Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 7 October 2020 to Question 98677 on Taxis: Protective Clothing, which organisation is responsible for ensuring that operators carry out those risk assessments; and what the penalty is in the event that operators do not complete those risk assessments to an adequate standard.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the enforcing authority responsible for ensuring taxi operators carry out risk assessments covering work activities away from the taxi office. The duty to carry out assessments is a legal requirement and if not completed, HSE can take enforcement action to require operators to comply. This includes the option of issuing an Improvement Notice which stipulates what is required in a given timeframe. Non-compliance with an Improvement Notice is an offence and carries potential financial penalties and / or imprisonment.

The HSE takes a proportionate approach to enforcement in line with their publicly available enforcement policy statement.