Clause 3 - Exposing vehicles for sale on a road
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Alun Michael (Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Cardiff South and Penarth, Labour/Co-operative)
The provision is discretionary. It does not place additional burdens on the local authority. Local authorities often have complaints about vehicles parked on the street in the course of running a business, and they are difficult to deal with. Sometimes, the police get complaints as well. The provision will enable the authority to deal sensibly and swiftly with a problem that arises from time to time in several areas. Many constituency MPs will have experienced that problem and the difficulty of making it go away. Far from placing a burden on local authorities, the provision will enable them to get on with their work effectively.
The clause has nothing to do with abandoned vehicles. It is about vehicles on the road for sale. Cars sold on the road by commercial businesses can cause problems and considerable annoyance for ordinary people. They also create a significant blight on an area. The clause makes it an offence to expose or advertise two or more vehicles for sale on the same road. The hon. Lady questioned the use of ''expose''. The wording of the clause means exposed for sale or advertised for sale.
Our target is not the individual private seller, so a person would not be convicted if they could show that they were not running or acting as part of a business. ''Road'' is not restricted to the public highway, but includes all roads to which the public have access, and will include, for example, private roads running through estates—very much the place where problems can arise. For the avoidance of doubt, the definition of motor vehicle includes caravans and trailers.
The clause will prevent the spillover of a business that goes beyond just one car parked on the road when moving things around or one or two vehicles causing a problem, and will allow a problem in the area to be dealt with. It is a matter of local judgment as to how the new power should be used. I offer the advice that, as is often the case, if there is not a problem, do not deal with it, but if there is, here are the means to help deal with it. Issues such as tax and information on vehicles properly on the road are matters that should be dealt with co-operatively between the police and the local authority, as they are in many other instances. That reinforces the work referred to in clause 1.
I should clarify that there are no regulations for nuisance parking. It is up to local authorities to enforce the provision. It is designed to meet the experience of local authorities and others who made their representations to us when we consulted.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.