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Mr. McNulty: As I understand it, under the existing licensing regime owners of skips are under precisely that higher duty. If there is a skip as an obstacle on the roadside it must, under current licensing regimes, be fully lit at night, in ways that stationed cars do not have to be. I will advise the right hon. Gentleman if the situation is not as I have stated, but as I understand it, as part of the licensing regime, certainly in London and I suspect outside, a skip must be lit at night to show to people that there is this stationary obstacle that is not as it should be. The skip should be properly lighted during the hours of darkness; whether with reflective or fluorescent material or otherwise, it is so marked. That is absolutely the case, apparently, according to clause 139 of something or other, which I will let the Committee know about in a moment.
Mr. Chope: The point made in response to my hon. Friend's question underlines our concern about the use of fixed penalty offences in cases where the offence may well be subject to mitigation. If one is responsible for a skip and has lit it, but the lights are removed, an absolute offence, subject to a fixed penalty, has been committed. In such circumstances, if there was a prosecution, there would have been a proper investigation and the prosecution probably would not have proceeded when it realised that it was not the fault of the owner because the lights had been removed. That is an example of the inflexibility that is introduced as soon as there are fixed-penalty offences.
Mr. McNulty: Let me turn round the argument that the hon. Gentleman has been pursuing for the best part of the day. That duty has been in the Highways Act since 1980 and there is no substantial difference between what has prevailed in the last 24 years and what will prevail if a fixed penalty notice is added to it. If it has been a calamity to have such an oppressive measure for the past 24 years, that will not change just because of the introduction of a fixed penalty notice. If
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that has not happened in the past 24 years, it will not happen because of the subsequent addition of fixed penalty offence status, rather than the status afforded by the relevant part of the principal Act, in this case the Highways Act 1980. I explained the position to the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire in terms of the lighting on skips.
Question put, That this schedule be the fifth schedule to the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 3.
Division No. 38]
AYES
Borrow, Mr. David
McNulty, Mr. Tony
Mann, John
Merron, Gillian
Thurso, John
White, Brian
Wright, David
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Knight, Mr. Greg
Wilshire, Mr. David
Question accordingly agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Schedule 6
SCHEDULE 22B TO THE HIGHWAYS ACT 1980
Motion made and Question put, That this schedule be the Sixth schedule to the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 3.
Division No. 39]
AYES
Borrow, Mr. David
McNulty, Mr. Tony
Mann, John
Merron, Gillian
Thurso, John
White, Brian
Wright, David
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Knight, Mr. Greg
Wilshire, Mr. David
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Knight, Mr. Greg
Wilshire, Mr. David
Question accordingly agreed to.
Schedule 6 agreed to.
Clause 61 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 62
Builders' skips: charge for occupation
of highway for unreasonable period
Mr. Chope: I beg to move amendment No. 200, in
page 34, leave out line 13.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 201, in
page 34, leave out lines 19 and 20.
Amendment No. 194, in
Government amendments Nos. 63 and 64.
Amendment No. 195, in
Column Number: 244
Amendment No. 202, in
page 37, leave out lines 16 and 17.
Government amendments No. 65 and 66.
Mr. Chope: I shall not speak to my amendment, thereby allowing the Minister explain the reasoning behind the Government amendments.
Mr. McNulty: The Government amendments are tidying-up amendments. People always baulk when a Minister says that, but these really are what I claim them to be. Clause 63(5) states that certain provisions in clause 62, which apply to the establishment of charging for overrunning schemes for skips in the highway would also apply to the lane rental charging schemes for skips under clause 63. Those include the provision in clause 62(5) that regulations under that section can require the owner of a skip to give a highway authority an estimate of how long the skip is expected to remain on the street, and that the authority will be deemed to have accepted that estimate as a reasonable one unless it indicates otherwise. Authorities need that information to calculate whether skips have overrun their permitted duration. However, it is not needed for lane rental. The only information needed to calculate charges for that is when a skip was placed in a road and when it was removed.
The reference in clause 63(5) to subsection (5) is a mistake, which Government amendment No. 64 removes. Government amendment No. 66 has the same effect, except that it removes an equivalent reference in clause 65(6) to subsection (7), which relates to charges for placing scaffolding and other building materials on the highway. Those are simply minor, cross-referencing points.
Government amendments Nos. 63 and 65 remove a couple of inconsistencies in clauses 62 and 64, which respectively cover charges for skips and for scaffolding and building materials, when agreed durations are overrun. Amendment No. 63 places in clause 62 a similar provision to that in clause 64(9), which explains that regulations can set different overrun charges for different circumstances—for example, they can be higher or lower depending on how much of a road is affected by an obstruction. Amendment No. 65 places in clause 64 similar wording to that in clause 62(7), which makes it clear that the regulations can state what method should be used to calculate, for example, how long a skip has occupied a street.
Those are not substantial policy changes that have crept in through devious means because we changed out mind when the Bill was published. They simply cross-reference minor points in other clauses. I commend all of the Government amendments to the Committee.
John Mann: The two amendments that I tabled are merely probing amendments. I seek the Minister's assurance that the legislation will not end up being a cash cow, with which local authorities can keep raising money, while having a disproportionate impact on
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communities in terraced housing. It will have a big impact on all current and former mining areas, in which getting work done on one's house means having a skip on the road because there is nowhere else for it to go.
I seek assurance that local authorities will not be able use the legislation deliberately or inadvertently in a way that will have a disproportionate impact on people who live in what is by far the lowest value housing and who, I suggest, are in the least well-off sections of society.
Mr. McNulty: As both sections 140A and 171A make clear in the principal Act, the Secretary of State can set out the framework for charging regimes in regulations. Among other things, that framework could apply the charging system to certain types of roads only, or, as provided for in clause 62(8), it could set different levels of charges, or none at all, in particular circumstances. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks about terraced housing.
Mr. Chope: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: No. 63, in
page 35, line 3, leave out from 'skip' to end of line 6 and insert—
'(8) The regulations may prescribe different rates of charge according to—
(a) the extent to which the skip occupies the highway;
(b) the place and time of the occupation;
(c) such other factors as appear to the Secretary of State to be relevant.'.—[Mr. McNulty.]
Clause 62, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
5.45 pm
Clause 63
Builders' skips: charge determined by reference
to duration of occupation of highway
Amendment made: No. 64, in
page 36, line 26, leave out ', (5)'.—[Mr. McNulty.]
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Chope: I shall not detain the Committee with a lengthy argument against lane rental, as we have had that but, for the reasons that we articulated earlier, we wish to vote against this clause.
Mr. Knight: May I make a slightly different point? There is a growing concern that when local authorities issue parking permits, they issue more permits than there are places, and that instead of receiving twice the income for the number of parking places, they may receive thrice the income. They could charge rental for a builder's skip parked in a resident's parking bay, and they will already have sold that bay twice or three times. There is concern at what the Government are doing, and I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when the regulations are made and the fees are
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set, as well as the fact that some unscrupulous builders might think it cheaper to leave the skip on the back of a lorry and park the lorry.
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided Ayes 7, Noes 3.
Division No. 40]
AYES
Borrow, Mr. David
McNulty, Mr. Tony
Mann, John
Merron, Gillian
Thurso, John
White, Brian
Wright, David
NOES
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Knight, Mr. Greg
Wilshire, Mr. David
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 63, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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