Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

Mike Weatherley Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

I do. The hon. Gentleman has made a couple of really good points. The other aspect that I thought of when considering the arguments is that, to the best of my knowledge, the licensing budget is ring-fenced on the basis of fees and charges. Therefore, if a local authority is ring-fencing a budget based on a licensing and inspection regime on an annual or two-yearly basis and that is then changed to three and five years, there will be a commensurate drop in income. If that is how the enforcement officers are paid, that must impact on their ability to take enforcement action. That is a good point. There are a number of implications to extending the licensing period and it is not all good news, as some of the operators would have us believe. Consequently, it is good that local authorities have some discretion.

One of my principal concerns relates to the Government’s amendment to the Deregulation Bill that allows private hire vehicle operators to subcontract and book an operator licensed in a different licensing area. When I was reading Hansard, I saw that the Minister said that that will give customers more choice and that it may be advantageous in that passengers could ring up their local provider if they did not know who to call. However, passengers may well not want to use the subcontractor sent to their door.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the good things about our taxis in this country is the local knowledge that people need to have? That sets us aside from many other countries in which we are suspicious of taxi drivers and where they are taking us on their meters. I am grateful to the Brighton Sudanese Taxi Forum for alerting me to this issue. Does he agree that deregulation that leads to subcontracting to a taxi company outside a city is fraught with danger in terms of local knowledge?

[Grahame M. Morris]

Again, I completely agree. It is very unusual for me to agree with Government Members—[Interruption.]. Apart from Guy. That is an excellent point and I hope that the Minister will take that into account.

Quality is an issue, and in some cases the name of a company is important. People may book on that basis and choose not to book others on the same basis. The customer may have experienced many problems with one operator. If a member of the public calls a specific operator because they feel that it is reliable and safe to travel with—I am thinking here in particular about women who are out late at night who may have a preferred operator because they know that they will be transported safely—surely they should have the comfort and knowledge that that company will take them home. There is a risk in passing jobs from one company to another; it is not the wonderful panacea that some of the advocates of deregulation would have us believe. We should think about some of the consequences.

The Transport Committee recommended that the Government engage with the trade unions, local authorities, licensing authorities and users about future legislation and commit to reform in this Parliament. Ministers should be working collaboratively with the industry, drivers and passengers, rather than just rushing contentious clauses through Parliament. The new clauses are evidently contentious and 10 days’ notice before the Public Bill Committee was completely inadequate to allow for any meaningful consultation.

The consequences of the new clauses have not been considered sufficiently. It seems to me that there is a mad, ideological rush to deregulate on occasions. We would not do that if we were talking about firearms regulations, would we? I hope that we would not, anyway. The idea appears to be that we must cut red tape without considering all of the consequences, even though we have set in train the Law Commission, which is engaging in the process. Many stakeholders feel—rightly, in my opinion—that they have been ignored and passenger safety and the enforcement of private hire vehicle registration could be undermined. I respectfully urge the Minister to remove the clauses added to the Deregulation Bill in Committee—he can do that on Report—for the safety and confidence of the travelling public and, indeed, for the reputation and livelihoods of the taxi and private vehicle hire trade.