Draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Stephen Doughty and John Hayes

Thursday 10th January 2019 General Committees

[Stephen Doughty]

I too want to get back to it, Chair. I appreciate the intervention and I am sure the Minister will want to disassociate herself from the other comments made.

The Minister talked about reviewing capacity and also about potentially transferring up to 6.5 million people—I appreciate it will not be that many—into the e-passport gate system. However, I am not clear about how many additional e-passport gates will be installed at the key points of entry. It is all very well to have something under review as we look at capacity, but I have seen significant delays at e-passport gates. She talked about the arrangements on the other side of the channel in the Eurostar terminal in Gare du Nord and in Brussels. In Gare du Nord there are two sets of e-passport gates that someone has to go through and a series of other checks interspersed between. I have travelled through them on a number of occasions in recent months, and there have been breakdowns and delays. It was actually quicker to walk through the manual checking service than go through the e-passport gate. Unless there is additional capacity and extra e-passport gates, not only to cope with the additional people coming through but to deal with redundancy in the case of any breakdowns or technical malfunctions, I genuinely fear that there is potentially a serious problem. People will understandably opt for e-passport gates. I think they are a fantastic innovation, and I totally agree with what the Minister said about the technology and the digitisation of these services. We all want to see that, because it makes them more secure.

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a good point about capacity, and it needs to be considered in the context of this fundamental point: do we want to reduce immigration in overall terms or not? Immigration in this country has been at unsustainable levels for decades. That is not about where people come from, who they are or any or any of the things that were debated earlier. That will have an impact on capacity at airports in exactly the way that the hon. Gentleman describes. I thought that was a commonly held view across Parliament.

[The Chair]

Order. We are discussing passport gates, not levels of immigration. Again, I ask that we stick to the terms of this order. With that in mind, I call Mr Doughty.

Taxi Trade

Debate between Stephen Doughty and John Hayes

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

Prejudice gets a worse name than it deserves. Burke said that prejudice

“engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved.”

I seek, I strive, I emule to little more than to match the prejudice of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), whom I congratulate on securing this debate, in his advocacy of the importance of London black cabs. They add quality to our kingdom and are symptomatic of the best of British and emblematic of its capital’s character. The hon. Gentleman should be aware that in anything I subsequently say that is my starting point. We can be proud of our London cabs and should be hesitant about anything that endangers their future, which is certainly not the Government’s intention.

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that in recent years the taxi and private car hire market has experienced very significant change. That has been particularly true in our capital city. My suspicion is that it is not the end of a process but the beginning. I suspect that we will see continuing change as the ways in which people communicate and acquire services change. He said that it was important not to be stuck in the past. I spend a good deal of my life wishing that I could be, only to be dragged to the present by imperatives and drawn to the future, seduced by the promise of improvement and opportunity. Nevertheless, it is right to say that, whether we like it or not, changing communications are likely to mean that the services provided to us—in this case, by private hire vehicles and taxis—will change too. That does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be seduced—to use the word a second time in a short debate—by the Whiggish idea of progress. It is not true that all technological change is beneficial, and it is not true that all the alterations that the hon. Gentleman set out are likely to add to the quality of what is provided to people in London and elsewhere.

Let me now address some of the specifics in the excellent all-party group report and congratulate the whole of that group on producing it. It is clear to me that we share a common aim: open, safe and fair competition in the taxi and private hire car market. There will be a debate—a proper discussion—about how we can achieve that objective, but it is one to which we can all sign up. I am reassured that in the report there is an appetite to continue to encourage the best of the trade and to seek out ways to improve what is not as good as it should be.

As the hon. Gentleman argued, the Government are responsible for the legislative framework within which licensing authorities set their own standards and requirements, so have an important role to play, but those licensing authorities must play their part too. I will come back to that point, which was raised by the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) when he spoke of inconsistencies, and by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main).

[Stephen Doughty]

Obviously, that is the case; however, the Minister is aware that the law in this area dates back almost 170 years—some of it is under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847. Given that the Welsh Labour Government are now looking at introducing new legislation to deal with many of the issues we have discussed today, will the Minister make a similar commitment on the UK Government’s behalf?

[Mr Hayes]

Most of what inspires me goes back to the time of Jesus Christ, so I do not think the fact that something goes back a long way is necessarily indicative that it is inappropriate, but I certainly want to make sure that it is fit for purpose. Part of the job of government is to make sure that the legislative framework that we operate in is suitable for the changing circumstances, as I described. If they are as dynamic as the hon. Member for Ilford North and I suggest, we certainly need to review these matters regularly and thoroughly. He is right that in the light of that changing landscape, we need to look at such things closely.

I am aware of the changing landscape of the taxi and private hire market, and the impact that changes in the way people engage services have for the public and on traditional business models, which, in my own use of taxis, I personally prefer. It is right that we address some of the specific issues raised in the report, and I shall try to do that in the short time available to me. Having said all that, using an app to request a taxi or a private hire vehicle is increasingly popular with the public and has the potential to change the structure of the market significantly. There is a taste for a certain kind of access to a certain kind of vehicle. That is an undeniable fact. I see it among people I know—friends and others—although personally, I prefer to hail a taxi. I like the theatre of that, as well as the quality that it ends in, but that is not the way that everybody goes about their lives and business, and we have to face that reality. Given that appetite, the important thing is that we are mindful of the disadvantages that it might bring too.

It is the case that in addition to accepting pre-booked journeys, taxi drivers have the exclusive right to ply for hire in the area in which they are licensed. This is the fundamental difference in the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles, and underpins the requirement for taxi drivers to have the geographical knowledge that is indicated, in London at least, by the knowledge—the acquisition of detailed understanding of the character and geography of our city.

The all-party parliamentary group recommends that the Government introduce a legally enforceable statutory definition of plying for hire. That will, of course, be considered, but the Law Commission’s view was that it was not practical to define plying for hire:

“No statutory list of factors could be sufficiently determinative to give clear guidance, leaving many of the current grey areas unresolved.”

I welcome the recent efforts of Transport for London to ensure that competition within the taxi and private hire market is fair. Private hire vehicles do not have the hard-earned right to ply for hire, and I wholeheartedly endorse action against those who break the law. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, Transport for London has quadrupled the number of dedicated compliance officers on the street, meaning that there are now more than 250. Not only do those enforcement officers ensure fair play among legitimate parties, they play a vital role in preventing unlicensed, unvetted, uninsured and unsafe drivers and vehicles from circumventing the regulations and stealing business from the legitimate trade.