Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department plans to establish minimum requirements which all local authorities must abide by when granting licenses to taxi or private hire vehicle drivers.

The Department has established a working group to consider current issues concerns relating to taxi and private hire vehicle licensing, and produce focussed recommendations for action. National standards were proposed by the Law Commission in its 2014 report on taxi and private hire licensing, and I have asked the working group to consider relevant Law Commission recommendations in its deliberations.