Debate contribution: Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Philip McGuigan on 20 April 2026.

MLA: Mr Philip McGuigan
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 20 April 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5494013

Text

Today, I speak as my party's spokesperson on health. At the beginning of my contribution, it is important to correct, once again, the narrative that is being portrayed by some Members, who are trying to misinterpret the Bill that is before us today and trying to change the narrative around the original private Member's Bill to end hospital car parking charges that was brought forward by my party colleague almost four years ago. That private Member's Bill passed with the support of all the main parties. There were no ambiguities then. There was a clear, united position that charging patients, families and staff to access health care was wrong. That is why we in Sinn Féin voted against the current Bill at the previous stage and will do so again today. We are opposed to any further delay to abolishing hospital car parking charges. The reason is simple: the Assembly has already made its decision. We cannot have a scenario where we refuse to implement agreed legislation by supporting delay after delay. As I said previously, the Health Minister himself supports the intent of the abolition of car parking charges, and he said that again today. However, supporting the principle means very little if, when the moment comes to act, we are told that it must be postponed yet again. There will also be talk of cost if we do not support the Bill today, but delay is not neutral. Delay also has a cost: a cost felt by patients attending appointments; a cost felt by families sitting at bedsides; and a cost felt by staff turning up day after day to keep our health service going.
The Member must have been reading my speech because I am going to make that point next. I welcome that intervention, and it is a point well made. In the previous debate, I spoke about a similar scenario of the real-life impact on families of children and young people with cancer. Despite repeated references to exemptions, research from Young Lives vs Cancer shows that 62% of those families are still paying to park at our hospitals. The Minister has since stated and has said again today that the Department has written to the trusts and expects them to review their existing car parking concession policies in light of the proposed legislation. Concerns have been raised, which I share, that a trust-led review alone will not be sufficient. Our current system of parking charges is a patchwork of concessions that look good on paper but not in reality. It is inconsistent, at times it is unclear, and it leaves out far too many people, creating yet more health inequalities. The Minister has suggested that the trusts will review those, but I do not think that we need other reviews, and we do not need more variation between trusts. What we need is a clear, fair, North-wide decision to abolish the charges and to implement the original legislation. We also come to the argument of revenue, and the Minister has outlined clearly that the rationale for introducing the legislation to delay the original Act is the precarious situation that our health service is in. I agree about the budget, but the health service can, at times, be inefficient, and we can see wastage. Just last week, for example, at the Health Committee, we heard from the Belfast Trust about major capital projects, including the maternity and children's hospital developments, running significantly over budget to the tune of tens of millions of pounds. There is no clear end point and no certainty on final costs. Those are capital projects that, as I said, are costing the public purse substantial amounts of money. I think that, if the Health Minister were to look deeply into the budget, he would find other examples of where costs can be cut. Millions can be lost to delay, overruns and mismanagement, yet the solution offered today through the Bill is to keep charging families to park at our hospitals. I do not think that that is credible, and I do not think that it is acceptable that patients, staff and families are being asked to plug gaps created elsewhere in our health system. Being honest about what is in front of us today, the Bill does not stop charges but prolongs them. It asks people to keep paying for longer despite the Assembly's already having agreed that those charges should go. Sinn Féin will not support that, because, if we believe that the policy of charging at hospital car parks is wrong — the Assembly has already made that decision — the answer is not to delay action.

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

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