Debate contribution: Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 16 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

16 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4483939

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are here today to discuss the Second Stage of the Bill, and I have to say that that is a shame. It is a shame that we are discussing the delaying of the implementation of the 2022 Act, and it is a shame that, on a day on which we in this place have been focusing on how to break the cycle of poverty, we are debating a delay to removing unfair charges. The then Hospital Parking Charges Bill was lauded by Sinn Féin in April 2022 as saving patients and hard-working staff the money that they would have to pay and as saving folk money when visiting their sick and dying relatives, yet, two years later, here we are. The difficulties with that legislation mean the Sinn Féin/DUP-led coalition Executive have agreed to delay its implementation by another two full years. It seems that it will take the Executive four years to put up a few cameras at a number of hospital sites to read car registrations and to get a computer program to analyse them. In our constituency offices, how many of us have been dealing with, if not been swamped by, people who get car parking tickets from supermarket and shopping centre car parks? Those organisations got their infrastructure in place, and I wager that it did not take them four years to put it up. So many reasons — others might call them excuses — have been given for the delay in getting the infrastructure in place and for requesting the two-year extension. Some of them are so weak in places that the bottom of the barrel has been not just scraped clean but scraped through. When you hear terms such as "creating inequality of access to service" and then hear people asking for a two-year delay that, itself, creates an inequality of access to service, you wonder whether the situation has been handled properly at all. The inevitability of the Bill's passing by the four-party Executive means that the most important thing that we, as an Opposition, can do is ensure transparency and make sure that the full facts of the matter are known. On that basis, I make the following points and seek the Minister's clarification. The now junior Minister's Bill passed just before the Assembly elections in May 2022. We have heard that a legal challenge was concluded around November last year. How soon after the Bill received Royal Assent did the procurement process commence? We are told that a new infrastructure system is needed. What is wrong with the current one? Could the current infrastructure, where people have to use cards to get in and out and to pay for car parking, not have been adapted in the short term to deliver some solutions rather than having to seek a delay for two years? I will go slightly easy on Committee consultation. The Committee has had one presentation, lasting 45 to 50 minutes. That is all that the Committee has had, so I do not want to imply that it has had proper engagement. We would like, I am sure, to have brought in other organisations, including staff organisations and, potentially, other organisations involved in the delivery of car parking services. We could have asked for clarification and sought some more information, but all that we got was a briefing. It was a Committee briefing rather than a Committee engagement. Numerous remarks were made that, if hospitals were to implement free car parking, that could cause problems such as blocking blue-light routes. However, people also highlighted that that is an issue as things stand, so perhaps it is an issue not of car parking but of how ambulances get to the hospital. To suggest that it is an argument for holding up free car parking for another two years seems a bit weak. Furthermore, the issues are very site-specific. Issues of congestion are specific to the Royal, and the issue of other people using the car parking facilities is specific and was mentioned in relation to the City Hospital. However, free parking at every site across the whole of the North now has to be delayed for a further two years, and we are heavily citing those two sites as reasons for doing so. Part of the rationale for the 2022 Bill was to help to address the imbalance faced by people in rural communities who have no choice but to take their car to make hospital visits. How has the deferral been screened for its impact on rural communities that will have to wait for another two years for free car parking to arrive? The Committee was told that the procurement process had caused a legal challenge and that that would mean that the system would not be ready for another three or four months. That brings us to August or September. An obvious question has to be this: why are we looking for a delay of two years if the system can be brought online in a few months? I would really like the Minister to answer one specific question in his remarks. I would like a crystal-clear response. Can we have a date on which staff will get access to their free parking? When can they expect the system to be in place? It is referenced in the letter that was sent to the Committee, it was mentioned in the Committee's discussions and it has been referenced here today, but we have not been given a date. If there is a two-year delay —.

926 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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