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

Matt Vickers Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 21st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Having taken many taxis to and from Darlington station, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on all the work he has put in to this Bill, which will ensure that 276 licensing authorities across the country can make better-informed decisions on who should and should not be on our roads.

The Bill will not only improve public safety, but protect the confidence and trust that we have in our amazing workforce of taxi and private hire drivers—trust that means we can put lone and vulnerable loved ones into a taxi and know they will arrive safely thanks to the key workers who drive our taxi and private hire vehicles. Those drivers have had a hell of a ride in business terms over the pandemic; as we were retreating to the safety of our own homes, they were rolling up their sleeves, getting on with it and keeping the country moving.

Those drivers continue to keep us moving: doing the early mornings and the late nights, getting young people to school, helping the disabled, elderly or vulnerable to get to day services and hospital services—there has even been some fantastic taxi marketing going on with the “vaxi taxis”—and supporting our night-time economy. Without so many taxi drivers on our streets, our economy of an evening would not be what it is, because people would not be confident of getting home safely.

We have amazing drivers in my part of the world, who not only go above and beyond to help people of all ages, but keep me well informed on public opinion, both good and bad. We have a fantastic lady driver in my part of the world, Samantha from Teesside Cars, who is not only forthright in her views but brightens everybody’s day with bags of banter and decorates her cab for every single season. For Hallowe’en, it is pumpkins and scary window stickers; at Christmas, passengers get to drive in a grotto full of baubles, Christmas lights and tinsel. It is something else, and there are always sweets available. She goes above and beyond, and it is characters like her—fantastic taxi drivers who have a great reputation —who this Bill will protect, and ensure that we have confidence in those amazing workers who do so much to help the immobile and elderly people and keep the place going.

We have all heard about the awful exceptions, the small minority of unscrupulous drivers, and about the consequences that that terrible behaviour can have on our residents. This Bill will mean that calling a taxi is not a game of roulette, and that bad-apple drivers cannot roll from one licensing authority to another to avoid the consequences of their actions. I thank Margaret Waggott in the licensing team at my local authority, and the councillors across the country who do so much in this space to keep our residents safe and ensure that only the right people are driving our taxis. I am delighted to support this long-overdue change, so that licensing authorities across the country can be armed with the information they need to make the right decisions. I wish the Bill good luck.