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Mr. Mark Simmonds (Boston and Skegness) (Con): May I say what a delight it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Taylor? I want to ask the Minister three or four specific questions about the contents of the clause.
The first refers to new section 129A(3)(a). What criteria will the council use when determining whether a right of way is facilitating crime? Will there have to be a record of crimes and antisocial behaviour having taken place? Will those recorded crimes and antisocial behaviour have to take place over a specific period? Will simply the recorded crime be taken into account or complaints to the local council as well? Will there have to be formal complaints or will word of mouth be sufficient?
My second question relates to new section 129A(3)(b). Will the Minister elaborate on the definition of the word ''persistent''? How many burglaries have to take place to be classed as persistent?
Sue Doughty: It is my recollection that, when amendment No. 2 was debated this morning, we had an opportunity to cover those points. We have many important issues to go through. To revisit areas that we have already debated will not take us much further.
The Chairman: Order. I am sympathetic to what the hon. Lady says. I hope that the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) will be able to ask his questions concisely and pithily.
Mr. Simmonds: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Taylor, and for the intervention from the hon. Member for Guildford. I apologise to the Committee that I was not here for much of this morning's
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proceedings. I had to attend another meeting, which I could not move. I shall move on quickly from that point.
The third element of my questions relates to subsection (7) of new section 129B. That refers to the cost to the local authority of making the order, which was estimated in the regulatory impact assessment at £1,000. What does that £1,000 include? Does it include installation, operation or long-term maintenance costs? Does it simply cover the costs of the legal application and administrative costs of making the order?
The final point that I want to make is in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York, who sits on the Opposition Front Bench. I represent a rural constituency, where concerns have been expressed by landowners about access on their land—highways, bridleways and footpaths—being gated. Can the Minister explain how that will operate in practice? It is unclear from the Bill.
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The Chairman: Order. Those points were covered in this morning's debate. The hon. Gentleman should bring his remarks to a close and refer to the record of this morning's proceedings when it is available.
Mr. Simmonds: I will do that exactly that.
Alun Michael: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly. I dealt with most of the issues in this clause stand part debate when I responded to the earlier exchanges. Although it is nice to have the added presence in the Committee of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness, I refer him to the Hansard record of our earlier discussions, when I spoke specifically about the issue of evidence. He refers to representing a rural constituency, but I assume that he is suitably embarrassed by and contrite over the reasoned amendment—I referred to it last week as the unreasoned amendment—which said that no issue dealt with in the Bill was a concern in rural areas. His contribution illustrates how ludicrous that was.
The Chairman: Order. We are dealing with clause 2 stand part.
Alun Michael: I was merely responding to the hon. Gentleman's contribution.
I found it difficult to understand some points raised by the hon. Member for Vale of York. For instance, there seems to be a wish to alley-gate roundabouts in the general vicinity of York. I am sure that there is a serious point there about consultation. Of course, consultation should allow people to know about decisions that could affect them.
The clause is important and it gives us an opportunity to streamline local authorities' ability to gate an alley and prevent local people from having their lives ruined by an arrangement in their vicinity, which, if it does not encourage crime and disorder—it is difficult for physical arrangements to do that—appears at least to harbour crime and fails to prevent the crime and disorder that spoils their lives.
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Reference was made to the Open Spaces Society, and I pay tribute to the enormously important work that it does. I speak to the society regularly, but I think it has got it totally wrong on this issue and has confused the issue of access to the countryside with nuisance of the type that people can experience in their daily lives. That was pointed out on Second Reading by many of my hon. Friends, and the Liberal Democrats acknowledged the same problem.
The Open Spaces Society's response is therefore disproportionate to the targeted proposals before the Committee. For instance, it opposed the closing off of some alleyways in Manchester, which would affect Manchester's designation as being able to do this in areas where there is an effect on people's lives. That is missing the point.
I do not think that any member of the Committee or any Member of the House wants to close off alleyways or alleyways that are useful, unless their closure would relieve people from the misery of crime and disorder. That is why there is a great deal in the clause that is flexible: it allows local authorities to put in place their own requirements, or to remove them if they are not needed, and to take action on timing if a closure is needed only at night. Such arrangements emerged from our consultation, which included a great deal of discussion with local authorities.
Regulations will deal with those details that are inappropriate for primary legislation. However, as I have already said, primary legislation contains provisions to protect the utilities and so on. I covered that point clearly, so I shall not labour it.
The point was made that it is unclear on whom responsibility for erecting the gate and the cost will fall. The provision is permissive and when the gating order has been made, the council or another occupier of the highway can put up the gate, paid for by the local authority, or it can be done jointly by the local authority and the residents, or it can be done with a Home Office grant. The clause puts the permissive arrangements in place so that the work can be done.
The regulations will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and I have given an assurance on the extent to which points made during this debate will be taken into account when drafting the regulations and bringing them to the House for consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Exposing vehicles for sale on a road
Matthew Green (Ludlow) (LD): I beg to move amendment No. 29, in clause 3, page 6, line 2, leave out '3' and insert '4'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 30, in clause 4, page 6, line 34, leave out '3' and insert '4'.
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Matthew Green: The purpose of the amendments is to establish how the Government envisage the penalties working for persistent offenders. Some companies persistently leave cars on the road and look on the £100 fixed penalty fines as the cost of doing business. That could be a problem.
We have approached the matter by considering the maximum penalty that a court could impose, which is a level 3 fine—a maximum of £1,000—and increasing it to £2,500. I am sure that the Committee is aware that courts rarely impose the maximum fine available to them and even for persistent offenders the fine could be much less than £1,000. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed my understanding, which is that issuing a fixed penalty notice is at the discretion of the local authority. It can choose not to issue a fixed penalty notice and, instead, go for court prosecution.
Alun Michael indicated assent.
Matthew Green: The Minister is nodding and I am glad he has acknowledged that.
We envisage a problem in that the courts may not use the maximum fine, which is only £1,000, and that the £2,500 maximum of level 4 may give them more flexibility.
Alun Michael: May I confirm what the hon. Gentleman said? This is a matter of choice. The fixed penalty notice is intended to expedite the imposition of a punishment with minimum bureaucracy. However, I take his point that there are circumstances when that is not appropriate but it is appropriate for the prosecution approach to be pursued. It may be helpful to tell him that we are looking again at the maximum penalty and whether it is appropriate to have a higher level. I am happy to say that I will consider his point further.
Matthew Green: The Minister has all but responded to my amendment in that intervention. He sounds encouraging, so I shall sit down and let him make his formal response.
Alun Michael: I simply say that I cannot accept the amendment, but the point made by the hon. Gentleman also exercises us. We want commensurate levels for various environmental offences. I assure him that we will continue actively to consider the point.
Matthew Green: With that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miss McIntosh: We have now moved on to part 2 and I want to press the Minister for further information. Clause 3 raises an interesting aspect of ownership, which may not necessarily have been the intention: who will be responsible for ensuring that proof of ownership has been certified before other clauses take effect?
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I draw the Committee's attention to my entry in the register, as I sit on the public policy committee of the RAC Foundation. Some motoring organisations have drawn our attention to the fact that clause 3 states:
''A person is guilty of an offence if . . . he leaves two or more motor vehicles parked on the same road where they are exposed or advertised for sale''.
We accept the principle that we need to address nuisance parking and that vehicles for sale should not be parked on the road to advertise them, but should be more properly accommodated on a garage forecourt rather than outside a private home or on a public highway. However, does the Minister accept that clause 3(1)(a) is ambiguous? Does ''exposed'' refer to the vehicle's position on the road or does it mean exposed for the purpose of sale? Does that include a vehicle parked temporarily, but not dangerously, on a road—for example, following a test drive, with no visible sales material on it?
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