Meeting of the Parliament 19 August 2014
Like others, I congratulate Dennis Robertson on bringing forward the bill, which I am sure is going to be successful at 17:50.
As a bill, it is perhaps a return to the way in which the old Scots Parliament legislated. The Common Good Act 1491 was a mere four lines long. Dennis Robertson’s bill has the clarity in conception, the purity of purpose and the economy of expression that is contained in a mere four lines in the Common Good Act. Of course, the member’s bill process in this Parliament lends itself to tightly focused and clearly expressed and articulated pieces of legislation. I think that others might usefully learn from that process, which is open to all, even if Sandra White may be one of those who are disappointed.
The core of the Disabled Persons’ Parking Badges (Scotland) Bill is to improve life for people with some disability that requires them to have help with parking. We need to think in terms of the dignity of the people who have a disability. My experience of that was in the early 1970s when a couple of colleagues who were blind were able, for the very first time, to receive their bank statements in Braille. Up to that point other people had had to read their bank statements to them, and that was a loss of dignity because their confidential information had perforce to be shared with others.
By the same token, when we ensure that there is adequate parking at the end of what may be an essential journey or a leisure journey—it is not for us to decide—and an actual parking place for someone who needs it because they are disabled, we confer upon that person the dignity that we are all entitled to expect. I think that the bill is excellent because it ensures that we share more widely the dignity to which we are all entitled.
There has been a bit of discussion about the powers of the enforcement officers and the matter of a uniform. In 1968, my summer job as a student was as a water bailiff. I had a warrant card, I could arrest people and I had the untrammelled right of entry into any premises without cause shown, but I had no uniform. That had been the case for water bailiffs for a very long time. Such people can have powers without having a uniform and they can be justly provided, and people were used to the idea that water bailiffs did not have uniforms. The difference in this case, of course, is that enforcement officers will be new. We therefore need to have some tact and diplomacy in the early days in which they operate.
Quite properly, Inclusion Scotland has focused on the potential for enforcement officers, traffic wardens and policemen to confiscate blue badges unnecessarily and inappropriately. I think that Inclusion Scotland has a valid point. That is why, in the introduction of an enforcement regime that will contribute enormously to people with disabilities, we need to be careful how we do it.
People who have disabilities do not necessarily see themselves as other parts of society might see them. For example, my mother was 4 foot 10 and a half and she walked with elbow crutches for most of her adult life, but it was different when she got behind the wheel of the Mini Cooper S that she drove. I remember being with her in the car—before Barbara Castle introduced the universal speed limit—as she did 100mph down the Baiglie straight.
Transport can sometimes be transformative; it was for my mother. Let us make sure that in providing parking at the end of the journey—people should not travel at 100mph as it diminishes the chance of getting there—we will enhance the lives of certain people and give them the dignity that they deserve.
17:13