This is a follow-up to an astute comment on parking tickets by Dwight Van Driver. Basically the Protection of Freedoms bill is a well-meaning collection of provisions that includes a ban on car clamping, restrictions on the time terrorist suspects can be held by the police, control of fingerprint records - and a whole lot of other things.

However, DVD spotted that the removal of clamping rights is matched by a nasty provision that would make a car's owner vulnerable to extortion by these wretched parking companies that prey on people.

Can I suggest that each of HJ's loyal band of followers find out who their local MP is and send him or her something on the lines of the following missive that I have just sent to my own MP (Sam Gyimah, the Tory MP for East Surrey):

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Can I ask you to look at a weasel provision in the Protection of Freedoms Bill which is coming up for second reading at the beginning of March.

Most of the provisions of this bill are quite worthy, including the section that outlaws car clamping. However, there is danger revealed by the final sentence of the explanatory notice that I have copied below.

Britain is full of private parking companies that levy enormous "fines" on people who stop too long in shopping car parks, enter private roads (usually unwittingly) and commit various other very minor mischiefs on private land. The companies get agreement of the land owner to police the privately owned land and then make a profit by trying to enforce "fines".
I have seen franchise offers advertised on eBay, encouraging people to set up these money-spinners. They are run pitilessly by villains and cause untold misery to people who they hound for payment, which can be for large sums of money - several hundred pounds if you don't pay up immediately.
At the moment, to enforce these "fines" the companies need to establish who a driver is, since any contract to park would be with a driver and not the owner of a vehicle. If you own a vehicle you are under no obligation to tell a private parking company who was driving it.
The Act would give these crooks a legal right to pursue the registered keeper or owner of a vehicle for payment, rather than the driver. At the moment, if you receive one of these dodgy parking tickets and ignore it you will receive a barrage of threatening letters that you can fairly safely disregard.
If this clause is allowed, there ought also to be provision to limit the amount of money that can be demanded by private enforcement companies - and a proper system to regulate them.
But preferably, the clause should be dropped. It is a charter for villains.



Parliamentary explanatory notice extract:
Chapter 2 of Part 3 makes provision in respect of parking enforcement. It
makes it a criminal offence to immobilise a vehicle, move a vehicle or restrict the
movement of a vehicle without lawful authority. Further provision is made to extend
the power to make regulations for the police and others to remove vehicles illegally,
dangerously or obstructively parked. Provision is also made so that the keeper of a
vehicle can be held liable for unpaid parking charges arising under contract in
circumstances where the identity of the driver is not known.