Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Monday 11th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, my name is attached to two amendments in this group. Amendment 2 is a probing amendment to simply ask my noble friend the Minister why the draftsman uses “may” in some instances and not “must”. I would have thought that these are “musts” that we want to see. In his Amendment 44 in this group, my noble friend has helpfully chosen a “must”, but that is the other way round, requiring that TfL

“must obtain the approval of the Secretary of State”.

He will see why I want it in the direction that I have requested.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my contribution to this group of amendments is in having given notice of my intention to oppose the Question that Clause 6 stand part of the Bill. In doing so, I take a contrary view to that of all the amendments about how this issue should be dealt with. All the amendments have a centralising thrust, whereas my thrust is for decentralisation. In one aspect, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that these regulations need to be used to improve the services provided by pedicabs and not to kill them off entirely. We need to use this opportunity to turn the negative into a positive so that they enhance rather than damage the tourism offer in London.

I tabled my notice of intention to oppose Clause 6 standing part of the Bill to probe why the scrutiny of regulations made by Transport for London is to be undertaken by Parliament and not the London Assembly. The legal situation in England is that, outside London, pedicabs can be licensed as taxis. Taxi and PHV licensing is undertaken across England by 262 lower-tier and unitary authorities of a vast range of sizes. The taxi legislation therefore gives licensing authorities significant discretion in vehicle requirements. A taxi driver must be deemed fit and proper to hold a licence, must have held a car driving licence for the last 12 months and must not be disqualified on immigration grounds, which is covered by the right-to-work check.

Some authorities, such as Herefordshire, York and South Lakeland, have policies that detail specific requirements for pedicabs, whereas other authorities state in their licensing policies that they do not license pedicabs. There have been complaints since 2006 about pedicabs in London, but all that time other local authorities have had the powers to deal with this and design and implement their own regulations. That is a satisfactory approach. As I said, there have been complaints over 20 years, but successive Governments have not considered this issue important enough to deal with or they have not had time in the parliamentary timetable to do so.

Now we have this Bill, which has broad support but is, in parliamentary terms, a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. From the point of view of residents in London who complain long and hard about the noise, nuisance and danger of the current situation, regulation and control of pedicabs cannot come into force quickly enough. A single day of delay will annoy them. Why are the Government so intent on delaying things even more by ensuring that Parliament must approve Transport for London regulations?

Across the UK, local authorities consider issues of detail where local knowledge is essential. I would argue that Parliament is definitely not the place to decide the adequacy of regulations that might, for example, stipulate the location of cab ranks. We should not be sitting here saying that a cab rank should not be on this street corner but on another one. That is not the level of detail we should be going into. That sort of thing requires local knowledge and should be scrutinised by the GLA.

It is also essential that we do not clutter our timetable—the Government are always saying they do not have parliamentary time, particularly in relation to transport—with things that can be done better at a different level of government. I argue that Clause 6 should not be part of the Bill.