Draft Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen.

We are at a rare point at this moment in history because the statutory instrument has nothing to do with leaving the European Union. It is business as usual. The SI has been scheduled because of its importance in helping councils tackle air quality by taking advantage of being able to recognise which vehicles go in and out of their areas.

Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010, but more still needs to be done to improve the quality of the air we breathe. The most immediate air quality challenge is that of nitrogen dioxide concentrations around roads, which is the only statutory air quality limit that the UK currently fails to meet. The July 2017 UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide identified that clean air zones that included a requirement for vehicle owners to pay a charge to enter, or move within, the zone if the vehicle did not meet the standard for its type was the measure that would achieve compliance with statutory nitrogen dioxide levels in the shortest possible time. The plan requires English local authorities with exceedances to explore whether they can find quicker alternatives. Several local authorities have already consulted on proposals for solutions. For some, this includes the introduction of a charging clean air zone, and Leeds City Council will start to operate a class B clean air zone from early next year.

There are four classes of charging clean air zone in England, all of which charge pre-Euro 6 diesel and pre-Euro 4 petrol taxis and public hire vehicles. Only class D clean air zones will charge personal cars. Local authorities considering class A to C clean air zones have identified the need to differentiate taxis and private hire vehicles and private cars, and have asked the Government to create a database to help achieve that.

Local authorities hold information only on taxis and private hire vehicles licensed in their area. They cannot identify those licensed by another authority. Hence there is a need for all licensing authorities to provide information to a central database, which will form part of the wider infrastructure that the Government are developing to support charging clean air zones.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

At a given time, taxi drivers may drive for personal use a taxi vehicle that would be registered on the database as a private hire vehicle. Have the Government considered how they might make a distinction in the database between when a vehicle is working and when it is being driven for personal use?

[Dr Coffey]

It will not be for the Government to make that judgment call. It will be for the local authority, because that concerns the charge it intends to impose. The database simply gives local councils the information about which vehicles are private hire vehicles and which are not. When the time comes, if ever, when Stoke-on-Trent City Council has a clean air zone, the hon. Gentleman may wish to take that issue up with it directly.

The purpose of the regulations is to require licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply to a central database certain information relating to taxis and private hire vehicles that have been licensed in their area. The instrument is made using powers under the Environment Act 1995. The database may then be used by local authorities for the purposes of enforcing locally introduced clean air zones that will apply charges in respect of taxis and private hire vehicles. The database will ensure that taxis and private hire vehicles can be differentiated from other vehicles when entering a charging clean air zone.

Regulation 3 will place a duty on all taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply certain information at least once a week. That information will include the vehicle registration number, the start and expiry dates of the vehicle licence, whether a vehicle is a taxi or a private hire vehicle, and the name of the licensing authority. Additional information required and the means of providing it will be set out in supporting guidance, which will be published before the regulations come into force.

The regulations extend to England and Wales and apply to all 315 taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities, including Transport for London. Given the geographical location of charging clean air zones, it is important that all taxis and private hire vehicles registered in England and Wales are recorded on the database.

The creation and maintenance of the database itself will not have a significant impact on businesses. A regulatory triage assessment has been prepared to assess the impacts on licensing authorities. The database will be designed and hosted in a way that complements existing processes wherever possible, in order to minimise the burden on licensing authorities. Licensing authorities will be funded for this additional work in line with the new burdens principle.

The draft regulations are necessary to support local authorities in introducing charging clean air zones where these have been demonstrated to be the quickest way to reduce roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations to legal limits. We cannot rely on a voluntary approach for the submission of information covered by the draft regulations, given that there are 315 licensing authorities in England and Wales. Without a centralised database, local authorities will be able to charge only those vehicles that they have licensed in their own area.

The draft regulations and the database are necessary to ensure that measures to charge taxis and private hire vehicles will be effective. Without such a database, the level of reduced emissions from these vehicles will be less certain, which may result in the need to introduce charging for additional vehicles, possibly including private cars. As such, the creation of the database is an important step in supporting our air quality ambitions and those of local councils. For those reasons, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

It is a pleasure to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I would say first that air quality has been my top priority since becoming Environment Minister. There will be Members on this Committee whom I have met in the last two and a half years to discuss the air quality challenges in their areas. There are several Members here whose constituencies are in areas where local authorities are proactively considering the introduction of charging clean air zones. I remind Members that it is their local authorities that have said that the database is necessary.

In terms of our work on non-polluting cars, the hon. Member for Stroud will be aware of our policy to see the end of the sale of conventionally fuelled cars by 2040. On illegal air pollution, he is absolutely right to say that roadside nitrogen dioxide is a challenge. We are working on that and we believe that the database will help councils to tackle some of the more polluting cars that are driving around, particularly in urban centres.

The database is in beta testing at the moment. It will be ready by the second half of this year. Leeds City Council is expected to be the first council to start using it in earnest, with charging coming into effect on 6 Jan 2020.

We want to ensure that Highways England and the strategic road network are very much connected with the air quality challenge that we face. The chief executive of Highways England chairs a fortnightly meeting with his team to go through the different issues of air quality on the road networks, as well as the new innovations they are taking forward and considering on how to improve air quality. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a lot of the issue is down to traffic flow. I am conscious of the challenges of air quality, and I am sure he will welcome the clean air strategy that we published just last month. It has been welcomed by the World Health Organisation as world leading, and it is something for other countries to follow.

One particular element of the road strategy does need to be carefully considered, and we will carry out an assessment of the effectiveness of speed limits, based on the Welsh Government’s work on the speed limits that they introduced on part of the M4. Certain councils, such as Basingstoke and Deane for a particular stretch of the A339 that has a speed limit of 70 mph, are considering reducing limits to see if that will help with traffic flows and lower vehicle emissions. As I say, in every part of the country where we have funded councils to do studies and localised modelling, and to undertake local action, they come up with solutions that by and large they think fit best to help their local communities to improve air quality and effectiveness.

[Catherine West]

Based on the evidence being set out by the Minister, will she consider giving more money to councils so that they can do more such research for their own local solutions?

[Dr Coffey]

More than £3.5 billion has been set aside to tackle air quality—TfL was given money for that as part of its last settlement—and more money has gone to the Mayor of London and many other councils to make the changes necessary, such as retrofitting buses.

I am conscious that the Mayor of London would like more money, and the Secretary of State has agreed to support a spending review bid to tackle air quality in London. For example, the ultra-low emission zone charge, which will come into effect in a couple of months, is a significant step. The policy was initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), but the current Mayor has taken it through. I also encourage TfL to think about its rules for taxis and how they can more quickly be made air-quality-friendly. TfL has made a good start; I am sure that it could go further.

The hon. Member for Stroud asked specifically about Plymouth. That question has come up once before, in an SI on air quality last year, but I am afraid that my officials and I cannot remember the answer precisely, so I hope that he will forgive me if I write to him and the Committee on that specific point. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Committee will consider the draft regulations important in giving local authorities the database that they believe necessary to tackle air quality in their local areas.

[Dr Drew]

Will the Minister give way before she sits down?

[Dr Coffey]

I have sat down.

[The Chair]

Does the Minister wish to take an intervention in the spirit that we are in this morning?

[Dr Coffey]

In the spirit? Very quickly.

[Dr Drew]

I thank the Minister very much. I shall be quick. I gather that she is meeting the Mayor of Bristol later today, which is interesting and my Whip will no doubt know about that. Is that common when a local authority or a Mayor has failed an air quality arrangement? I am just praising her—does she say to local authority leaders and Mayors, “You’ve got to do better”, “This is how you can do better”, and, “Here’s some money to help you”? Is that what she does?

[Dr Coffey]

I am delighted, Mr Owen, that you persuaded me to take that intervention, because I have visited many areas around this country and I spoke to the Mayor of Bristol yesterday. Unfortunately, of all councils, only Stoke-on-Trent City Council is on track with the timeline for delivering the first part of its air quality plan; sadly, other councils have fallen behind. I have to keep emphasising and pushing the matter, which is why we have included ministerial directions. On directions, the High Court said that we should use further legal instruments with all councils, to ensure that they get on with improving air quality.

I am disappointed, because there has been funding and we need to crack on with this, so yes, I have regularly have done what the hon. Member for Stroud suggests. I have been to Nottingham and Birmingham, and I have met people from Leeds. I have been around the country regularly, although I have yet to visit many places. I am pleased to say that I have been to Derby, too, to meet councillors. Yes, I am looking forward to having a face-to-face with the Mayor of Bristol, although yesterday he assured me on the phone that he will present his plan by the end of March, which is welcome news for the citizens of Bristol.

Question put and agreed to.