Hansard

I thank Jackie Baillie for introducing the Disabled Persons' Parking Places (Scotland) Bill. Her member's bill is an important and much-needed piece of legislation. I regret that she cannot be in the chamber to see her bill passed by the Parliament, as I am confident that it will be. A bill that has reached stage 3 with no amendments is a significant indicator of the consensus across the Parliament on the need for it.

Of course, a member's bill does not reach this stage without significant effort on the part of the member and their staff. In her remarks, Karen Gillon gave proper recognition to the work that Jackie Baillie and her staff have undertaken.

We welcome the bill because, like Ms Baillie, we take the abuse of disabled parking bays extremely seriously. The Government shares Ms Baillie's commitment to helping disabled people throughout Scotland have access to parking, which should in turn improve the quality of their lives.

Some of my colleagues have stated in earlier debates on the bill that legislation is not always the answer. I agree, but unfortunately we have reached a stage at which the evidence suggests that we will provide a real deterrent only by moving from the use of advisory disabled parking places to ensuring that the appropriate parking places are enforceable. We hope that the bill will bring to an end the abuse of disabled parking spaces and will result in the general public seeing it as socially unacceptable to misuse those spaces.

At a time when changes in the social structure mean that people with disabilities are viewed as no different from anyone else in having to adapt to a more independent lifestyle, we want a system to be implemented that is fair and understood by all. Change will not happen overnight, as local authorities require to do quite a lot of work to implement the bill, but I expect that coverage of today's debate and of previous debates will raise awareness of the abuse of disabled parking places and may help to deter some of the thoughtless drivers who exploit the current lack of enforcement.

The bill covers on-street and off-street parking and requires local authorities to contact private car park owners with a view to their making arrangements for the provision of enforceable disabled parking places in their car parks. We very much welcome the work that Asda has done, which Ms Gillon mentioned. I am sure that the charities concerned will welcome the £70,000 that has been raised to serve their aims, although we hope that that figure will diminish because the higher it is the more abuse is taking place.

The bill will require local authorities to prepare annual reports on their performance in relation to their functions on parking places for disabled persons' vehicles. The reports will include details of the action that local authorities have taken in fulfilling their duties under the bill, and I will ask my officials to consult local authorities on the drafting of guidance on the completion of annual reports. The adoption of a consistent approach will assist my officials in drawing up the Government's annual report, which is another requirement of the bill.

As we said in the stage 1 debate, the Government's position has always been one of support for the bill on the understanding that implementation costs are required that are more robust than the estimates in Jackie Baillie's financial memorandum. During that debate, I informed Parliament that my officials would facilitate meetings between Jackie Baillie and COSLA. Those meetings have taken place over the past few months, and I have attended several of them. My intention in doing so was to enforce the view that is shared by the Government and the member in charge of the bill that it is important for local authorities to engage seriously and robustly in the process of working out the costs involved.

It is obvious that a large amount of work was required to obtain a robust figure. As has been expressed several times, there is a lack of raw data to provide an instant figure. On previous occasions, Ms Baillie has mentioned that there are varying costs for the different elements of the work that is required to turn an advisory disabled parking place into an enforceable space as set out in the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002.

Jackie Baillie agreed that her figure of £1.7 million was somewhat historical, and we have heard from Karen Gillon that the true figure is likely to be nearer £3 million. The local authorities still consider that to be on the low side and feel that, once geographic and regional variations are taken into account, the figure is more likely to be around £6 million. I am sure that Ms Gillon and Ms Baillie will agree that further work needs to be done to obtain an accurate figure for the number of spaces involved, including the number that will have to be removed. I am confident that further savings will be made through careful planning of the one-off national implementation programme.

To that effect, in the aftermath of today's debate and this evening's vote, in which I expect the bill to be passed, I will instruct my officials to continue to liaise with local authorities. They will ask the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland to address the issue of how to take account of economies of scale and best value as the implementation programme is progressed.

At stage 1, Parliament not only supported the general principles of the bill but agreed to the financial resolution that my colleague Mr Swinney laid. Given that that happened in the context of the numbers that were incorporated in Ms Baillie's financial memorandum, I would not expect the funding that the Government will make available in due course to depart radically from the numbers that the bill's sponsor has put forward, but I will not name a particular figure until further work has been done.

One of the first duties that the bill places on local authorities is to carry out an audit of all the advisory disabled parking places in their areas. The uncertainty that we have heard about justifies that action—indeed, it justifies the passing of the bill—and the bill gives local authorities a year to carry out the audit. Once it has been completed, we will have a better idea of the number of spaces that require to be made enforceable.

Some suggestion has been made that the bill does not go far enough in that it does not tackle the abuse of the blue badge scheme by amending the blue badge regulations. The tight scope of the bill would not allow it to cover such matters, but members will be aware that the Department for Transport recently reviewed the blue badge scheme in England. That review will result in the making of changes over the next five years that will radically improve the scheme and provide a better service for severely disabled people. I can reassure members that my officials are working closely with colleagues in the DFT and that, with colleagues from the National Assembly for Wales and other key stakeholders, they will take part in a steering committee that the DFT has set up.

I know that the sponsoring of the bill has taken Ms Baillie on a long and sometimes interesting journey, on which she has travelled to places that she probably did not imagine that she would reach. I believe that she will think that it was worth the effort and that the bill will get not just the Government's backing but the full support of Parliament in this evening's vote. That vote should bring an end to the beginning of the process, but a lot of work has still to be done. I ask members to inform their constituents that changes will come, but not overnight. I commend the motion to Parliament.