A Caring Conservative?
 

Tory MP's filibuster blocks bill to give carers free hospital parking

Shame

Re: A Caring Conervative?
 

There are caring Conservative's out there but alas he is not one of them.

Re: A Caring Conervative?
 

"I pledge to speak up for Carers in parliament".

:dozey::confused::mad:

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Rentaquote populist douchebag.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

:tu:

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

It's a cheap tactic & should be banned from anyone using it, if debates needed let it happen, it's like being back in the playground

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Except that it is open to any member to propose that the vote be taken on the bill. They just have to get around 100 members to vote. One could come to the conclusion that there wasn't that much support for the bill and tactic avoids having to actually say you don't want the bill.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Yes I understand that, what I don't get at all, is why there needs to be *any* car park charges for going to hospital, nor why that should be perceived as a cost to the NHS if the charges get dropped. No one goes to hospital for a jolly, they're there because they have to be, they're not going there to shop.

I especially don't understand why any MP of any political party would want to block such a bill, we'll see how they feel when they get a member of their family who gets chronically ill periodically & spends vast amounts of time in a hospital.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

At our local hospital it went like this:

Free parking.
Vandalism and theft from a few cars.
Security guards brought in.
Charges started to pay for security guards.
Blue badge cars exempt.
Vandalism and theft from a few cars.
More security guards brought in.
Charges increased to pay for more security guards.
Blue badge cars to pay, but allowed double the time limit.
Vandalism and theft from a few cars.
More security guards and CCTV brought in.
Charges increased to pay for more security guards and CCTV.
Blue badge cars given their own car park, charged at the same rate as all other parking.
Private company brought in to build multistorey car park.
Charges increased to pay for more security guards, CCTV and new multistorey car park.
Welsh Assembly scraps car parking fees, except where new parking areas and structures had been built and needed to be paid off even if you did not park in those new areas or structures.
New parking areas and structures started to be built at many hospitals, charges instigated.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

More or less like that in Oxford except for the scrapping of charges as we aren't in Wales. Charges were introduced to stop commuters from parking and filling up all the spaces. Now the bus services are very good and you don't need to drive there so much though I have noticed that when the ticket machines fail the car parks suddenly become full.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

1) The hospitals can each set their own rules, so no new law needed.
2) If it's so simple, why didn't Labour introduce it? Why didn't the Labour MPs complain then?
3) In the examples given it has always just been about VISITING. Why should "official" carers get preferential treatment to VISIT. The caring is done by the hospital. Why should they get preferential treatment over "non-official" carers or family members?

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Hospitals are pathetic for parking anyway.

take the 'new' QE Hospital in Birmingham. they designed the main entrance to be impossible for cars. all this rubbish about encouraging people to catch a bus and walk. ooh save the world hippy stuff!

do they catch the bus and walk to work?
no.

it's got that bad there now that the one road is for all cars including double deckers. and cars dropping people off in wheel chairs and stuff deliberately take their time and block the whole road off. and it's common knowledge that they do this by way of a protest of the way that they designed it.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Who pays for the car park to be secured and maintained? If you drop car park charges in hospitals, how are you going to stop people just parking up and "nipping in to Sainsburys"? How would you stop people parking up then walking to the local station to get the train to work? Tickets might work, but the hospital staff would need to issue them as if people just had to go to a machine, they could just get the ticket, display it then sod off to do whatever. At least if they are charged, there is a chance fewer people will try it..

BTW, don't think motorists would nick a car parking space in a medical establishment to nip to Sainsburys? Wrong.. My doctor's surgery is in a large converted house, and a few years ago, they paved over the front garden as a car park for the surgery staff. This car park is frequently filled with cars whose owners have just nipped to Sainsburys. This Sainsburys is actually next door and has two council owned car parks - one immediately behind it and one in the next road (a 1 minute walk). There are a lot of people who will go for something they don't have to pay for, even if it causes massive problems for someone else.

The doctors had a small automatic gate to stop people doing this, but people kept driving into it, and eventually it got to the point where it was not apparently economical to repair it.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

I think its poor and pathetic that PRIVATE car parks are run by companies that claim all the money that is earned is poured into the hospital - total rubbish

At West Middlesex Hospital just up the road from me, the charges are 2.50 per hour. When l was there several years ago. My wife had to pay £9.00 for the visit.

Ealing Hospital charges are £5 quid - l would not have minded if the charge was going to the hospital or paying for staff to park there, as they are charged, which l find scandalous.

Someone is ripping off patients and families of the sick

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

We have exactly that problem. We are close to a massively expensive LABOUR conceived PFI hospital which has crammed a lot of hospital onto a too small site by building housing on what would have been hospital grounds and car parking. The result is not enough parking for the staff/visitors coupled with oressure from commuters etc. who'd happily park all day of they could. The only way to control parking is to levy a charge to exclude those who'd happily leave their cars all day.

Not only that but because the demands was significantly underestimated for some inexplicable reason, the little remaining care parking/open space has been built upon to provide additional services/offices, merely adding to the problem.

The fact is that any hospital close to significant services/amenities/transport links and which provides free parking is liable to be full of people who aren't actually using the service.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Not every hospital is in prime shop til you drop territory you know... Neither of my two big one near me are anywhere near anything resembling a shop.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

I know. I'm struggling to think of an hospital car park that is next door to the High Street too.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Northampton General.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Leeds General Infirmary is in the centre of Leeds, so it's car park is very hand for the city centre, and Birmingham Childrens' Hospital is in the centre of Birmingham, and Nottingham's QMC is very central - lots of major hospitals are in the city centres, which means if there wasn't some way of checking who was using them, they would get used inappropriately by shoppers and people who work in the city centre.

But you knew that, and were using diversion tactics....

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Everything is a war with you.

whether you want a coffee or a tea is a battle :)

and who's using diversion tactics?

Which one's the cheapest. hospital or shopping car park?

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

What's needed is car parking arrangements/restrictions which are designed to suit the particular location - as the EU has so effectively proved, one size size doesn't fit all.

Around here, and I'd imagine in every London hospital, free hospital parking would be full of commuters within a few days.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Can you imagine that. people in London walking back to their cars parked in the hospital carpark with loads of Aldi carrier bags.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

We cannot keep blaming Labour all the time. Its up to the present government to introduce a ruling saying that Car Parks should be free.

A petition round here, was trying to stop the Car Park Company increase to parking at the hospital.
What did the trust do, agree with the company and they increased it.

Its not Labours fault. We have had FIVE years of a Conservative Government - and now we have another crap 5 years of them

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Good point Arthur.

they've been in nearly 6 years now.
and still finding ways to ruin the country and not playing politics.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Why not? You blame the Conservatives for everything, including closing all the mines way back when.... Since you clearly missed it, we had 5 years of a ConDem govt. from 2010-15 and you've never stopped whining about what Thatcher did prior to 1992!

I have no idea what fills your cranium but it isn't brain cells.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Insults are for kids.
we're all grown ups here.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

So if it's that self-evident why talk out an initial vote which wouldn't put this into law, but would merely allow it to progress to committee stage, just allowing it to cross the very initial stage of our 'democracy'?

This man is frankly a self-important tool who abuses parliamentary protocol. His most famous filibuster is of course when he, a landlord, alongside another Tory, talked out a bill that had cross-party support on revenge evictions. Essentially providing tenants a sliver of the protection they have in many countries in the first world.

He describes himself as an 'accidental landlord'. His rental property is in London, it's the one he claimed mortgage interest on before the rules changed. He claims expenses on a rented property in London and rents out the one he owns. What a guy.

Clearly, paraphrasing his website, someone who works in his constituents' interests, not his own self-interests.

Regrettably, thanks to our wonderful electoral system, he could probably eat babies and still get elected as he's in the right party for his constituency. He received 50% of the vote in Shipley in 2015, up 1.4%.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

And the individual hospitals are allowed to make their own arrangements. Any arrangements/restrictions can be designed to suit the particular location, so no need for anything new.

Labour MPs and their supporters cannot criticise the current government over something the Labour government had ample opportunity to introduce themselves.

The Labour MP who brought up the bill complained about VISITING and not about being a carer.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

carer's are some of the lowest paid workers in the country, disgusting behaviour to not give them free parking at hospitals.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Like pensioners, not all carers are low paid or badly off but there's no doubt many are and often make a very great sacrifice in terms of their own lives, careers and relationships. It's not an easy problem to solve however because with land being so expensive, space at a premium and parking under such pressure, something has to be done to prevent abuse of the system. Sadly there's also a proportion of carers who also abuse the system by, for example, misusing blue badges.

I recently saw a programme about the parking problems at a large hospital in Wales. As Taf mentioned, the chaos which has ensued after charges were abolished has to be seen to be believed and even staff are routinely being fined because all the available spaces are taken, all too often by people who aren't even visiting the place. As usual the problem is often down to selfish inconsiderate people who couldn't care less about anyone else.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

The hospitals can if they so wish. Are all non-carers highly paid? We are talking about parking of cars, which cost money to own and run.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

There were moves afoot to give Carers free bus passes.

The situation now is that a disabled person can have a free bus trip and the Carer travels free with them.

But if it's a journey to school, for example, the Carer has to pay their own fare back home or wherever, then again to return to collect their charge later in the day.

The mooted plan vanished shortly after election time of course.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Yes politicians and false promises are good bedfellows that's for sure.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

And how do you prove the carer is travelling for the purpose of supporting the caree?

Again:rolleyes:, Labour supporters should really aiming at the Labour government that didn't introduce it. That is assuming that it would be simple to introduce.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Ditto a Carer driving a car that is Road Fund Exempt due to the "caree" receiving the higher level of Disabilty Mobilty Allowance. All journeys to be for the benefit of the "caree" whether or not they are in the vehicle at the time (e.g. a return journey after driving a "caree" somewhere or shopping for them).

A bit of trust that you stick to the rules is required.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

Ridiculous. Just because Labout didn't, the Tories can't? Dave should have taken this MP aside and told him to shut it.

Re: A Caring Conservative?
 

The thread title says a sarcastic "caring". If true, then same thing should be aimed at Labour.

As I have to keep pointing out, there is nothing needed to be introduced as the hospitals are allowed to implement it, if they so wish.

Every specific example of a situation where somebody has complained about something that happened to them, has been about VISITING, and absolutely nothing to do with being a carer. Even the Labour MP who brought the bill own example was about VISITING in general.