To hoopsheff: it's contract law. In consideration of them permitting you to park your car there, you agree to pay the fee, or to be clamped and pay the declamp charge if you break the rules.
Presumably if they then proceeded to seek a prosecution under the Housing Act or to sue you under the law of trespass for parking on private property, you could say there was a failure of consideration for the clamping agreement and demand that that money be refunded.
Of course the practical reason for clamping is to enforce payment. Since the car parks are unattended, if there was no deterrent there would be no incentive for anyone to pay. In Scotland, where clamping is illegal, privately-owned unattended car parks effectively don't exist.
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