Clause 7 - Power to require name and address
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
4:30 pm
Mrs Anne McIntosh (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Vale of York, Conservative)
On reflection, I may have received a parking fine. I do not wish to paint myself whiter than white or disappoint the Minister.
It is nice that we have at least a modicum of agreement, and the Minister accepted that the failure to pay fixed penalty notices to date, without them being increased, concerns the Government. Enforcement is also of some concern to them. Subsection (1) provides an authorised officer of a local authority with the power to require the name and address of an offender if the officer proposes to give him a penalty notice. Subsection (2) makes it an offence to fail to provide the information asked for or to give inaccurate information. It would help to know what level 3 is on the standard scale. Will the scales for clauses 6 and 7 have to be determined by statutory instrument? When does he imagine introducing such an instrument for clause 7, or is he not minded to amend the scales at this time?
For the power to be meaningful, the Minister must prove that it is not discretionary and enforcement will be put in place. Is he convinced that the provision is as strong as it should be, or does he think that it is unnecessarily weak? We would argue that it does not go as far as the Government intend to make clauses 6 and 7 true enforcement procedures; nor does it ensure that fixed penalty notices are not only issued, but paid. If effective, what impact does he think enforcement will have on the total number of receipts?