I thank noble Lords for this debate and for all their contributions. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that technology has moved on—he is absolutely correct. However, the principle of safeguarding people is one that you would want to operate whatever the technology or lack of technology that is being used to order your taxi, whether you do that online or not. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her contributions.
I need to be quite clear with the Minister that I have not said that we are opposed to flexibility. The Minister keeps putting this sally up, that we are opposed to the availability of more taxis. That is not the case; I have now said it twice on the record. In these amendments, we seek to ensure that people have a choice. The Minister dismisses the idea of consent in a very cavalier fashion; she says, in effect, “Consent is attractive, but we have looked at it and it is too complicated, so we are not going to go down that road”. Well, frankly, I do not think that is good enough. It is very important that people give consent as to whose cab they get into and when.
The Minister is right that local taxi companies will combine and provide a better service, and we want them to do so, but we need to ensure that it is done with the safeguarding of the travelling public in mind. That is what these very small and very modest amendments seek to do. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, that we are not seeking to oppose these clauses. In fact, we are silent about Clause 10. We are seeking to make modest amendments to Clause 11 that address the issues of customer choice and the travelling public’s safety.
The Minister said that there were a lot of misconceptions out there. Well, frankly, if people are worried and have misconceptions, it is the Government’s job to put those to rest, and the Government have failed to do that. They have failed to make the student unions believe that their students will be safe with this legislation and failed to convince the Suzy Lamplugh Trust that this deregulation will make women safer. At the moment, the only things before the House are my amendments, which seek to do those things. I wish to test the opinion of the House.