Private Hire and Hackney Carriage Vehicles

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I was prompted to call this debate to discuss the safety of private hire and taxi drivers and their passengers as a result of recent events in my constituency—the death of a constituent who was a private hire driver and an assault on another driver. More broadly, I want to encourage the Minister to make it his priority to transform the perception, and too often the reality, that private hire and taxi drivers are given second-class status in our public transport system when it comes to their safety. I also wish to highlight to the Minister some of the impediments to the safety of passengers that have been highlighted to me by Am I Safe?, a developer of applications to help passengers to verify at the point of hire that a vehicle is legitimately licensed. Those impediments arise from the complex regulatory structures, differing rules, and inconsistent interpretation of access to information rights that arise from the various licensing authorities.

Private hire and taxi drivers are a vital part of our public transport system, and when it comes to their physical safety and the safety of their property, they deserve to be afforded the same protection as our bus drivers, airline staff and railway employees, but they are not. In many towns such as Bedford, if a person has been out for the evening with their friends, private hire vehicles and taxis are often the only answer to the question, “Who will take me home tonight?”, yet drivers routinely have to deal with people who can be abusive, and may be under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both. A journey may end with someone vomiting in the vehicle or running off without paying. Private hire and taxi drivers run those risks—not routinely, of course, but much more frequently than many of the public would appreciate.

Let me turn to recent incidents in Bedford. As Adam Thompson of the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper reported,

“Fayaz Alhaq…who runs AGS Cars in St Peter’s Street, Bedford, says his employees are ‘running a gauntlet’ every weekend and have a job ‘as dangerous as the police’. His words come after 61-year-old grandfather Mehar Dhariwal of…Kempston…died…having been assaulted the week before while working.”

Mr Thompson’s report went on:

“Only last month Bedfordshire on Sunday reported how 24/7 private hire driver Turbez Ahmed…was attacked…by a gang of eight who wouldn’t pay their fare up front.”

Efforts by Bedfordshire police to bring to justice the assailants in those two horrific and sad cases go on. I do not want to obscure those efforts by talking further about those instances, but although they are specific cases, sadly they are not isolated examples.

A freedom of information request to Bedfordshire police showed that there had been 93 assaults in the preceding 12 months on private hire and taxi drivers, including 35 cases of aggravated bodily harm and 30 common assaults. My local authority estimates that that amounts to 2% of drivers being assaulted each year. Very few jobs have such a high rate of unprovoked violence.

I have spoken with the National Private Hire Association, the Licensed Private Hire Car Association, and Private Hire News, and I am indebted to them for their engagement and assistance with my preparation for the debate. They all, without exception, talked openly and depressingly about the widespread nature of violence towards drivers, and said, even more worryingly, that the level of violence continues to increase.

The National Private Hire Association sent me news reports of attacks on drivers with knives; guns, fake and real; baseball bats; a hammer; a fire extinguisher; and even a wheelie bin. Drivers have been set on fire and run over by their own vehicles. I have not found any nationally collated statistics on assaults and murders of private hire and hackney carriage drivers. Perhaps the Minister can tell me whether those statistics are collated. If not, that in itself indicates that the issue of safety is not receiving the attention that it should. The GMB union kept a record of attacks between April 2007 and February 2008; it listed that nine drivers were killed and 45 suffered serious physical assaults while doing their job. The Department for Transport conducted research on personal security issues in 2008 and found that, on average, three drivers a year are unlawfully killed—evidence from across the country that our private hire and taxi drivers are at risk. I would argue that we have not made sufficient progress in mitigating those risks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) raised the issue in a debate on 24 June 2009. That debate was interesting because of a number of points that he raised, but also because he noted the extent of the private hire and taxi sector. He said that

“we are talking about an industry that employs 340,000 people…The industry makes about 700 million taxi journeys a year, which means an average of roughly 11 journeys for each member of the population. About £3 billion is spent on fares each year. We are therefore talking about a sizeable industry that plays a major role in our public transportation.”—[Official Report, 24 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 912.]

The Minister responding that day, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), was alert to the issue of driver safety and made some useful suggestions, but underlying that debate and much of the industry commentary is a sort of shrug-of-the-shoulders view that the issue is just too tough to tackle, and in some sense that it is the cost of doing business. What strikes me is not the fair and sometimes compelling explanations of the complexities of implementing changes that will tackle these widespread instances of assault, but that given these horrific attacks at such high incidence rates for so many years in a single sector of the economy, we have allowed the complexities to thwart our action for so long.

In the search for remedies, I turn first to the perception of the industry. Department for Transport research in 2008 found that

“a strong belief held by many drivers, controllers and others representing the trade is that the root cause of many of the problems is a lack of respect from the public for taxi and private hire drivers.”

That lack of respect can make the transition to abuse or to violence a much easier step to take. It is a sad fact also that this lack of respect too often descends into racial abuse.

I understand that a similar issue confronted the door security sector—I am not sure whether we can call them bouncers these days. The violence against bouncers was seen as part of that job, but a focused effort on changing that perception, together with other initiatives, has had a positive impact, reducing the incidence of attacks on door security staff at our pubs and clubs. What, in practical terms, has the Department for Transport done since 2008 to tackle the public perception of the industry, and what steps would the Minister consider undertaking? Perhaps it would be appropriate for the Transport Committee to assist in this effort.

Also in 2008 under the previous Government, the Sentencing Guidelines Council included taxi and private hire drivers in that category of workers where longer sentences would result from a crime. What assessment has the Department made of the impact of those changes in sentencing guidelines? Does the Minister believe that further action to strengthen the guidelines is warranted?

The national associations and the GMB raised with me the issue of the introduction of CCTV and/or driver shields. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on those, as I understand that there are differing opinions about the desirability of each of those options, but he will be aware of the initiatives by some local authorities to investigate or roll out CCTV solutions. They have been considered for Brighton, Braintree, Oxford, Manchester and other locations. He will be equally aware of the very high cost of some of these solutions. It is unfair to expect drivers to bear the full cost of the equipment, particularly if the market price continues to be hundreds of pounds.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There has recently been a change to legislation in Northern Ireland to increase safety for taxi drivers and passengers and to regulate the sector. That resulted from attacks on both parties. Does the hon. Gentleman think that where there is good practice somewhere in the United Kingdom—in this case, in Northern Ireland—that could be used as an example to produce better regulation for taxi drivers on the mainland?

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which highlights the fact that so many authorities are responsible for licensing, and the complexity of various initiatives taking place. I understand that the Law Commission will examine certain aspects of regulation, but he makes an excellent point about the need for best practice to be applied across the country. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response and his thoughts on the balance between localism and trying to tackle a national concern.

My view is that it would be unfair to expect drivers to bear the cost of CCTV, particularly if the price of the equipment remains in the hundreds of pounds. I do not expect public money to be made available in these straitened times, but I do know that in 2006 Bedford borough council worked with Bedfordshire police to use some of the proceeds of crime moneys to implement CCTV in a pilot scheme at low or no cost to drivers. In Leicester, funds from the tackling knives action programme have been used. In other local authorities, advertising on cabs has been enabled to fund the cost of CCTV. I ask the Minister to consider the possibility of the more widespread use of proceeds of crime moneys for this purpose.

I mentioned the lack of statistics on crime. I always think that if we do not track something, we will find it hard to make improvements. Therefore, will the Minister work with the Home Office to track more formally the statistics on criminal attacks on private hire drivers, including aggravated racial abuse? Will he also comment on whether he will seek opinions from the private hire and taxi trade as input to the Prime Minister’s alcohol strategy? Unfortunately, so many of these incidents of crime correlate with alcohol and drug misuse.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I commend the work of Woking street angels in my constituency, and similar street angels across the country, and also pay tribute to the licensed taxi drivers who have an arrangement with the street angels to take drunk and incapacitated passengers safely home, unless they are potentially violent, in which case the police are called. The drivers sometimes do that at no cost to the passengers. Is that something that my hon. Friend would like to see in more parts of the country?

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are many excellent initiatives in towns across the country. They have recognised the problem of growing levels of alcohol abuse and the late night trade generally. We see organisations such as street angels working with the police, local authorities and taxi companies to ensure that towns do not suffer as a result of people staying out too long and that they get home safely. That relates to the point the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made about the importance of local initiatives being given a national profile so that we can make changes all the way across.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) enables me to segue over to talk about the safety of passengers. It is a sad reflection on the taxi industry that, despite the significant efforts made by local authorities, which he mentioned, any cursory review of local newspapers will readily identify cases of assault—frequently sexual assault—of passengers by taxi drivers. That is the flipside of the issue of vulnerability. There is the vulnerability of drivers who are on their own, perhaps with cash, and the vulnerability of people being driven home on their own. In 2002, the Metropolitan police estimated that in London alone 214 women had been raped or sexually assaulted in such circumstances in the preceding year. The figure fell to 93 by 2009 but has recently increased.

There is a range of initiatives that national Government and local authorities are taking to reduce risks to passengers. I will not dwell on those in too much detail, but a particular issue I want to highlight for the Minister is the limitations and availability of publicly held data that might be useful in reducing offences against passengers. There are currently 384 licensing authorities in the UK, each of which will have its own policies on the collection of data on drivers, such as their Criminal Records Bureau checks, and on their vehicles, and each authority will have its own rules about sharing that information. As we know, information is power, and that power ought to be available to passengers, should they wish to have it, when they hire a cab. It would provide reassurance to know that the vehicle and the driver are properly licensed.

Am I safe? is a service that currently operates in more than 50 towns and covers 10% of the UK population, but it reports that local authority information gathering is patchy and that the timeliness of updates varies. I do not know whether that application is the best, but I believe that it makes sense to make this regulated information more accessible and more accurate. Therefore, I ask the Minister for his views on the value of a national registration database of private hire drivers and licensed vehicles and, more broadly, his comments on the need for rigour in data collection and CRB checks.

Often, in towns and villages throughout our country, the only public transport option for getting back home after a night out is a cab—a private hire vehicle or hackney carriage. It is time for the Government, notwithstanding the Law Commission’s review of legislation, to come forward with some initiatives that will make our private hire and taxi sectors a respected part of our transport system—a status that they and we, the public, deserve.

Bletchley-Oxford Rail Link

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart]

I am grateful for that intervention, which again illustrates the arc of economic growth that runs from east to west. The western section of the line will be instrumental in opening up the second phase of development eastwards.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate; the Minister must be impressed to see a rail project that has such widespread, extensive and popular support, let alone with the economic benefits that have been outlined. Does my hon. Friend believe that such a project would also help with areas of economic deprivation? My constituency has seen levels of unemployment that are above the national average. Too often such issues are thought to affect other parts of the country and are sometimes overlooked in the eastern area.

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. The south-east is assumed to be uniformly wealthy, but that is not the case. My constituency also contains pockets of deprivation, and this project will stimulate overall economic activity and benefit all areas.

A key benefit of this project would be a reduction in journey times, leading to a modal shift in our methods of transportation. The proposed rail link would result in a significant reduction in journey times from east to west. Road transport is a nightmare along that corridor, particularly in the key middle section of the line. I often have to drive west from Milton Keynes along the A421 trunk road between Bletchley and Buckingham and the A4421 from Buckingham to Bicester. Both roads are single carriageways, and they are so congested that it is difficult to predict journey times with any accuracy.

The time savings will be transformational. For example, a car journey between Milton Keynes and Oxford, which can take up to an hour and a half, would be replaced by a 40-minute train journey. The journey from Oxford to Bedford would reduce from over two hours by car to one hour by train. The east-west rail line would also open up a new direct rail link from Milton Keynes to Aylesbury and the rest of the Chiltern Railways network to and from London Marylebone. It would help to achieve a modal shift from car to rail, with all the environmental benefits that that entails.

Hon. Friends have raised the issue of wider connectivity and freight, and the east-west rail line would provide much better links with the UK national rail network. It would join up the Great Western line, the west coast main line and the midland main line, which in time would be followed by the east coast main line and the network in East Anglia.

The potential for wider rail services—passenger and freight—to use that corridor is significant, both for scheduling new longer distance services in the future, and for providing a north-south relief route should engineering work be planned on one of the main lines. Such a link would be a valuable piece of the UK’s strategic railway jigsaw, and indirectly it would also relieve some of the pressure on London, which is a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Many people find it easier and quicker to travel into London and go back out, rather than travel across country.

I hesitate to raise this issue, given its controversial nature in the rest of Buckinghamshire, but the east-west rail link would intersect with the proposed route of High Speed 2—the Minister and her colleagues will be glad to hear that I do not intend to enter into the pros and cons of HS2, because there will be plenty of time for that in the weeks and months ahead. Nevertheless, such an intersection would open up the possibility of a parkway station. If HS2 proceeds along the planned route, I would like to see the business case for a parkway station properly assessed in the context of the Y-network, and connections to Heathrow and High Speed 1. More than 500,000 people would live within 30 or 40 minutes’ rail journey from a parkway station, which might significantly augment the business case for HS2. It would also go some way to answering the justifiable objections of people in Buckinghamshire who claim that they will endure the pain of HS2 but receive no gain. That, however, is a side issue, and the case for the east-west rail link stands independently from that for HS2.

All in all, the east-west rail project could generate an additional 2.5 million rail trips annually, and result in nearly 1.5 million fewer car journeys. It has the potential for an annual uplift in regional gross domestic product of £38.1 million and could generate additional annual tax revenues of £17.1 million. All those benefits could be secured for a relatively modest capital investment of £250 million, which, when put in the context of the £33 billion needed for HS2, seems a comparatively small sum. If 100% publicly funded, the project has a benefit-cost ratio of 6.3:l, and the ratio is 11.2:1 if there is a private sector contribution. Again, that compares favourably with the benefit-cost ratio for HS2 of about 2.6:1.

Much work is being undertaken by the consortium to realise private sector investment in the east-west rail project. After five and a half years, a positive income stream would be generated through the fare box and no ongoing public subsidy would be required. Last July, Oxford Economics was commissioned by the consortium to provide an independent assessment and review of the east-west rail link, and it concluded that there is a strong business case for the project to go ahead.

Through local enterprise partnerships, the consortium is developing a funding package to enable the delivery of the scheme via both the public and the private sectors. One key source of funding will be the HLOS for CP5, which is unique in that it is being promoted by a non-rail-industry entity. Consequently, it has not yet appeared in the initial industry plan for CP5, but nobody should take that as a sign that it is not a viable project. I believe that the east-west rail project is a no-brainer and that with a fair wind trains could be running by 2017. If the Government are looking to fast-track infrastructure projects that will deliver growth and jobs, may I gently suggest that the east-west rail project could easily be brought forward and that trains could be running by the end of this Parliament?

I conclude by paying tribute to Patrick O’Sullivan, the consortium’s project manager from Jacobs Engineering UK, and all those involved with the East West Rail Consortium, together with those who have campaigned to restore the rail link for many years. I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity to present the case for the east-west rail link, and I hope that I have persuaded my right hon. Friend the Minister of its merits.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) on securing the debate. I welcome the opportunity to consider the merits of the east-west rail proposal, and I welcome the strong attendance from MPs who support the project.

Like those of my hon. Friend, my remarks will focus on the western section of the project—the part most developed—although I may touch briefly on the central section if time permits. He has outlined with great clarity the potential benefits of reopening the line along the western section, and described the boost to economic growth that he believes it would bring, as well as the improvements in journey times, the potential for a modal shift in transportation and, not least, the potential boost to high-tech industries.

I was very impressed by my hon. Friend’s contribution, and I was equally impressed by the presentation I received on this project last year, when my hon. Friend, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster), brought the chairman of the East West Rail Consortium to see me. At that useful meeting I agreed that the Department for Transport would work with the consortium in developing its plans, and that work has since progressed.

The Department has started evaluating the consortium’s plans and forecasts as we prepare the high-level output specification that will set out the Government’s requirements for rail control period 5 from 2014 to 2019. We will consider seriously whether we can provide funding to support the east-west rail project as part of CP5. We have heard today from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber about the impressive value-for-money case that it seems can be established for the project. However, value for money on its own is not enough. We also need to consider affordability. There is no doubt that this is a very substantial scheme. Whether it proves affordable depends on the extent of alternative sources of funding available to support the project. It also depends on how the benefits of delivering the project compare with competing priorities for CP5—for example, the northern hub or other proposals to improve connections between our northern cities.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South said, east-west rail is not in the initial industry plan put forward by the rail industry for CP5, but I can assure him that this project will be considered just as seriously as the proposals that are in the industry plan. It is worth noting that the industry plan does make provision for east-west rail, notably in relation to Network Rail’s proposals for Oxford station. I can also happily inform my hon. Friend that the Association of Train Operating Companies is providing expert advice to the Department on the best-value long-distance passenger services that might use the route if it goes ahead. That is assisting our evaluation of the project and could enhance the value-for-money case for east-west rail.

I have been very impressed by the work of the consortium as well as the supportive MPs. The collaboration of the 20-plus local authorities in the consortium provides a good example for others to follow in building a broad local consensus for an ambitious vision of new rail infrastructure to support economic growth and, potentially, housing growth.

[Richard Fuller]

Will my right hon. Friend deal with an issue that is gaining currency for some of us who represent constituencies in the eastern area and in the south-east? Government investment priorities sometimes overlook the fact that there are significant areas of deprivation in the south-east. There is a tendency to favour projects in other parts of the country. This project is not only vital to economic growth, as has been mentioned. It is also of value in restoring opportunities for job creation in areas and pockets of significant deprivation. Will she deal with that issue?

[Mrs Villiers]

Certainly I will. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who is sitting beside my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), often berates me for not committing sufficient funding to rail infrastructure outside the south-east. The reality is that the Government must consider carefully where taxpayer funding will deliver the greatest economic benefits. Whether we are talking about deprivation in the south-east or in the north, that is a crucial issue that we need to consider to take the difficult decisions on where to prioritise funding. We do not at all assume that everywhere in the south-east is prosperous. We know that improving our transport infrastructure in both the south and the north can deliver major benefits in quality of life, jobs and growth. That is why we are seeking to roll out a major programme of investment that helps the whole country.

The consortium has funded much of the cost of its work on the project to date, steadily developing its plans so that they stand on an equal footing with projects being proposed by the rail industry nationally in the IIP. The consortium has also explored ways for local authorities to use the forecast economic growth to fund part of the building costs if the project gets the go-ahead. That could make the project much more affordable, as we have heard. If we can agree to provide some funding for east-west rail as part of CP5, we may look to the consortium to make good on those local contributions on which it has been working so hard.