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

Craig Williams Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member makes the point that until this is universal, there will be a way of gaming the system. As a Member from Wales—a cross-border one—it strikes me that, if this database does not cover Wales and England at the very least, there will still be that opportunity. Most taxi drivers in Montgomeryshire go west and east; they do not go north and south.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The hon. Member makes an important point. That is one of the issues of living in a devolved series of nations: we have to try to work with others. I have to say that I am not aware of that being the overwhelming problem at the moment, but should it be so, clearly it would need to be addressed.

It always seemed to me that part of this issue was setting up the database and getting that all resolved, but the other side of the coin was enforcement. When I had discussions with various people about how enforcement worked, I was struck by how complicated it is. Different rules seem to apply depending on who is doing the enforcing. Of course, that is made much more complicated by the difficulty that local council officers face having to enforce in their area while not being able to enforce against people who come from another area. That is why the proposals in the Bill are so important; they begin to address that problem. In theory, the only body that can enforce against that Perth licence holder is the local council in Perth, which would presumably require the council in Perth to be in Penzance to do so. One can see how that is not going to work and why we have that problem.

Another former Transport Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani)—this has been a long-running debate—pursued this issue. In fact, she was the Minister involved at my previous attempt. I pay tribute to her, because she worked very hard on this. She was a strong believer in national standards, but she always suggested that there would be occasions when we needed local flexibility, which immediately reintroduces the problem. If we have higher standards to deal with particular problems—sadly, we have seen particular problems in some parts of the country—we are back to square one. We need some kind of approach, as is suggested in the second part of the Bill, to make this possible.

I thank all those who spoke to me. I suspect they are the same people who have been talking to the hon. Member for Darlington. I was very impressed by the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers. I always had great support from people at Transport for London and from the trade unions, particularly Unite and GMB. The hon. Member mentioned the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and Guide Dogs; they too have been pressing for action on this issue for many years.

I appreciate that time is always precious on Fridays, so I will conclude at this point. I genuinely hope that we will get cross-party consensus to get this measure forward. We have waited too long, and it really is time to get it done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It gives me great pleasure to support my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson). He introduced the Bill with aplomb, and went into all the technical details, saving me a good 10 minutes’ worth of my speech. I thank him very much indeed.

This important, timely and overdue Bill seems to have cross-party support. I echo the concerns raised by my constituency neighbours and colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) and for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies). Perhaps on Report—it seems that the Bill will go through at pace—those on the Front Bench could consider whether they could reach out to the devolved Administrations, especially the Welsh Government, and see whether the database could be made cross-border, either through a legislative consent motion or some other form. That seems to have consensus in this House, and I implore Labour Members, if they have the phone number of any Welsh Labour Government Ministers, to join that lobbying charge. In Montgomeryshire we look east and west and, like other cross-border constituencies and counties, someone is more likely to receive a taxi from Birmingham than from Cardiff. That is just the nature of the economy, the traffic flow, and the public services.

I welcome the Government’s recent introduction of new robust standards for taxis. That was on an England and Wales basis, and it meant that disclosure and barring service criminal record checks were recommended every six months. I understand that the constitutional settlement of this place means we get these questions of who is responsible for what and times when this House introduces English and Welsh legislation and we question whether it is England-only. The Bill must apply to Wales; otherwise, we will have the gaps that we have been talking about.

I am conscious of the time and that there are other private Members’ Bills to consider, but I echo the supporting evidence that I have read from stakeholders. It is great that my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington and other Members went out there and really engaged, and the LGA made some sensible suggestions. I have done my own stakeholder engagement: Elwyn the Taxi—for the uninitiated, he is the Uber of Llanfair Caereinion—takes not just me but my whole community from A to B. In rural areas, we rely on our taxi network, which is made up of small businesses. He has assured me over and over again that because of a lack of data sharing, we see bad actors in this space, and people can abuse the system by going from one licensing area to another. The database would therefore be a great step forward. I implore the Minister—it is great to see him in his place—to reach out to colleagues in the devolved Administrations, and I will implore anyone to see what we can do on Report to make the Bill apply to England and Wales at the very least.