It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate and continuing to shine a light on the persistent and widespread issue of pavement parking. She and many other hon. Members—26 in total, I believe—have made a clear and compelling case for change.
Pavement parking affects communities across the country, from busy urban centres to quiet residential streets, and the issue is particularly close to my heart. No one knows that better than the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who spoke about the work that we did together on the Committee back in 2019.
I have heard countless accounts from constituents and stakeholders of the challenges posed by vehicles parked on pavements. Those challenges are not just inconvenient but exclusionary. They disproportionately affect disabled people, those with visual impairments, older adults, parents with pushchairs, children walking or wheeling to school, and many others who rely on safe, unobstructed pavements to move around independently. I will use this opportunity to congratulate the schoolchildren and school that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) highlighted.
I thank all the hon. Members who contributed to today’s debate. The breadth of contributions once again demonstrates the scale of this issue and the urgency with which it must be addressed. Pavement parking is clearly not a niche concern; it affects all of us. Members made an enormous number of important points in sharing the experiences of their constituents, illustrating the impact on safety and independence, highlighting the damaging effect on the quality of our pavements, and also recognising that no two places are the same. A new town will likely face different challenges from a medieval city, and there are competing priorities that need to be addressed.
As Members will be aware, after five years of inaction despite promises to the contrary, in 2020 the previous Administration finally held a public consultation on managing pavement parking. The responses to that consultation were robust, thoughtful and deeply informative. They provided clear evidence that pavement parking is a problem that affects people’s daily lives, their safety and their ability to participate fully in society. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to respond. I am acutely aware of the frustration caused by the lack of a formal response to that consultation. It is a frustration that I share, and, frankly, it seems that the previous Government were not focusing on the issue, so we have had to pick the work up from scratch. I want to reassure Members that I am straining every sinew to publish the response as soon as possible.