Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will make a little bit more progress. I am sure that he can make a fuller contribution in a moment. [Interruption.] Well, I did give way to him once already.

I will quote from some of the representations that I have received, given that the Public Bill Committee was not able to take evidence on the issue. My union, Unite, which represents thousands of taxi drivers up and down the country, said:

“These amendments are a last minute attempt by the Department for Transport to get something on the statute books without proper or full consultation with stakeholders having taken place and without waiting for the Law Commission’s Draft Bill.”

I think that that is a fairly accurate statement of fact.

To go into the specifics, the first of the Government’s three proposed new clauses would allow drivers, as the hon. Member for Hexham said, who do not hold a private hire vehicle licence to drive such a vehicle when it is not being used as a private hire vehicle. I read the text of the Minister’s response in Committee in Hansard, and in mitigation he indicated that London was a precedent for the proposed changes. We have to recognise that London has one of the largest taxi markets in the world and is a truly global city. We have heard arguments about exemptions for investment in transport. A figure that I often quote is that the investment in transport infrastructure in my region is £5 a head, and in London it is £2,900 a head. If we are using precedent as an example, we should have a 500-fold increase in investment in transport infrastructure in the north-east. It is not always appropriate to use precedent. Compared with the rest of the country, the situation in London is rather different in terms of regulation, enforcement and Transport for London.

Under the new clause, family members will be free to use a private hire vehicle on a personal basis, so long as they do not use it for private hire. The Minister said that it would be totally straightforward to identify abuses, but it would be hugely problematic. I was trying to imagine how someone could be stopped on suspicion of committing that abuse, and that should have full and proper consideration. It was one of the reasons for setting up the Law Commission consultation.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. On the overall review, he must have seen the judgment by the Court of Appeal on Stockton-on-Tees borough council and the taxi trade. The court said that it could only do a certain number of things, and the rest was left to Parliament to review. Does he agree that, if we are going to review this, we should review the whole thing and ensure that there are proper criteria and a structure with one piece, rather than numerous pieces, of legislation dealing with it? That would only be fair to all taxi drivers, including those in my constituency.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The hon. Gentleman makes an eminently sensible point, which is the one that I am trying to make. We should not approach the matter in a haphazard, piecemeal fashion, particularly when we have set in train a major review and are consulting with all stakeholders, not all of whom would agree with me. That seems sensible, and I cannot for the life of me see the logic in ploughing ahead with these changes in such a piecemeal fashion.

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[Grahame M. Morris]

That is a legitimate point, which I hope the Minister will consider on Report, along with whether we should wait for the Law Commission’s report.

There are also concerns about new clause 9, which would set a standard duration of three years for taxi and private hire vehicle driver licences and five years for private vehicle operator licences. Industry and trade unions expressed concerns during the limited time available. The National Private Hire Association and the Institute of Licensing said that the clause would remove the flexibility from councils, and there are already concerns about how effectively drivers are scrutinised.

I raise that because local authorities have a degree of flexibility. Indeed, it was pointed out to me that the three-year licensing period already applies in London. However, an authority might wish to have annual licensing of drivers and operators, which is currently permitted under legislation, as that is a proven way to keep track of behaviour and to take remedial or preventative action. Although local authorities impose licence conditions on private hire vehicle drivers and vehicle operators that require them to report criminal convictions and changes to their medical status within a specified period, those are often ignored.

Even in relation to drivers’ licences, where the police are supposed to inform the local authority of any recordable convictions and have discretion to inform the local authority of minor matters, information is often haphazard. Some local authorities get information directly from their local police forces, but there are very few instances of local authorities receiving information from police forces that do not cover their area. That is important because one of the Government’s amendments will allow subcontracting, so a taxi or private hire firm might come from another area and be covered by a difference police force.

[Rehman Chishti]

On private hires operating in an area where they are not licensed, if they are going there simply for private hire, that may be lawful. However, if they then carry on and park in a stand-by, that would be illegal and that would put more pressure on the local enforcement authorities’ resources. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that must be addressed?

[Grahame M. Morris]

I do. The hon. Gentleman has made a couple of really good points. The other aspect that I thought of when considering the arguments is that, to the best of my knowledge, the licensing budget is ring-fenced on the basis of fees and charges. Therefore, if a local authority is ring-fencing a budget based on a licensing and inspection regime on an annual or two-yearly basis and that is then changed to three and five years, there will be a commensurate drop in income. If that is how the enforcement officers are paid, that must impact on their ability to take enforcement action. That is a good point. There are a number of implications to extending the licensing period and it is not all good news, as some of the operators would have us believe. Consequently, it is good that local authorities have some discretion.

One of my principal concerns relates to the Government’s amendment to the Deregulation Bill that allows private hire vehicle operators to subcontract and book an operator licensed in a different licensing area. When I was reading Hansard, I saw that the Minister said that that will give customers more choice and that it may be advantageous in that passengers could ring up their local provider if they did not know who to call. However, passengers may well not want to use the subcontractor sent to their door.

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[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.