market-based mechanisms are to encourage changes for both the new build and retrofit market from the mid-2020s. In the meantime, the BUS aims to grow the market for retrofit installations, avoid a gap after the closure of the DRHI and encourage the creation of supply chains in preparation of the introduction of the new regulatory and market-based mechanisms later in the decade. BEIS says that the BUS responds to the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee for additional financial support.
How the BUS will operate
30.The BUS will be delivered through an installer-led, two stage voucher system. At the first pre-installation stage, the installer will apply for a voucher and will undergo basic eligibility checks. In the second, post-installation stage, the installer will provide evidence of the installation and any required eligibility criteria and will then be paid a grant by Ofgem, reducing the upfront price paid by the customer. BEIS says that an installer-led scheme allows for a “smoother and simpler” consumer journey, while maintaining certainty for installers as to the availability of budget.
31.While domestic custom build homes will be eligible for support under the BUS, other new build homes and social housing will not be eligible. The BUS will operate in England and Wales. Scotland operates its own support schemes for domestic and small scale non-domestic heat and energy efficiency.
32.To ensure customer protection against mis-selling, all installers participating in the BUS must be certified by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS)8 or equivalent and confirm membership of an approved Consumer Code of Practice. BEIS says that this will ensure that people who buy low carbon heating systems are covered by consumer protection schemes for both the products and their performance, as well as the quality of the installation and service from the installer.
Scale of the BUS and challenges
33.The BUS is to run from 2022 to 2025, providing grants of £5,000 for air source heat pumps and biomass boilers and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps. This compares to average capital costs of £8,900 for air source heat pumps, £21,200 for biomass boilers and £25,000 for ground source heat pumps under the BUS. In response to feedback received during consultation, the scheme’s budget has been increased from £100 million over two years to £450 million over three years. BEIS expects the scheme to provide financial support for up to 30,000 installations in its first year. We asked the Department how many installations it hopes to be funding by the time the BUS closes in 2025. BEIS told us that:
“At the current grant levels (£5,000 for air source heat pumps and biomass boilers, and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps) and with the committed funding from the last spending review (£150m per year over three years), the scheme could support a total of 90,000 installations. However, we expect to see cost reductions in the technologies during the lifetime of the scheme and as such, the regulations allow for the Secretary of State to review and adjust the grant levels in response to market changes or if uptake differs substantially from the projected range. Therefore, the exact levels of deployment over the three years may change in response to this.”
34.Given that the ambition under the 10 Point Plan is to install 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028, we asked the Department how this could be achieved, if the Department expected the BUS to achieve only 30,000 installations in its first year of operation in 2022. BEIS said that:
“The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is part of a wider package of policies the Department is introducing to scale up heat pump deployment and support industry to reduce the costs of heat pumps. As costs come down, we expect other policies to kick in. By 2026, we expect around 200,000 heat pumps a year to be going into new buildings following the introduction of the Future Homes Standard. Along with our consultations on wider heating policies such as the proposed new regulations for buildings off the gas grid and the market-based mechanism, we are confident we can increase deployment to 600,000 per year.”
35.We also asked for further information about the new regulatory and market-based approaches that, according to the Department, will encourage large-scale installations in future. BEIS told us that:
“In the Heat and Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, we announced a series of proposed regulatory and market-based approaches that will enable us to ramp up deployment of low carbon heating technologies through the 2020s and beyond to decarbonise our buildings. These included:
- Market-based mechanism for low carbon heat: this mechanism will create a market incentive to grow the numbers of heat pumps installed in existing premises each year, providing industry with a clear, long-term policy framework for investment and innovation.
- Regulations to phase out the installation of fossil fuel heating in homes off the gas grid: these regulations will end new fossil fuel heating installations in homes off the gas grid from 2026, using a ‘heat pump first’ approach to replacement of heating systems.
- Regulations to phase out the installation of fossil fuel heating systems in businesses and public buildings off the gas grid: these regulations will use the natural replacement cycle as the trigger for phasing out fossil fuel heating systems and will introduce the policy using a phased approach with the largest buildings first, followed by smaller buildings.
- Future Homes Standards: these standards will be introduced through legislation (such as Building Regulations) to ensure new homes and buildings will be fitted with low-carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency so that new buildings do not need to be retrofitted in the future. We are also proposing to end new connections to the gas grid.”
Conclusion
36.The Government has set out an ambitious target for the installation of 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028. The Department expects the new BUS that is proposed by these draft Regulations to fund up to 90,000 installations between 2022 and 2025. Around 200,000 heat pumps per year are to be installed in new buildings following the introduction of the Future Homes Standard. This would still leave a considerable gap in relation to the target of 600,000 installations per year by 2028. While recognising the transitional nature of the BUS, the House may wish to question the Minister on the role the scheme can play in making progress towards this ambitious target, and on how realistic the Government’s current projections and the 2028 target are, given that they are to be achieved within only six years. The draft Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.
1 Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, ‘Scrutiny evidence’: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/255/secondary-legislation-scrutiny-committee/publications/8/scrutiny-evidence/.
2 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Private Parking Code of Practice’
(7 February 2022): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-parking-code-of-practice/private-parking-code-of-practice#ministerial-foreword [accessed 8 March 2022].
3 The Act received Royal Assent on 15 March 2019, having been introduced as a Private Members Bill sponsored by Sir Greg Knight MP and Lord Hunt of Wirral, with support from the Government.
4 See, for example, our 23rd Report (Session 2021–22, HL Paper 123) and our 21st Report (Session 2021–22, HL Paper 109).
5 Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Government by Diktat: A call to return power to Parliament, 20th Report (Session 2021–22, HL Paper 105).
6 Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), ‘The ten point plan for a green industrial revolution’ (18 November 2020): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution [accessed 8 March 2022].
7 BEIS, ‘Heat and buildings strategy’ (19 October 2021): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-and-buildings-strategy [accessed 8 March 2022].
8 MCS installer standards certify that an installer can install to a defined quality, using products that have met rigorous testing standards.