I want to speak about the Government measures on the deregulation of taxi licensing. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) made a valuable point when he said the light-touch approach is not necessarily the best one. In this case, certainly, while we have the localisation of taxi licensing, we can see a plethora of problems in taxi licensing that will not be resolved and, indeed, will be made considerably worse by the measures. They could do a lot of damage to taxi licensing and the respect taxi drivers have in the taxi licensing industry if quality and standards for the fare-paying passenger start to erode. I will therefore vote against these amendments tonight if a Division is called, and I want to explain why I cannot support them.
On the issue of non-drivers being able to drive cars, I mentioned earlier one concern that I have in Lancashire. We work with Lancashire police and we get taxi drivers who are involved in criminal activity—fortunately not many, but a significant number none the less. The police work with the local authority to deal with criminality through taxi licensing. Occasionally taxis are used for couriering drugs around. The police have a difficult job trying to determine who was responsible for the drugs in a particular vehicle, and that will be made more difficult when there are other drivers of a vehicle in which the police find drugs or other illegal items. Having various individuals driving a particular vehicle may throw considerable doubt on such matters. My constituents would expect me to raise the point as to the need to be clear about who is driving a vehicle, who is in a taxi, and who is licensed to drive that taxi, and where.
All these things are crucial, because, certainly in my area, if we are to have a taxi industry that the public respect, we need a taxi policy the public have confidence in, and I do not think the public will have confidence in a taxi policy that opens the door to criminality. For my constituents, there is no worse form of criminality than the transportation of drugs in taxis. I must emphasise that this does not happen frequently, but when it does happen—and it does happen—it is worrying. Not knowing who is driving a vehicle is therefore of some concern.
As I have said, having non-drivers, so to speak, driving taxis is certainly of concern to my local constabulary, and I am sure there are many other reasons why people will feel uneasy about that, too, not least the issues mentioned to do with the abuse of taxis—having the plates on the sides of taxis and non-drivers driving in bus lanes and so forth—or having rogue drivers in those taxis thinking they can take a chance and pick up a fare even though they are not a licensed taxi driver. There is a host of issues around individuals who are not licensed to drive taxis but who may drive the vehicle as a taxi where the plate is on the side and they think they can get away with it.
I have grave concerns about the three and five-year licences, primarily because it will remove local authority control. Situations may also arise where people on three and five-year licences may have been involved in issues that would have led to a suspension in one area where the licence applies but it has not done so and they carry on operating with the licence in other areas, and they do not have to appear before the committee for a fresh licence. That it may be accepted and a given that they carry on with that licence is worrying. We are trying to raise the standards of taxi operators, taxi licences and taxi vehicles, and this erodes that. The fact that taxi drivers will not be compelled to come back before the local authority licensing committee regularly will open the system up to those who would take advantage of the longevity of their licence to carry on plying their trade, albeit legally in the authority that they licence from, but perhaps not up to the standard of the local authority in which they are operating.
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The third and final issue I wish to discuss is subcontracting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington said, people might phone through to their favourite operator whom they know and trust, and that operator could subcontract to another licensed firm in another local authority area, and a vehicle that they are unfamiliar with or unsure of could arrive at their door. That raises all sorts of issues. Is it possible, as was asked, to turn that taxi away, or does it have to be accepted? Most people would probably assume that it was a taxi from the company they had phoned, and would get in it.
Hyndburn wants a local authority taxi licensing policy that reassures the public that the taxis are of a good standard, that that standard is properly, professionally and regularly maintained by the local authority, and that the taxi drivers are reputable and meet a standard determined by local people through localism and the local authority. Other authorities might adopt standards that are a little bit lower—or in some cases, a lot lower—and perhaps the people of Hyndburn do not wish to have such taxis on their roads. However, this provision will simply allow those taxis to turn up, because the job is subcontracted to another local authority, and the paying passenger might be none the wiser or might simply feel obliged to take the taxi.
There is some variation in taxi licensing across the United Kingdom. One local authority not far from me was licensing taxis in Aberdeen. Anybody who knows my constituency knows that it is in the centre of the United Kingdom, in the north of England, so it is
rather ridiculous that that local authority is licensing taxis in Scotland. I do not think that a taxi driver from Scotland would ply his trade in that area. Essentially, there is a race to the bottom.
What is aggravating the situation is that local authorities’ revenues have been taken away by the Government’s austerity cuts, and they are chasing revenue. Local authorities therefore see taxi operators as a means to an income, which means that they want to increase the age threshold of the vehicles and relax the inspection regime. We are talking about consumers of local authority services in what is a marketplace, so a race to the bottom in taxi licensing is taking place. Local authorities near me have raised the age threshold for vehicles considerably and reduced inspections, allowing them to take place in the private sector, which gives rise to questions about whether the inspection process is robust enough. There is deep concern about the age of such vehicles. My local authority frequently carries out MOT tests on vehicles, and that testing must be done through the local authority MOT testing station. We have a very high standard, and the age limit for such vehicles is seven years. I doubt whether my constituents want 20-year-old charabancs with 400,000 miles on the clock turning up, driven by someone with a five-year licence who may have a conviction for violent assault or carrying drugs, and who can ply his trade in Hyndburn simply because he is licensed from another authority.
This provision will make the situation far worse because the customer will not be in control. They will phone up their local, trusted company, but the job will be subcontracted to a local authority in which the standards may not be as high, or far lower, and where the licensing conditions may be far more relaxed. The driver who turns up may well be a sex offender, or have some sort of criminal record. The vehicle may well be 20 years old, with many thousands of miles on the clock, and it might have been tested at an MOT station where the methods are not quite as robust or reliable. Of course, a vehicle’s MOT test is only as valid as the day of the test and not the day after, so if we do not have regular MOTs or other inspections, a vehicle’s condition cannot be as guaranteed as that of others where there is a more robust testing regime. This comes back to the issue of choice; the customer is not in control. The customer will phone their favourite taxi firm and the taxi will roll up from a taxi firm operating in a local authority area with poorer standards, so what will we get? We will get poorer conditions. The fare-paying public will not appreciate the proposal being put forward in their name because it devalues the service they receive.
I am concerned that this provision is being introduced without any support, apart from among those on the Government Benches—although I sometimes doubt whether it has any support there, because it does not make sense to anyone who is aware of the taxi industry. A wider discussion needs to take place. The Law Commission is looking into taxi licensing issues that go beyond those in the three provisions today, yet the Government have sought to bring forward these proposals ahead of the Law Commission’s findings. That seems bizarre, if not perverse or daft. We should have waited for the Law Commission to report because a restructuring of taxi licensing needs to take place. The Law Commission’s input would have been valid and we would have sought to iron out not only the problems the Government are exacerbating today, but some of the others that exist in
taxi licensing. So, with deep concern, I will be unable to support the proposals on taxi licensing. The Government have got real problems with them, and they will have to examine them again and repeal them, because they are in danger of presenting the paying public with drivers and vehicles they are not happy with. This is not the public’s choice and they are being put in a very vulnerable position. People will be upset to realise that the Government are not on their side, seem to be on the side of the taxi operators and are, in essence, bringing a danger or a threat to the customer’s door.
Let me make one further point. We talk about taxis, but we should not forget to mention things such as minibuses and the importance of crash safety test standards. When can talk about minibuses on motorways taking school kids, but let us up the ante a bit. It really does matter that the right operator—the trusted one—turns up at the door. Let us suppose that 12 school kids are in a minibus where the seats have not been welded in to a crash safety test standard. Let us suppose that they are whizzing down the motorway and are suddenly involved in an accident. Let us suppose that the favourite operator, which would normally have taken those children, has proper welded-in seats in a proper crash safety tested minibus. In such circumstances, lives could have been saved, and the Government will look at this legislation and think that they have made a terrible mistake by sublicensing to other areas. Such a tragedy would cost lives in order for us to arrive at a sensible point, which is why the Government ought to row back from the position they are in.