Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Chope. I add my congratulations to those of everyone else who has congratulated the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing this important debate. As we have heard, taxis and minicabs are an essential part of our transport network, not least for people with disabilities, women, in particular, for getting home safely at night, and people who do not have access to a car.

Regulation of the taxi industry has been around for a long time. A House of Commons Library note says that it could be said to have begun in 1636 under King Charles I. More recently, the issue has come up under successive Governments who, having looked at the evidence, decided to leave regulation of this essential industry in place.

I want to reiterate the question asked by the hon. Gentleman: why now the rush to rip up that regulation? Suddenly, the Government are amending their own Bill to give the market more power over this essential part of our transport network with barely any effort even to pretend to consult about it. The Local Government Association politely said:

“We are disappointed that the LGA was not made aware of these proposed clauses until they were brought before the Deregulation Bill Committee.”

How can the Government possibly justify their failure to discuss this change with councils in advance of the parliamentary process?

In my city of Brighton and Hove we have 1,800 drivers who serve our city well. I share the deep concerns of many of the drivers whom I have met. They are worried that the Government’s attempt to rush through changes to taxi and minicab regulation will be bad for consumers, bad for our city and potentially dangerous.

The changes will allow, as others have said, anyone with an ordinary driving licence to drive a minicab when it is off duty; minicab operators to subcontract to operators licensed in a different district; and fewer licence checks. The measures weaken protection for the public and they should be stopped. The licensed taxi industry has served the public well down the years, but the Government’s desire to shrink the state means that good systems in place for good reasons are under unprecedented attack.

Safety is an integral issue. Taxis are essential for so many people, such as women at night, schools or people with disabilities. They have to have confidence and trust in those with whom they are sharing the vehicle. Deregulation could hit safety standards and cause chaos. It is yet another example of a Government who talk up localism while ripping up local powers in the interests of big business. Our tremendous passenger safety culture, which has been established in the industry over many years, cannot simply be disregarded in such a way. There is real concern that the Government amendments could lead to more women being put at risk of assault or attack when they have to travel late at night by unlicensed and unregulated drivers. The deregulation of the taxi industry could also lead to rogue taxi drivers—criminals posing as drivers—passengers being ripped off and chaos on our streets, with people unsure about whether the taxi that they have just flagged down is legitimate.

We need to ask why such potentially dangerous changes are being rushed through. We know that good money can be made from the taxi and private hire or minicab industry—Addison Lee has made so much that it is giving it away in large quantities to the Conservative party, and are we supposed to believe that Addison Lee has had no influence on the move to push amendments through before the publication of the Law Commission’s in-depth review of taxi and PHV legislation?

John Griffin, the boss of minicab giant Addison Lee, was embroiled in a cash-for-access scandal in 2012, after his firm gave £0.25 million to the Conservative party. At the time, Mr Griffin was quoted at saying:

“Politicians are not running the country. Businessmen are. They are the housewives. We give them the money.”

We can make of that what we will, but we read that last year Mr Griffin kept up his company’s generosity with an individual donation of £500,000 to the Conservative party—reportedly, the third largest donation in the three months to the end of September.

Mr Griffin is clearly a man who has a potential political agenda for the minicab business. For example, he appears to hate cyclists. In comments that beggared belief, he described deaths and serious injuries among inner-city cyclists as “inevitable” and primarily the fault of “untrained riders”. That controversy came less than a week after he had spent several days in the spotlight because he had ordered the drivers of his company’s 3,500 vehicles in London illegally to use bus lanes while promising to indemnify his staff against any fines. Clearly, he thinks he is above the law, and we cannot help but ask ourselves what he might want in return for his large donations.

The Government’s wish to sweep away regulation in the interests of their industry mates represents a systemic and systematic attempt to water down the standards and rules that should have been, and have been, designed to serve and protect the public. The Government should be heavily criticised for showing an extraordinary disrespect for those who rely on taxis and minicabs, for councils and for drivers. I urge Ministers to scrap their rushed and misguided amendments when the Bill returns to the House of Commons on Report. Instead, the Government should be following the 2011 proposals of the experts on the cross-party Transport Committee: listening to users, in particular vulnerable groups, to the trade and to local authorities, and keeping the situation simple and local.