Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-03
Topic: Transportation
Dorothea Glenys Thornton (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, these two amendments are both modest and simple. They concern consumer rights and customer safety. The right is that of the person booking a cab to know who will be turning up, whether it is the person whom they expect or someone else, that it is done with their knowledge and permission, and that if there is subcontracting, there is an audit trail of it. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how many subcontracts might take place in one order for a cab and how that might be recorded. The amendments seek to mitigate the risk of subcontracting by requiring the consent of the hirer before a booking can be passed on. They also propose allowing a licensing authority to exercise its powers over a licensed private hire vehicle or taxi operating in its area, even if the licence was issued by another licensing authority We would have preferred the Government not to have proceeded at all with these clauses. There is still time for them to withdraw them, do the sensible thing and wait until the Law Commission’s full report can be taken forward instead of the pick and mix approach, which we believe is not based on what is safe and what is best for customers. We believe that customer safety could be undermined as, currently, only the licensing officers from the licensing authority where a vehicle and driver are registered have the power to take enforcement action In Committee, the Minister suggested that these Benches were against reform. That is not so. We are very much in favour of accessibility. More taxis being available for everybody is a good thing, particularly for those who are disabled. It is about how that is done. We on these Benches are not alone in our worries. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Transport said on the radio over the weekend: "One of the things the Government has done is ask the Law Commission to look at the whole issue of licensing taxis and it is something that they have reported to us on and the Government are due to respond shortly. It will probably need, will need, almost certainly need primary legislation" The Minister for Transport, Claire Perry MP, held a seminar on increasing safety for women on public transport on 20 January. She said: "The Department for Transport makes personal safety considerations a part of"— in this case— "all future rail franchise awards" We agree with her and, indeed, the Secretary of State Can the Minister assure the House that the same test of personal safety has been applied to these deregulatory reforms for taxis? If she cannot, I hope that she will consider accepting the amendments or bringing forward some of her own that do so. If she again prays in aid, as she did in Committee, that this is a similar regime to that which operates in London, I will ask her to consider that there were more than 111 rapes and sexual assaults between October 2011 and April 2013 where the indicated offender was a taxi or private hire driver in London. The Brighton and Hove taxi companies wrote to us and were vociferous in their opposition to this proposal. They say: "Please can we move away from the pious, myth-making NONSENSE that the London Taxi system is the best in the world", and point out that it is as much in need of the reforms proposed by the Law Commission as the rest of the country. They also point out that there were three assaults in the same period in the whole of Sussex The Law Commission has recommended that licensing authorities have the power to enforce standards in respect of out-of-area vehicles, which would be crucial for safety. The public, particularly vulnerable passengers such as women or disabled people, may call specific operators because they feel that that operator is both reliable and safe to travel with. This reform means that the public will lose the right to choose which operator they travel with, if someone calls operator A—their preferred choice—and operator B turns up. Amendment 4 stipulates that an operator must have the consent of the person making the booking before their booking is subcontracted and that there will be cross-border reinforcement. Indeed, in a letter from the Minister in December 2014 to Bryan Roland of the National Private Hire Association, she suggested that the Government were already thinking about this matter. I do not know the outcome of that thinking, but I sincerely hope that we are pushing at an open door here Noble Lords may have received a brief, as I did, from the Licensed Private Hire Association, which states: "The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, (The Safety Charity who campaigned for Licensing in London alongside the LPHCA) agreed that restrictions on the ability to subcontract were inappropriate" It goes on to state: "This was agreed by Sir George Young, Minister Glenda Jackson and Dr Jenny Tonge from the main parties" Leaving aside the promotion of my honourable friend Glenda Jackson MP, I asked the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for its view on this matter. This is what it said to me today: "As a trust we have no objection to the principle behind the aims of this clause"— I agree with that— "often a risk to the public’s personal safety is a lack of safe transport, and any measure introduced to alleviate that is welcome" That is absolutely right. It continues: "However under current regulation a licensing authority does not have the enforcement powers of vehicles and drivers operating outside their licensed area. The Law Commission’s report, published after these clauses were added to the Deregulation Bill, proposed extending the enforcement powers of all licensing authorities to deal with vehicles and drivers licensed in different areas. The proposals made under Clause 12 have not been made in conjunction with the Law Commission’s recommendations and therefore do not make adequate provision to allow licensing authorities to ensure the safety and practice of their drivers. Until there is a proposal to extend these powers and to introduce and enforce a robust audit trail to ensure the ability to trace bookings and their journeys we will be unable to support the proposal".