English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2026 Grand Committee

If this Bill is about empowerment, these taxi amendments and the principles behind them have to be taken on. If we want—as the Government have stated and we would all agree—more disabled people in work, we need accessible, inclusive transport. Taxis are a key part of that. If we want people to be able to play a full role in their communities and to be able to do the most basic things—going to shops, going to doctors or hospital appointments—we need taxis that are inclusive. I urge the Minister to take very seriously the sentiment and specificities within my noble friend Lord Borwick’s amendment and to bring something on Report that resolves this issue and, indeed, to look across the whole transport system so that at every beat point, whether one is transferring from bus to train to taxi, it is inclusive throughout, because that is true individual and community empowerment.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this group of amendments, which I fully support. I can be even briefer than I thought I might be because of the eloquence of the speeches already made, and any repetition I make will be to reinforce the message and the value of those amendments, having been pleased that the Government have increased the scope of the Bill to include taxis during its passage—that is not meant to be a pun.

I want to reinforce the point on Greater Manchester, where I live and where I was the chair of the licensing committee many years ago. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, mentioned its “Local. Licensed. Trusted” campaign, which the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and the 10 district leaders fully supported. As we have heard, in Greater Manchester, over 50% of private hire vehicles are licensed outside it, particularly in Wolverhampton but also in St Helens on Merseyside. That is totally unacceptable in terms of proper enforcement of their activities across the country.

We have also heard of the audit of grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. Again, that has a great resonance in Greater Manchester because of the issues that were faced there. It continues to be a great, urgent public safety concern. It is believed that this Bill is the quickest and most appropriate way to tackle that issue that so desperately needs tackling.

I will not go through the details of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to which I have added my name. I fully support it. She eloquently presented it to the Committee. My noble friend Lord Blunkett made a point on transition. There clearly needs to be a transition period, certainly in Greater Manchester and in other strategic authorities, so that it could align with licence renewal, which would reduce the costs and disruption of an immediate transition and provide sufficient time for local authorities to rebuild capacity in their licensing departments, while supporting the Government’s aim for all regions to move towards strategic authorities.

I welcome the constructive meetings that I have had with both Ministers responsible for this Bill, my noble friends Lady Taylor and Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, and their desire to make progress to address licensing and enforcement across the country. I also recognise that there are many more difficult issues that need to be addressed about taxi and private hire vehicles, and this is just one particular aspect that this Bill enables us to address. I strongly believe that this group of amendments would take a significant step forward for the benefit and safety of the public across the country, and I am sure that we will receive a positive response from the Minister.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a very brief speech in support of the excellent speech made by my noble friend Lord Borwick in moving Amendment 235A, an amendment beloved in Committee: delete the word “may” and insert the word “must”.

I commend in passing the moving speech made by my noble friend Lord Holmes. I have a paternal interest in this in that when the Disability Discrimination Act was put on the statute book in 1995 by my noble friend Lord Hague, I was Secretary of State for Transport and therefore had responsibility for taxis. My department was responsible for Section 32 of the DDA which, as my noble friend said, made provision for regulations that taxis should be accessible to wheelchair users and that they should be carried safely. It is interesting to see what happened in London. In 1989, the then Transport Minister Michael Portillo said that all new London taxis had to be wheelchair accessible. We were actually the first capital city in the world to take that step. By 1 January 2000, all licensed London taxi cabs—some 20,000 of them—were wheelchair accessible. That gives an indication of the timescale in which it is reasonable to expect the taxi trade to make the transition from where it was to where it is now.

As we know, Section 32 was repealed and replaced by a similar provision in the Equality Act. I wanted to see what Members of your Lordships’ House thought would happen when that section of the Bill was debated. The Minister at the time was Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish. Reading his speech, it was quite clear that he did not think that 30 years later we would be where we are today. He said,

“more accessible taxis will be a boon for more than just wheelchair users”.—[Official Report, 22/5/1995; col. 890.]

At the time, the Opposition spokesman was the late Lady Hollis. She said this:

“My Lords, we on this side of the House broadly support the Government’s position on taxis. We believe that they are public service vehicles. Taxis are an important ingredient of public service transport and, therefore, they must be accessible to disabled people on a flexible and realistic basis. We believe, as the Bill lays down, that new vehicles introduced must be fully wheelchair accessible”.—[Official Report, 20/7/1995; col. 442.]


They would both be surprised at the position that we are now in. One cannot possibly blame the Minister for any inaction on his part, but what we are entitled to on Report is some timescale by which the rest of the country will be brought into line with what has already happened in London. I hope that when he replies, the Minister will give us some reassurance that that will be the direction of travel and that there might even be a date at which we reach the destination.