Summary
3.The Act amends section 21 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and section 117 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 relating to the “Blue Badge” (disabled parking) scheme. The amendments affect only England and Wales. The Act’s purpose is to:
Provide local authorities with the power to cancel badges no longer held by the person to whom they were issued (e.g. when the badge is lost or stolen);
Amend the existing inspection power so that authorised enforcement officers in plain clothes may inspect badges (currently this is limited to constables and specified enforcement officers who in consequence of other legislation generally have to be uniformed);
Provide constables and enforcement officers with power to retain a badge that has been produced to them and which is cancelled, due for return, being misused or fake;
Clarify the existing offences relating to the wrongful use of blue badges to put beyond doubt that it is an offence to use a badge that should have been returned and apply the same offences to a badge that has been cancelled;
Remove the requirement for the Secretary of State to prescribe the badge design in regulations and replace it with a requirement that a badge needs to be in a form approved by the Secretary of State;
Permit the Secretary of State to issue badges to armed forces personnel and their families posted overseas on UK bases; and
Disapply in England the provisions providing for an appeal to the Secretary of State which apply in limited circumstances in which a local authority has required a badge to be returned or refused an applicant a badge, in each case, for reasons relating to the misuse of badges.
