English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th April 2026 Lords Chamber

I strongly support my noble friends in Amendment 220. The public outrage that followed the now reversed decisions to delay many elections was predictable. I also support Amendment 221. In their Amendment 223, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seek to require local government elections to be conducted under the single transferable vote system. This would require the establishment of multimember electoral wards for councillors, which would confuse many voters and is quite different to our strong tradition that the elected representative represents all his or her voters. I also support my noble friend Lord Fuller in his Amendments 224 and 225.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

I will speak in favour of Amendment 217 in the name of my noble friend Lord Pack, who has set out clearly why it is so important to have the right voting system in place for mayors, given the growing powers that they have and will have in the future. Democratic accountability is really important.

As one of a handful of Members of this House who have run for Mayor of London, I want to highlight the impact of the supplementary vote system on the London mayoral elections. I thank the Electoral Reform Society for its figures. In the London mayoral elections in 2000, 2004 and 2021, the winning candidate received 36% to 40% of first preferences. Between 11 and 20 candidates were standing and, as we have seen, the number keeps going up. We have calculated that if we remove people who used their second preference for the same candidate, which happens, or those who chose a candidate already in the top two so their vote would not transfer, around half of valid second-preference votes were non-transferable, so basically wasted, in each of these London mayoral elections. Their second preferences were non-transferable as they had been cast for candidates who did not make the top two. In each of these elections, hundreds of thousands of votes were wasted—between 49% and 53%—and a mayor was elected without the majority support that we all desire.

That is why I fully support Amendment 217 bringing in the alternative vote for mayoral elections, which would mean that every vote and transfer will genuinely count. We would be able to engage communities far more in these elections. It is a better system to ensure genuine democracy in action.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I note the dedication of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, to this issue, but he will not be surprised to hear that we cannot support him on this group of amendments. The issue of electoral reform has been debated time and again. I do not believe it would be appropriate to insert these significant provisions in this Bill now. Our position on these Benches has been consistent in favour of first past the post as the preferred voting system.

As my noble friend Lord Trenchard highlighted, in 2011 a UK-wide referendum was held and 67.9% of voters rejected the proposal to introduce alternative vote. That result cannot be ignored. I recognise that this referendum was with regard to the voting system for Members of Parliament in the other place, but there is no basis to simply assume that there would be a majority in favour of AV if it had focused solely on local elections, or indeed a majority in favour of a supplementary voting system for councillors. Voters clearly stated their preference for first past the post, and it would be inappropriate to ignore them through amendments to this Bill now. I appreciate our differences on this issue, but I urge noble Lords to think carefully before supporting these amendments, regardless of their personal preferences for electoral reform.

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In conclusion, the taxi and private hire vehicle measures in the Bill are part of a package of immediate steps we are taking to address concerns raised over safety, in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, in her National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. These measures are absolutely not the end of the conversation. We know that more can be done to improve and reform the regulatory framework for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing. That is why my department is conducting stakeholder engagement over the spring to look at the broader issues and build consensus on what the best mechanisms are to tackle that. However, the present measures are crucial to dealing now with the enforcement issues which arise as a result of out-of-area working. I therefore beg to move that Amendment 266 stands part of the Bill.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the government amendments tackling some of the issues around taxi and private hire licensing and enforcement across the country. This is an issue I raised through a series of amendments in Committee, and in discussion with the Minister, and I am grateful for this action.

In Committee, I had suggested granting powers to all licensing authorities to take enforcement action on any private hire or taxi vehicle on their streets, wherever they are licensed. I felt this was a good way to help plug the safeguarding gap which the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, had flagged in her report, but it would also allow the Government time to review and research the other issues, such as cross-border hiring, ahead of any future legislation. We know cross-border hiring is a real issue and that the problem needs addressing, as soon as the Government are able to, but I welcome the Government listening carefully to my concerns and those of other Members across the House, including the noble Lords, Lord Bradley and Lord Hampton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who added their names to my amendments.

The Government’s amendments here ensure a duty to report concerns about drivers licensed in other areas, to suspend those licences temporarily in the interest of public safety, and for the responsible licensing authority to respond and take action. These are a solid way forward. We on these Benches fully support these amendments to start to close the safety gaps in the licensing and enforcement of taxis and private hire.

There are a couple of amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in this area: one to take out the temporary suspension of a licence and one on reporting. We do not support those amendments today.

I urge the Government to move at pace going forward on consultation and research around the issues of the taxi and private hire sector and to bring forward legislation, as soon as they are able, to ensure that passenger safety is consistent across every region. I put firmly on record our thanks to the Minister for his constructive work on this important safety area.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in general, we welcome most of these amendments. To deal first with those repetitive amendments that say “leave out ‘minimum’” all the way through, as I say, in general we are supportive of those. The art here is to get the right balance between having standards which are predictable, from the point of view of the operators of private hire services, and leaving sufficient scope for local variation to adapt to local circumstances. We want to avoid circumstances where we have what might be called only minimum standards nationally and then every local authority having lots of different standards of its own piled on top, which make it very difficult for large operators to manage a fleet. But we do not want to have purely national standards with no local variation, because that would strike the wrong balance and prevent appropriate adaptations where necessary. On the face of it, we think that the Government’s amendments come closer to striking that balance correctly than the Bill as introduced to your Lordships’ House, so we tend to support them.

We would like to know whether the Government are going to be issuing not only standards—of course, the Government will be issuing national standards in due course—but guidance on what is appropriate for local authorities to be issuing their own licence conditions on. Is that an area the Government intend to go into? That would be very interesting to hear, because, as I say, this is a question of balance. It is not necessarily easy to get it right, and we want the Government to be able to get it right. This might be better still, but it is better than what was here before; that is why we are willing to support those amendments.

On the question of the suspension, I think we need to be a little bit more forensic than perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, or even the Minister were. What we are discussing here is three different licences which are necessary for the operation of private hire vehicles. The first is a licence for the driver. This is not a driving licence as we normally understand it but a licence specifically for private hire, which is personal to the driver. The second is a licence for the vehicle: the vehicle has to meet certain standards that its local licensing authority has checked, ideally. But the third is a licence for the operator.

The operator is a very difficult thing to capture, in some ways. On one hand, the operator might be that booth at the end of the railway concourse that organises local minicabs and has done for years, in the way that we are all familiar with. On the other, nowadays it is equally likely to be a very large firm, such as an Uber or an Addison Lee, operating a practically national service. But it could be, as the Minister himself said, simply that the driver is his own operator: he takes the messages, he takes the bookings and he provides the service. So what constitutes an operator is a very wide range of things.

Imagine circumstances where a driver who is perhaps licensed in Birmingham has a passenger to take to Droitwich Spa, which is not in Birmingham, I might say, for those who are uncertain of the fact; it is not, I can assure them. He gets to Droitwich Spa and runs into an enforcement officer who has an objection to the driver. I completely understand why, smelling his breath and deciding that he is drunk, the enforcement officer should immediately suspend his licence temporarily, even though that licence was issued not in Droitwich Spa but in Birmingham. I completely understand that. I am entirely behind that provision of the new clause.

Equally, we are completely behind the second provision in the clause, which covers the situation where the vehicle is not in a fit state and it is necessary for public safety that it should be taken off the road immediately—the bald tyre mentioned by the Minister, but it might be something else. We are completely behind the idea that the local enforcement officer in Droitwich should have this new power to take the vehicle off the road and suspend the licence. I do not know that he can actually seize the vehicle, but he can suspend the vehicle licence immediately, so that the continued use of that vehicle for private hire purposes would become an offence. We are completely behind that.

But then we come to the question of suspending the operator, and here I have genuine difficulties in understanding what the Government envisage. At an extreme, one could envisage circumstances in which the officer in Droitwich Spa, looking at his checklist of powers, which has three powers, ends up inadvertently suspending Uber in Birmingham overnight, just like that, at the drop of a hat. Every driver operating for Uber in Birmingham is now technically illegal, in the whole city, as a result of the misapplication of this power.

What circumstances, I ask—and I did ask the Minister informally just before we started this debate—can one envisage in which one would want such a power, given that the local officer has the power, and we support this, to close down the driver and the vehicle? Why should he want to be able to take out the operator, which might be a very large operator in a large city close by? The Minister, to my disappointment, did not address that question as fully in his opening remarks; it is fair to say that he did not address that question at all, despite having a certain amount of notice of it. It is not for me to supply the circumstances in which he might do so, but even if I were willing to supply them, I have great difficulty in struggling to find the answer. Therefore, I have an amendment in this group, Amendment 280A, which seeks to remove the power to immediately suspend the operator licence on a temporary basis. Those are the factors: immediately and on a temporary basis.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I swore some months ago that I would never support another Tory amendment, but here I am supporting the two amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Borwick. He has the Green vote this evening, such as it is. This is mainly to justify my still being here at two hours past my bedtime. I regret that he is leaving and hope that the Minister will perhaps see this as a gift to a hereditary who will be much missed.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, we completely understand the thinking behind these amendments and the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, around minimum taxi requirements and the Equality Act. We sense his frustration, and that of other Members of this House, at how long these changes are taking.

Let us be very clear that “taxis” in this amendment refers to hackney carriages—known more commonly, certainly to those of us in London, as black cabs. They are less than one in five of the whole taxi and private hire network. In cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, they is already 100% accessibility, but, as we have heard, the picture elsewhere is less uniform and in many parts of the country the network is completely provided by private hire vehicles. So this amendment, as we have heard, would not address the wider network that serves most of the country and areas outside of big cities, which is a real issue.

It is important that every region has the right balance of vehicles available to meet local needs and demands, and that will of course change over time. We welcome plans to ensure that each licensing area will bring forward an inclusive service plan. We welcome the new national standards, which are important, and, we hope, in the not too distant future, as we talked about earlier, new legislation covering taxis and private hire too. Once we start getting that together, this issue will be tackled in a far more comprehensive way than is set out in this amendment.

We absolutely believe that we need an accessible taxi and private hire service, available to you wherever you live, so that you can get out and enjoy your life, and live your life fully. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, will consider this carefully and work with the Minister to find a way forward that works for disabled passengers across the country, not just in those areas where black taxis exist and are available. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Borwick for his amendment. In preparation for this Bill, the amendment has taken up a lot of time and involved a lot of meetings with representatives of different bodies, including taxi drivers and private hire vehicles. The one that most struck me, which stays with me, and the only one I will refer to, involved a not-young gentleman who clearly had a taxi background and had risen to have some responsibility in an organisation. He had been in the business all his life, and I thought he was going to be very dismissive of this and would not be interested in this sort of thing going through because it would only disrupt the trade. He said to me, “Well, of course we’ve got to do something about this. These people deserve a service”. That is it. That is the case. They deserve a service. There is no need to make any further case. In my view, there is no answer to that case. They deserve a service.