Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

Angela Richardson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on his sensible Bill and on his excellent opening speech setting out why it is so important.

I take this opportunity to thank Mike Smith, an officer at Guildford Borough Council who is a senior specialist in licensing and community safety. He wrote to me on this issue last year, and I sought a ministerial response for him. Such was his concern that he wrote to me again in July 2021:

“As you will be aware, Guildford is an historic university town and principal regional destination for the day and night-time economy. The Council along with other stakeholders works hard to ensure public safety through initiatives such as the Safer Guildford Partnership and is the only town in Surrey to hold the prestigious purple flag award. However, despite this work the Council’s efforts to promote safety within the taxi and private hire trade, and ultimately the safety of our residents, remains undermined by the significant number of drivers and vehicles licensed elsewhere… I therefore cannot stress enough that it is only a matter of time until further but entirely preventable tragedies and scandals which have beset other licensing authorities recently are likely to occur due to the failure to update legislation in the taxi and private hire sector.”

I passed on to him a ministerial reply, dated August. I am not sure that many of my constituents will be tuned into proceedings in the Chamber, but I hope that any who are will be heartened to hear that their local authority has been assiduous in raising the issue through their Member of Parliament, and that their safety is of paramount importance.

I want to give my constituents some other assurances too, such as that a number of licensing authorities across England have adopted conditions of fitness that are identical or similar to those imposed in London owing to London having a longer history of taxi licensing. Such checks can involve a criminal record check, a comprehensive topographic examination, a medical, a driving test and a check on the financial standing of prospective proprietors. There is no statutory requirement for local authorities to carry out a criminal record check before issuing a licence to a taxi driver, but there is a requirement to ensure that the applicant is a fit and proper person.

I also assure my constituents that, locally, Guildford Borough Council recently updated its taxi and private hire licensing policy to require all vehicles licensed by it to be equipped with CCTV. The council considers that an important measure to deter and detect crimes against passengers and drivers, and to help to promote public confidence in the taxi service. That is particularly relevant for female passengers following the tragic death of Sarah Everard.

The Bill’s explanatory notes mention that any concerns raised

“must be sufficiently credible and serious”

for a licence to be considered for suspension. I have one question: how do we protect drivers from vexatious campaigns against their characters? Can the Minister give any reassurances about how we might go about that? It is excellent that a national database is part of the Bill, but we must be mindful of the fact that taxi drivers may sometimes be subject to vexatious campaigns within their communities, so we must protect them against that. Otherwise, it is an excellent Bill that I am happy to support.