Letter to Your MP?

Coupon-mad

Fruitcake said:

BikingBud said:

Fruitcake said:

When clamping was banned, the PPCs told the government allowing keeper liability would reduce the load on the UK courts.

Before this, the number of parking court claims was less than fifty per year. Now it is around 100 000 per year.

I'll add a bit of that, is there any reference rather than just being hear say?

I don't have anything concrete regarding this, but @Coupon-mad might

It's not hearsay.

@bargepole did a FOI for the figures.

BikingBud

It's gone. 

I will let you know if I get a response.

BikingBud

Response provided 15 May 2025:

Dear BB,

Thank you for your detailed and passionate letter regarding the conduct of private parking companies and the long-delayed introduction of the Government’s Parking Code of Practice. I want to begin by apologising for the delay in responding to your correspondence—it was unfortunately misfiled by my team, and I’m very sorry you’ve had to wait for a reply.

Let me first say that I completely recognise the seriousness of the issues you raise. The stories you’ve shared of harassment, misleading signage, last-minute court claim discontinuations, and the misuse of the legal system are both troubling and unacceptable. I know many constituents share your anger at a system that often feels stacked against ordinary drivers and leaves them vulnerable to bullying and exploitation.

You are absolutely right to highlight the role that the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 was intended to play in ending these abuses. Like many, I am frustrated that the Code has not yet been brought into force. However, I want to assure you that the issue is far from forgotten.

I understand the Government remains committed to implementing the statutory Code of Practice. The delay in introducing the Code was primarily due to a legal challenge brought by parts of the private parking industry. This led the previous Government to temporarily withdraw the Code in order to revise certain parts, particularly around charge caps and debt recovery fees, so that it could withstand further legal scrutiny.

I will continue to monitor this issue closely and will push for the final Code to offer real, enforceable protections for drivers, especially when it comes to ending the kind of behaviour you describe so powerfully in your letter. I share your view that this is not a party-political issue, but a moral one.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me, and for the clear dedication you've shown in advocating for justice in this area.

Warm regards,

BikingBud

A draft:

Thank for your response even if extremely tardy. But I find the substance of your response does not really match the tone or the impression that I feel you are trying to convey.

Your first paragraph tries to echo the sentiments but you have then merely repeated the history. The public know the history, they have lived the history, they have been the victims, they have been threatened and bullied by these scammers, they have been hounded to court and hounded to despair and they have had to put up with successive governments claiming sympathy and perpetually dithering.

WHY?

You appear not to be frustrated enough to sign the EDM. 

You appear not to be frustrated enough to pick up the moral challenge with your fellow Members, across the benches, to encourage them also to sign the EDM.

You appear not to be frustrated enough to give me your personal assurance that you have discussed this with your colleagues and especially those in the MHCLG to establish what “Due Course” actually means.

You appear not to be frustrated enough to address this corporate bullying and abuse that creates only misery in peoples’ lives. 

You appear not to be frustrated enough to address the legitimised (ab)use of the Justice system and the massive waste of public resource in the common practice applied by these bullies of bottling it at the last possible moment they are able when they have known for the entire period of the bullying that their claims are without merit.

When I wrote there were 3220 pages in the forum I referred you to, there are now over 3264 pages! https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/parking-tickets-fines-parking

When I wrote there were 98 pages and I quoted over 900 (in fact this was the number of posts but the cases numbered 500) where DCB Legal had discontinued just before the hearing in court, that figure now stands at 114 pages and 557 cases: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations/p114

The very helpful contributors to the MSE forum always recommend that writing to your MP as a means of addressing this gross inequity, perhaps putting yourself forward as a beacon, a calling point, to your constituents whereby you agree to take up their cases with the scammers directly would demonstrate more empathy.

In your last sentence you have captured the root cause. We, the public, can only advocate, we cannot enforce.

We need your support!

We need your influence!

We need you to raise this issue across the House and get your colleagues to challenge those VIs!

We need your action to approve the Code of Conduct!

We need your action now!

Not in Due Course!

BikingBud

Email sent.

BikingBud

Today's response:

I recognise your concern, but I reiterate the point of my last email and the reason why this isn’t being brought in immediately. I stated:

”I understand the Government remains committed to implementing the statutory Code of Practice. The delay in introducing the Code was primarily due to a legal challenge brought by parts of the private parking industry. This led the previous Government to temporarily withdraw the Code in order to revise certain parts, particularly around charge caps and debt recovery fees, so that it could withstand further legal scrutiny.”

This remains the case. There is no benefit in bringing forward sloppy legislation that can be challenged and overturned in the courts. The Government is working on this issue and I will continue to monitor the point, and work with colleagues who are leading on this work.

With regards to the EDM, I have taken the decision to not sign any EDMs as a Member of Parliament. These aspects of Parliamentary business have no chance of ever becoming law and, according to the House of Commons Library, cost the taxpayer around £250 each to publish.  I do not feel this is a good use of taxpayers’ money, nor do I feel it is an effective method of raising issues in Parliament.  Equally I generally do not sign petitions or open letters for this reason.

I hope you understand my position. 

Thank you

@Coupon-mad - do you have any thoughts about the bold quote?

BikingBud

Thanks but the issue is that until Parliament grasps this issue and passes the Bill the parking industry will continue to abuse the motorist. 

To provide some background to the current and burgeoning size of the scandal from RAC estimates:

Private parking firms on track to issue nearly 14.5m tickets to drivers in a year

and

Car park management companies have made 41,000 requests a day for vehicle keeper details in six months from April 2024

and

In the first half of the 2024/25 financial year, requests to the DVLA from car park management companies for vehicle keeper details hit 7.2m – the equivalent of 41,000 a day and a 12% increase on the same period 12 months before (6.5m).

There are other resources that will likely also show the extent of the activities and the industrial scale of the scam.

I made no comment about bringing forward sloppy legislation. I requested that you do everything that you can to bring about effective and robust legislation. To implement that legislation as a priority. 

The legislation that was apparently close to being ready in 2019 and yet here we are in mid 2025 and the motorist lacks the simple protection that was envisaged in drafting the Act in 2019. It is not difficult to foresee further challenges when the industrial grifters are milking so much from the public. They can afford many challenges supported by very well paid counsel when they are skimming so much, I would offer they might even consider it to be a minor tax or overhead but not one to be worried about as they are still clearing colossal sums.

Again from the RAC site:

If this trend continues when figures for the second half of the year are published, nearly 14.5m drivers will have been sent £100 parking charge notices for alleged parking contraventions, equating to £1.4bn. 

This is money that people cannot afford to lose. It is money that they need to feed and clothe their families, money to pay their bills and money to be able to cope with the ever increasing cost of living. I am certain that your Rt Hon friend the Chancellor would appreciate that this figure was available to the workers and was being used by the public in stimulating the economy rather than just being extorted to line the pockets of a few out of control gangsters. 

I note that you may not feel EDMs are an appropriate use of Parliamentary time or resource but also note that they remain an approved route that many of your colleagues do support and use. Nevertheless you have discounted a route to energise your fellow Members but have not committed to support it in any other manner, to discuss with your Ministerial colleagues, to write to the Minister. You have not committed to energise the issue such that the impact upon such broad swathes of the population are understood and priorities are clearly articulated. To energise activity where the public only see delay, unnecessary and unsupportable delay.

I suggested you could place yourself as a champion for your constituents but you have avoided that suggestion. You may feel it falls into the realm of petitions and open letters but fighting for injustice in your constituency is, to my mind at least, a key part of your role. The role the public elected you to undertake.

At the moment I can only see that you are taking a back seat. That you do not get the true impact this is having daily on peoples' lives, peoples’ health and peoples’ well being. At the same time those with VIs continue to frustrate due process and inhibit progressing an Act that had some minor issues that were challenged, some considerable time ago.

You may surmise from that I cannot understand your position or your reticence to take positive action given you acknowledge it is a moral issue and that it affects so many and so profoundly. And in that context you become complicit in the problems that motorists are plagued by; extreme stress, lack of awareness of their rights, being trampled by companies sending out threatening letters with inaccurate claims, threats about CCJs and even inability to get credit including mortgages due to rogue parking companies seeking CCJs by sending money claims to known old addresses. 

These are all part and parcel of the techniques of the scam and part of the daily activity that you by your inaction are supporting.

I think you can do  more.

You should do more.

Coupon-mad

I'd leave it.

The bit in bold is correct. Work is ongoing and I am sure a Public Consultation is close.