Hospital parking charges to continue after Assembly backs delay

MLAs have backed a three‑year deferral of legislation on free hospital parking.

If the change is put on hold until May 2029, it would come into force seven years after it was approved by the Assembly.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said making hospital parking free is a “legitimate and a compassionate aim” but the financial situation facing the health and social care sector has “changed significantly”.

The Hospital Parking Charges Act was passed by the Stormont Assembly before its collapse in 2022 and would scrap charges for patients, staff and visitors at public hospital sites in the region.

It was originally intended to be introduced in May 2024 but was deferred for two years after a request from former health minister Robin Swann due to budgetary pressures.

It has been estimated that providing and maintaining car parking services after charges end will cost the health service about £7 million annually.

Mr Nesbitt told MLAs during debate on the new Bill’s final stage that the move to defer is “not a reversal of principle, nor does it reflect any lack of readiness on the part of the Health and Social Care Trust to implement the Act”.

“The purpose of this deferral is to protect frontline services from the immediate and unmanaged loss of income which the abolition of parking charges would have entailed, removing approximately £7 million each year of trust budgets,” he said.

“In the current financial environment that loss would inevitably have to be offset through reductions elsewhere, directly affecting services provided to patients and to families.”

He added: “The reality of the budget proposals published by the finance minister is that the funding available for health services in Northern Ireland in the coming years will be relatively lower than in England, Scotland or Wales, but it’s been confirmed time and time again – need here is higher.

“That means difficult and responsible decisions are unavoidable, and in that context, proceeding with the abolition of parking charges at this time would simply be unaffordable.”

The minister clarified that the Bill allows for deferral for up to three years, with May 2029 acting as a backstop, and during this period staff parking permits will remain free of charge alongside a needs-based system.

“If financial sustainability is achieved sooner than expected, the legislation allows the 2022 Act to come into operation at an earlier date,” Mr Nesbitt said.

Sinn Fein MLA Phillip McGuigan said his party would not support the deferral because the “delay also has a cost, a cost felt by patients attending appointments, a cost felt by families sitting at bedside, and a cost felt by staff turning up day after day to keep our health service going”.

“I think if the health minister was to look deeply into the budget, he would find other examples where costs can be cut,” he said.

“So millions can be lost to delay and overruns and mismanagement, and yet, the solution offered here today through this Bill is to keep charging families to park at our hospitals? I don’t think that’s credible.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable that patient staff and families are being asked to plug gaps created elsewhere within our health system.

“So being honest with what’s in front of us today, the Bill doesn’t stop charges. It prolongs them. It asks people to keep paying for longer, despite this Assembly already agreeing that those charges should go.”

DUP MLA Diane Dodds said she was aware of “so many issues that cannot be resolved because of a lack of money”, but quoted research from Young Lives Versus Cancer showing 62% of young cancer patients still have to pay for parking despite needs-based concessions.

“Young families who have a child diagnosed with cancer go through an enormously traumatic experience,” she said.

“They spend their lives devoted to that child in hospital. Their income suffers remarkably as a result – we shouldn’t add to their burden.”

Alliance MLA Danny Donnelly said the 2022 Act was a “positive initiative” but “impacting issues” have come to light.

“While there are other issues to raise in terms of how sustainable and fit for purpose the budgeting models of our current system are, I can still understand that difficult decisions are having to be made and this is clearly one of them,” he said.

Leader of the Opposition, SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole, said the move to defer further was “Kafkaesque”.

“The last legislative act when we left this chamber in 2022 was to pass this Bill; the first act when we came back, other than a routine budget Bill, was to delay it,” he said.

“That is preposterous, and it’s not acceptable, and it needs to be called out.”

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said waiting for the alleviation of hospital charges is “like waiting for Godot – it’ll never come”.

“If you look up ‘hames’ in the dictionary, you can see a picture of this Bill and how this has been handled by this minister, previous minister and the Executive on the whole,” he said.

In his concluding remarks Mr Nesbitt said he had written to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to request they expedite royal assent to bring the Bill into force, to “avoid the potential disruption from car parking charges being abolished temporarily on the 12 May”.

“In the event car parking charges are abolished temporarily, I would ask members to support the trust as they seek to minimise the inevitable disruption that may follow,” he said.

The Bill was passed 42 in favour, 25 against.