I rise to commend the Bill to the House. It would do an excellent thing. In my constituency I have drivers licensed by both East Lindsey District Council and Boston Borough Council, and the idea that drivers never stray from one area to another is ridiculous.
I wish to make a broader point, which is that the history of the licensing regime goes back to an era when private hire vehicles of any sort were unlikely to go outside their own area. That is hugely outdated and anachronistic in the modern age. The idea of a national database is now a relatively simple proposal, and it is just one of the Bill’s merits. When private hire arrangements were first brought about, the idea of a national database was unthinkable. What strikes me about the Bill is that it is probably the first of several cases in which we could think about how to do things in a far more efficient and sensible way and bring about real improvements in public safety or other areas for relatively little cost and with relatively enormous benefits. I know that the Minister will look at that, but the Government should consider more broadly the opportunities to replicate such an arrangement. It is a positive thing that the Government have supported the Bill.
In any national database, the security of the information must be paramount, and I know that the Minister will look at how that should be implemented and at all those considerations. In the age of Google, Facebook, social media, Matt Hancock the app and all that, we have to bear it in mind that we should not rush towards something because it is obviously a very good thing and in the meantime lose sight of security considerations.
With that caveat, I commend the Bill to the House. I will certainly support it; it does something that I hope will be simple enough to make happen relatively quickly.
2.12 pm