I rise like a bat out of hell to contribute to today’s debate. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for getting the Bill to its Third Reading in this place, and I welcome the Minister to her place on the Front Bench—I think this is the first time I have been in a debate for which she has been the Minister. This issue ties in nicely with two important local campaigns that I am running: the first is safer streets, and the second is reliable and healthy transport. Around this time last week, I was singing the praises of my own local taxi firms: how critical they have been in the community over the past 22 months during this global pandemic, and how much they are regarded as a core part of the community.
I welcome the Bill as it is drafted, but I would like to hear the Minister’s views on any unintended consequences. All legislators want to create good laws, and rightly so, but I am aware that cab drivers are really reliant on their jobs, and this Bill could potentially prohibit that. Although I have been a councillor for many years, I have never had the privilege of sitting on a licensing committee—partly because they were daytime meetings, but also because of the expertise and level of training required to sit on those committees—so once again, as others have, I applaud the quality of those discussions. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington addressed this issue earlier, and I hope that the Minister will do so in her closing remarks, but my concern is where human error might lead to a particular taxi driver being on the list, so to speak. That should not prevent them from having due process and the ability to appeal, or render them unable to take on further jobs while the process is being followed through.
Other Members have spoken about the size of the industry—the 343,000 different licences and 276 licensing authorities that are out there. It is a really important and core part of communities up and down the country. My constituency is really reliant on taxis; although, as I have said previously, we have some great transport links north to south via public transport, both train and the
tube, our east to west links are not so great. Although we have a bus service, it is not consistent enough to mean that people can use it as a daily means of getting around. I, for one, need either to drive to the station or use my local cab company to get there in order to commute down to London.
The other thing that is really important about this Bill is the confidence it will give to users of that particular mode of transport. We have already spoken about the safety implications not only for women but for vulnerable people and those who are younger—those who need that transport to get to school, sports clubs, or whatever it may be. Anything we can do to give them confidence and put safeguards in place is absolutely the right thing to do. It is probably worth remembering that 98% of taxi hire drivers are men, and about 2,500 reported assaults on women in 2018 were from one taxi app alone, so the proactive nature of this Bill is right and proper. I applaud the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and others who have spent many years trying to get to this point. I look forward to the Bill getting on to the statute book, subject to its progress in the other place.
We have not yet mentioned the wider use of taxi firms, but I hope that the Bill will also help in our battle against criminal gangs. A very small minority of cab drivers abuse the system—in county lines, for example—and I would argue that they are probably inclined to pursue other criminal activities as well. This process will make it harder for them to do so. It might be a slight inconvenience for local authorities and applicants, but it is worth it if the quality improves. I know from my conversations with drivers that they are proud of their industry and as keen as anyone else to remove the bad apples, and I think the Bill will make that easier.
I will bring my remarks to a close, because I am conscious that other Members wish to speak. We have talked about a national database. Local authorities already have this information to hand, and all that the Bill is asking them to do is collate it in one system, so I do not think there is much of a barrier to getting this done relatively quickly and cheaply.