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

Sam Tarry Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to see this Bill before the House today. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for promoting it, and for this thoughtful and very well researched exposition of exactly why this is needed. I hope that, after today’s debate, there will be much support on both sides of the House for this very well-timed Bill, which perhaps should have been brought forward some time ago, by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner).

I am pleased that the Bill will be debated today, given that local authorities have repeatedly called in recent years for this Government to update their taxi and private hire vehicle licensing regulations over and above the current statutory standards, because at the moment they simply do not go far enough. I am also pleased that the Bill contains the very same provisions as the Licensing of Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill that was introduced in a previous parliamentary Session by my hon. Friend, whom we heard from earlier. I hope that the work he has done will not be in vain, as this Bill potentially progresses through this House and onwards to make the changes needed to safeguard passengers and enhance the taxi industry.

In 2018, the independent task and finish group on taxi and private hire vehicle licensing published a detailed report that called for sweeping changes to taxi and private hire vehicle licensing and regulation. Its recommendations included national licensing standards, limits on cross-border working, powers to cap licences under certain circumstances and higher safeguarding standards. However, more than three years down the line, we are still waiting for those recommendations to be implemented, unfortunately. This is despite, at that time, the then Transport Minister agreeing the conclusions of that report.

At the time, the Government accepted the need for a national database to achieve a safe service for passengers and were broadly in agreement with the original Bill. However, it would unfortunately appear that the Government have since slightly shied away from taking more robust action to improve licensing and therefore passenger safety. The Minister will perhaps point to the statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards that they published last year, which local authorities are in the process of consulting on and then implementing. However, those standards do not go far enough and, importantly, do not deliver on all of the recommendations made by the task and finish group. In particular, they do not address the vital issue—as mentioned by previous speakers, including the hon. Member for Darlington—of cross-border hiring, which currently undermines the efficacy of licensing right across the country. This is why it is high time for proper legislation with robust national minimum standards that are legally enforceable.

It is also disappointing that it has taken a private Member’s Bill to reach this point. I think that was inevitable, having had to wait so long for this to be brought forward. It is vital that the Government consider the measures set out in the Bill today, which address critical issues, including safety concerns, with the overall existing licensing legislation. It would require taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities in England to share information of recent adverse licensing history, such as refusals, suspensions and revocations of a licence, and enable this to be taken into consideration to mitigate the risk of unsuitable people being granted or continuing to hold a taxi or private hire vehicle licence.

Let us be clear: at present, licensing authorities are not required to share information with other authorities. This prevents them from being able to take an informed decision about granting or renewing a driver’s licence. It creates the conditions for a driver who has been refused a licence, or has had an existing licence suspended or revoked because of safety concerns, to be in a position to apply for a licence in another area where that new licensing authority is completely unaware of the previous refusal, suspension or revocation. We need only look at the totally unacceptable situation in Wolverhampton, where drivers who were the subject of serious allegations were allowed to continue their trade—in one case, more than 150 miles from where the original complaint was made. That is clearly unacceptable, as I think all Members on both sides of the House would agree. It puts the safety of taxi and private hire vehicle users at risk, and goes against the recommendations of the task and finish group.

The existing statutory standards are no longer fit for purpose, and we have already heard today about NR3 and the database. While they urge data sharing between local authorities and encourage the existing NR3 database, they do not mandate it, which creates clear inconsistencies in the system. The Bill will help to strengthen these obligations. Indeed, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, to which I spoke just the other day, has welcomed it as

“exactly the kind of concrete action we need”.

The association acknowledges that the Bill may not be a silver bullet. However, it would be a positive step, helping to strengthen the noble taxi and private hire vehicle licensing trade and—most important—promote public safety. It would also require licensing authorities in England to report any serious safeguarding or road safety concerns to the licensing authority that issued an individual of concern with a licence, requiring the licensing authorities to consider reviewing an individual’s case.

More broadly, the Government should take urgent action and do more to support the wider taxi sector, which has been decimated by covid-19. In my constituency, many hundreds of people are drivers of black cabs and private hire vehicles. Indeed, in London the taxi fleet is now at its lowest number since 1983, at around 13,400 vehicles, a loss of more than 5,000 since the start of the pandemic. We have seen a similar drop across the whole of England. The DFT’s own figures from July 2021 reveal that the number of licensed vehicles in England has decreased by 15.9% since 2020, to just over a quarter of a million. The Government’s apathy towards taxi and private hire vehicle drivers is undermining drivers’ confidence in the future of the trade and deterring many from returning, or—more important, because we want to tackle climate change—from investing in new low or zero-emission vehicles, because they feel that they are being pushed out and overlooked.

I welcome the Bill. The Government must go further than simply encouraging licensing authorities to adopt the statutory standards. I therefore hope that they will support the Bill and make the changes to the existing legislation that will improve the safety of all users of taxis and private hire vehicles.