Business of the House

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

It is inevitably difficult for hospitality under the current circumstances. It is worth reminding people of what has been done already, with £400 billion of taxpayers’ money spent on dealing with covid and helping businesses with rate relief and a lower VAT rate. Obviously the Government are aware of what is happening. There was a statement made earlier and the Chancellor has said he will have meetings. As regards recalling Parliament, I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). Parliament is always recalled when there is a matter of sufficient seriousness to recall it, but forecasting what that will be is not always a successful effort.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to wish a very merry Christmas to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to everyone here. However, there are some people who will not be celebrating quite as much this Christmas as many of us would hope: taxi drivers. Those who are driving for Castle Cars in Tonbridge or Relyon in Edenbridge have already seen a dip in trade over the past few days, and I know that many of those running cab firms have also seen an impact on the wider use of their business. This is not just a matter for some incredibly hard-working small businesses; this is actually a very important matter, as I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree, for those of us with rural communities, because those taxis provide a much-needed service for getting many people to hospitals and to visit family and for keeping the community together. Could he look for time in the Government’s agenda to have a debate on this matter, because we not only have that pressure, but the pressure of the rise in interest rates, which he announced to the House? That will put an increased impetus on many to seek an income that will be chasing a higher cost of living.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think Disraeli called London taxi drivers “the gondoliers of London”, and I certainly take that view myself. They are fantastically hard-working and entrepreneurial, as are taxi drivers up and down the country. They are almost all individual small businesses. They work the hours that are required of them and they provide, as my hon. Friend says, a service that is absolutely essential. I encourage hon. and right hon. Members to support the taxi trade as far as they can. While I am at it, I encourage the Mayor of London to be nicer to London taxi drivers and not spend his whole time trying to make their lives more difficult by closing roads to them.

There are obviously difficulties at the moment with people cancelling things because of the pandemic, but I am confident that taxi drivers will be able to get through this. They have got back to work, and trade did pick up prior to the omicron variant coming through. We should thank them for what they do. As regards a debate, I think that will be more in the bailiwick of the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).