Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to take part in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing one on such an important issue. I also declare that I am a proud member of Unite the union, which has an interest in the taxi trade.

Two weeks ago, my two Bolton colleagues and I attended a meeting in my constituency, which had been called by the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers. In attendance were people from the Law Commission, the Local Government Association, the National Taxi Association, the National Private Hire Association, Unite and the GMB, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester and councillors from a number of Greater Manchester authorities, including Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, Trafford, Stockport and Salford. It was interesting that those attendees, from a vast range of different backgrounds, all spoke with one voice. They did not understand why the clauses affecting taxis were being rushed into the Deregulation Bill. They wanted them to be withdrawn, and instead wanted holistic legislation, focused on the Law Commission review. In a meeting of such a diverse group of people it is unusual for them all to speak with one voice.

We know that there are already problems in the system. For instance, in the north-west, Rossendale has licensed over 1,000 hackney carriages, most of which are being used not in Rossendale but elsewhere. Where are checks carried out, and by whom? We do not have national standards, so we could have a situation in which a taxi that is licensed in Rossendale but would not reach the standards required by authorities in Bolton is driving around in Bolton, and a passenger in Bolton who wants to complain about the taxi cannot do so to officers in Bolton, as they have no right to inspect the vehicle or check the driver.

Let us look at the situation in Sheffield. North East Derbyshire district council has licensed a Sheffield-based operator that uses hackney carriages licensed by Gedling borough council. Effectively, no council has regulatory control. Sheffield council is particularly powerless when there are complaints from Sheffield residents about taxis overcharging or poor driver behaviour.

[Rehman Chishti]

There is a similar situation in Medway in Kent. Drivers from Tonbridge and Malling are operating in Medway, which according to my local taxi drivers is exceptionally unfair. The local authority has said that it makes enforcement difficult. Does the hon. Lady agree that taxi drivers should operate in the area in which they are licensed? That makes enforcement easier and makes things easier for the people who use taxis.

[Julie Hilling]

The interesting question is why Rossendale, for example, is licensing so many taxi drivers. Why is that happening—why are firms going to Rossendale or to Gedling for licences? Is it that the regimes in those places are much easier to get through or that it is cheaper to get vehicles licensed there—what is it about the system there? When the system as a whole is fractured, there are all sorts of ways through it for disreputable drivers, disreputable companies or people who are simply trying to make the cheapest buck they can.

There is also the question of whether operators should be able to carry out journeys across local area borders. The legislation does not solve that problem. We need to look holistically at what we do about those cross-border journeys to ensure that there can be enforcement of regulations. Wherever a taxi was licensed, if is operating in Bolton why cannot Bolton enforcement officers be allowed to enforce regulations on that vehicle? I am not sure that the answer is necessarily to say that it is not possible. We need a framework in which it can happen, under which local authorities can get remuneration to enable them to carry out checks when licensing has been carried out by a different authority. The situation is complicated and is not solved by the legislation.

This issue came to my attention when the parents of a 13-year-old girl came to one of my constituency surgeries because they were concerned about a specific incident that had happened to her. She had taken a taxi. To start with, she was going into Bolton, but part of the way through the journey she received a call from her friend to say that they needed to meet elsewhere. It would appear that at some point during the journey the taxi driver turned off all his monitoring equipment—his GPS and everything else. The 13-year-old was taken to quite a remote estate in the constituency. The taxi driver parked up there and said, “I’m just waiting for a friend to bring me a phone charger—we just have to wait for them to turn up.”

The girl started to get agitated. She had told the taxi driver that she was 16, because her mum had said that she should tell people that she was a little older, thinking that that would protect her—in fact, in the circumstances it appears to have done the opposite. The girl became concerned about the questions the taxi driver was starting to ask her about her social life and so on. Fortunately, she had the nous to get out of the taxi. She played a ruse; she said, “I just want to pop to the shop over there,” got out of the taxi and ran like hell. Fortunately she met a bystander who listened to her, took her to a McDonald’s, called the police and waited with her until they turned up.

It transpired that the taxi driver had a record of past misdemeanours. He was taken through the tribunal system and lost his licence, so is now unable to operate in Bolton. But, like me, the girl’s parents were absolutely horrified to learn that although the driver is banned in Bolton he could become a taxi driver anywhere else, depending on whether another local authority were to do a police check—and because he was not actually prosecuted, a police check may not throw up the fact that he is a danger to the travelling public and, it would appear, to young women in particular.

I asked the Department a written question on what proportion of local authorities in England and Wales require a disclosure and barring service check on applicants before issuing a taxi or private hire vehicle licence. I have received this response:

“The Department for Transport does not hold this information. Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that any person to whom they grant a taxi or private hire vehicle driver’s licence is a ‘fit and proper person’. As part of this process they can undertake criminal record checks on applicants but we do not keep details of the assessment policies and procedures adopted by local authorities.”

That “can” seems inadequate. I have asked questions about whether all local authorities carry out police checks, but as nobody holds the information we do not know. That is another reason why we need holistic legislation that ensures that licensing authorities carry out proper checks on drivers. We need a system in which if a person is banned by one local authority they are banned, full stop. The changes proposed in the Deregulation Bill will make the situation worse, not better.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who is no longer in his place, asked why family members should not be allowed to use a taxi when it is off duty. I was puzzled myself about that when I met operators and others involved in the industry, and was not wholly convinced by the answers I got, so I asked about whether taxi markings could be removed. I was told, basically, that that would be extremely difficult for taxis operating in my own local authority area—I would guess that would also be the case for all those operating outside London—because they are marked clearly as taxis. Another issue raised was what would happen in areas where taxis are allowed to use bus lanes. What happens to an off-duty taxi then—how would we enforce proper use of bus lanes?

We already have a massive problem in all of our areas with unlicensed taxis touting for business, particularly late at night. I am not often in city centres late at night, but I have been there in the past, and it has to be said that one becomes quite desperate for a taxi. In particular, when young people have perhaps been drinking more than they should have, they will not be rigorous about checking the identity of the driver or the car. In those circumstances people are simply pleased to get a lift home. We should not bring in any measure that weakens regulation and makes it more likely that people will be in a vehicle that is driven by someone who is not the licensed driver.

There are real problems with the system as it is. I ask the Minister to look seriously at removing the provisions from the Bill and to make sure that we have holistic legislation based on the Law Commission report. It seems a nonsense that we are looking to pass the Bill with those provisions, and I ask him wholeheartedly to remove them.