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

Lia Nici Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for bringing forward this incredibly important Bill. As quite a few colleagues have said, when we use taxis generally, the taxi driver, as a professional person, is potentially in a position of power. We get into their car. Quite often, they pick us up from our homes, our work or places that we are visiting. We need to make sure that those professional taxi drivers are protected from that very small minority who may not be acting professionally. We need to remember that taxi drivers are vital in our communities and in our workplaces, and also vital for our visitor economy. Quite often, they are the first person somebody will meet if they are leaving a train station or a bus station or when they are going to visit somewhere.

Taxi drivers are a mine of information. With my background in education and as someone who was young once, I know that we might use taxis when we are not in our best frame of mind—if I can put it like that. We might have been to various hostelries as young people and it is then that we put our trust in taxi drivers. As students, young women will pile into a taxi together and there will always be one friend left at the end of that taxi journey. They need to feel confident that the taxi driver has at heart not only their best interests, but their safety. It is not only the safety of the vehicles and the safety of the driving that is important, but the safeguarding of the individual as well.

I have had reasons to use taxis in recent years. I was not visiting hostelries, because those days are over, but receiving treatment for an eye condition. When people need a taxi driver to take them to hospital or to pick them up after treatment, they are in a very vulnerable situation. They might not be steady on their feet or able to see, or, as has been pointed out, they might not have the best mobility. This is a vital piece of legislation and I wholeheartedly support it.