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

Debate between Christopher Chope and Daniel Zeichner

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am sure that many hon. Members have heard from taxi and private hire drivers about the issues the trade faces, as well as from passengers, trade unions, disability and safety campaigners, and councillors because the trade faces enormous challenges, particularly with changing technologies. The Bill focuses solely on passenger safety. We need a solution that respects local contexts and local decisions. With nearly 360,000 licensed taxi and private hire drivers in the UK, we need to better equip enforcement officers to regulate the trade and improve safety standards. Let me first present the problem, and then I will explain how the Bill will work to solve it.

We have seen some high-profile cases in which drivers have used taxis or private hire vehicles to abuse vulnerable people. In areas where this has happened, it has led to local authorities adopting high standards and refusing licences to those who do not meet them. Under the current system, however, there is nothing to stop individuals applying to a local authority with lower standards, being granted a licence and then working in the area where they had been refused a licence. Councils have revoked the licences of drivers only to find that they go elsewhere, get a licence from another authority and are back working the same streets, sometimes within days. That cannot be right. The local authority with lower standards has no way of knowing about previous refusals, if the driver in question does not choose to tell them. Ultimately, this leaves all of us exposed to harm and deprives local authorities of control over their own streets.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting point. Will he give us some examples of where this is happening?

[Daniel Zeichner]

Given the time constraints, I will not go into the detail of such cases, but some notorious ones in Southend, for example, have hit the national headlines.

We now come to the second part of the problem I seek to address. Local council enforcement officers can enforce only against those who are licensed in their own local authority. This means not only that drivers trying to game the system can work where they please, but that they are too often exempt from many enforcement powers. The system renders responsible councils trying to tackle problems in their areas helpless in the face of drivers coming from outside and operating under lower standards.