Welcome to this morning’s evidence session, the final session in our inquiry into the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles. This morning we will hear from the Minister, Lilian Greenwood, as we examine the Government’s plans to introduce national minimum standards as well as other important issues we have heard about throughout this inquiry. Please could I ask you both to introduce yourselves, starting with our Minister?

I am Deputy Director of the Department for Transport with responsibility for accessibility, and for taxis and private hire vehicles.

Excellent; thank you for coming. Many of the laws that underpin taxi and private hire vehicle licensing date back to 1847 with a few slightly more recent adjustments; 1976 was the other main one. Does the Department believe that the legislative framework should be updated or replaced with a new set of legislation that is more fit for modern times?

In 2014, the Law Commission published the draft taxi and private hire services Bill, which sought to replace the current patchwork of legislation with a single regime for taxis and private hire vehicles. Is the Department inclined to revisit any of that work?

You are not ruling out a fundamental revisit in the law, but that is down the line?

We will come back to some of the implications of that hotchpotch through our questions.

Are we going to see that comprehensive review before the next election though? It seems very unlikely.

Back to sticking plasters, if you do not mind me using your words. You are consulting on national minimum standards; why not just go for absolute standards because that would really raise the bar would it not?

I will come back to that. I am sure you have watched the recordings of our earlier meetings when we debated these issues. You will know that people are shopping around to get cheaper or more relaxed licences. Setting minimum standards is just going to amplify the issue, is it not? People are just going to search for where they can get a licence easiest, and that is not at all in the best interest of consumers, is it? Are you aware of the issues?

I would agree. The aim of this is to try to improve consistency and reduce the incentives for out-of-area working because, as the Minister says, our starting point is that we would expect people to be licensing where they intend to work. The more standardised we can make this, there will be a reduction in incentives to do otherwise. Particularly on safeguarding and safety, we want to see a much more consistent position that would eliminate the perceived need or the value in shopping around and looking elsewhere.

Realistically, Liz, it is great that you are expecting people to license where they intend to work, but you could mandate that and it would be better for everyone, would it not?

There are different options that you could look at on this.

That would be best for users, would it not?

I do not know that it would be at the moment.

Why expect it then?

What we think would be better for consumers is for people to license near where they live. The issue is about how you achieve that, and there are different options, one of which is journey restrictions and out-of-area working restrictions. Another is about consistency of standards and enforcement that would remove the incentive and the differentiation. The question for us is, which one of those options is the best one for passengers, for people using the services, for drivers, and for the sector to find that balance?

In the letter to us, you said that you would, “Continue to consider absolute standards,” but realistically that means you are going to go for minimum standards, will see how that works, and if there are still issues you might come back to absolute standards.

I guess you could raise the level of those minimum standards so, by de facto, they would move towards absolute. In terms of the standards, will you be looking at minimum English standards for drivers?

You are not quite sure what the level of that will be, but there will be a requirement?

What about emissions? I guess emissions are also linked to vehicle age and safety. Are you looking at emissions in terms of minimum standards? You mentioned that earlier. Where does that come in?

Air quality is a huge issue in our towns and cities though, is it not?

You appear to be a relatively fit and healthy person, but if you had a respiratory problem, it is probably something that is on your mind every day.

For instance, if there is a ULEZ, you would expect taxis and private hire vehicles to be compliant. That is an obvious example of where there might be an exception to the minimum standards, or whether it does not need to be because it is taken as read. Actually, it is not taken as read because if your vehicle is not compliant, you pay an additional charge. I suppose that is where there might be—

Yes, exactly.

I guess local authorities could look at their air quality action plans. That is what we have in Scotland—I do not know what the term is in England—and they could link the taxi emissions to that. In your own road safety plan last week, I am sure you were talking about how technology on newer vehicles is going to be a benefit to us. It makes sense to put an age limit on taxis and we heard of people targeting licences in particular local authorities because they knew they could get their banger—if I can use that phrase—licensed. Should you not be looking at vehicle age? That is a surrogate for emissions as well.

Yes, that is absolutely right. It is one of the areas of greatest variability, and probably one of the areas that prompts people to look around for where they can license in a different area. There are licensing authorities where it is no older than three years, for example, but you can then license that vehicle for another 10. However, if you came with a five-year-old vehicle, you could not license it.

Yes, I see.

There is absolutely something for us to consider about how we measure the safety of a vehicle, and we need to make sure that we have a lot of evidence. This is why we want to consult on these standards to gather that evidence, so that passengers know, wherever they are getting on to it, that it is at a base level of safety, and that they can be confident regardless. It seems slightly odd that even in the same area there could be one licensed car that is 10 years old and a four-year-old car that has been refused a licence.

It feels like a real race to the bottom, though, the way the industry is working. We heard from drivers about how their wages are really getting hammered down, and if the result of that is we have older, more polluting, and perhaps less safe vehicles on the road, I am sure people would be willing to pay a little more to have a cleaner, safer vehicle to travel in, and I hope they are.

Of course, the consumer is making that choice and other people are breathing in the polluting air. You have already said you will cover training and that will include accessibility, which is fantastic. What about turnaround times for licence applications? Is that likely to be mandated?

The last question is a quick one. Are there any areas you are going to rule out in terms of minimum standards?

Minister, the Department stated, and you said this morning, that national minimum standards are an important first step to tackling some issues that have arisen from out-of-area working. Lots of contributions to our inquiry have suggested that national minimum standards would not be strong enough to do that, especially given that the means of enforcement could still be 200 miles away. If the goal is to disincentivise out-of-area working, could you speak in more detail about how bringing about national minimum standards will achieve this?

Liz, do you have anything to add in response to that?

I agree with what the Minister has just said. I am sure we will come to this, but I do not think your point about enforcement is something that needs to be looked at when we bring in the national minimum standards. We would do that alongside it, but I agree with what the Minister said on the incentives point.

One place where this is happening a lot is Wolverhampton where, in the first half of 2024, over 8,000 licences were issued to new drivers. Do you think that is a problem? Why do you think that has arisen? Minister, I think you have already alluded to some of the reasons. Could you speak a bit more about how Government might resolve that?

It was just before.

Wolverhampton is lower, and its turnaround is quicker.

Just finally from me on this section: you say that you want them to be licensed locally. It would be helpful to maybe understand the Department’s view on giving combined authorities the option of ensuring that drivers’ trips start or end within that area. I would be interested to hear maybe from Liz whether that is an option that the Department has looked at.

Yes, absolutely. At the moment we are open to all options, and we have heard quite a lot through this evidence and elsewhere about this. I know TfL has talked about this for some time as well. It is not something that we are ruling out at this stage. I know that other witnesses have talked about the potential for empty miles, for that to knock on to the prices, and to the Minister’s point about disabled people particularly. Transport for All did a survey where, for at least two-thirds of disabled people, the cost of a taxi was a barrier for them, and we have to be really conscious about anything that might further exacerbate that problem. It is something that we want to look at. There are other things we could look at about asking people to license within a distance of their home address because most people who license tend to work close to where they live. Lots of the people who are licensing through Wolverhampton and driving elsewhere live close to where they are driving, so we could look at that kind of thing: restricting where you license rather than where you drive. We just want to make sure we have worked out what the unintended consequences might be of any action that we take so that we do not store up a future problem on this.

Just back to Wolverhampton, and this is probably a question for Liz. The Minister is right: Wolverhampton made out to us when its chief operating officer gave evidence that it is a victim of the current system. To be honest with you, I am not quite as convinced; that is probably a fair way of putting it. It could introduce, for example, a local knowledge test, which would make a significant difference, 96%—

It would not be illegal, would it?

My point is that it is making out that it is a big problem, but it has many levers that could rectify that problem if it was serious about doing it. Do you agree that the excuse that its guidance and the guidance of DfT is the problem, or do you think it could do more to rectify the situation itself, even with current guidance?

Could it introduce things that would create a barrier? It probably could. In doing that, though, there would be consequences elsewhere because it would be moving away from best practice guidance, doing things that would impact legitimate local drivers. Could it? Yes. Should it? This is something to be debated by Wolverhampton to work through what it thinks the balance of that is and what the right solution for that would be.

We have seen that previously. Wolverhampton is the main one but, historically, there have been other licensing authorities that have had a disproportionate number of people licensing with them.

Does that not drive lower standards though?

Obviously, in our evidence, lots of different reasons were given for why drivers operate out of area. Some around Wolverhampton are cost and speed of turnaround, although it appears to have challenges around enforcement. Others are around lower standards. Other reasons have been given as well. Obviously, if the whole climate changes in terms of minimum standards that may change, but there are other areas that we will want to look at around the implications and the changes of out-of-area working. Of course, both Oldham and Wolverhampton will not be licensed authorities if your proposals go ahead.

Anyway, Laurence, you want to come in with a supplementary.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning. As with previous sessions, I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that I worked for the Minister between 2012 and 2016. Minister, I want to come back to something you said, which is that there is no evidence that Wolverhampton’s standards are significantly lower than comparators. We heard from Wolverhampton that, as a matter of policy, it does not go beyond the minimum standards currently recommended by the Department. There is some evidence that other authorities have been unwilling to enforce higher discretionary standards because they fear that drivers in future will simply go to Wolverhampton or to other licensing authorities instead. Statistically, Wolverhampton has one of the lowest rates of wheelchair accessible private hire vehicles licensed by that authority. Is that a concern that the Department shares, that when you have dominant licensing authorities there tends to be a race to the bottom in terms of standards down to that minimum that the Department establishes?

We are coming on to accessible vehicles in a later question.

Minister, you have talked about the fact that the prices to get a licence are different across different authorities. Why does the Department not just set a standard price?

Obviously, it was something that the Law Commission looked at and suggested. One thing we would expect, though, is that a more standardised set of requirements that people have to go through might lead to a more standardised cost regime. As the Minister says, the other thing is it is self-funding. It is about enforcement as well, and we would not want to inadvertently find that if costs go up and the price of it does not that you restrict enforcement. It is a decision to be really thought through before we rush into anything, but I absolutely take the point that more consistency would help with the issue that we are facing.

Would you consider any form of national band or cap with a bit of local flexibility that takes into account those different wage rates?

As the Chair alluded to earlier, the Department is consulting on moving responsibility for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing from licensing authorities to local transport authorities. What do you think will be achieved by doing this?

No, but I completely agree with all those points.

You were talking before about the fact that one set of standards might be very reasonable in an urban area and a different set of standards in a rural area. When we move from 263 to 70, we are going to have much larger areas that cover both urban and rural. How do you square that circle?

How is this going to work in practice? Presumably, these powers pass, for example, to a mayoral strategic authority that set up a taxi licensing committee. Who would have political control of that? Would the directly-elected mayor appoint the chair? How would it work in practice?

The concept would be that the directly-elected mayor would set the political direction for how licensing would—

Just very briefly, before we move away from who licenses, and I am sure colleagues will perhaps have even more pertinent questions about who actually enforces, has the Department looked at the possibility of going a step further and exploring a simple national licensing system?

It is a good question on whether it is something that could be looked at nationally. I do not think we have looked at it in a huge amount of detail, but it is something that we could look at again in the round. The general view of this is that taxis and private hire vehicles tend to operate that first mile, last mile in local areas; plugging that through to the local transport authorities feels like the right level for that to be working. I recognise that there are other fit-and-proper-person tests that are done nationally, so it is something that we could test against.

Moving licensing from a local authority to strategic authority level obviously then becomes less local; there is less local knowledge. Surely that is the opposite of what a Government with a devolution agenda should be trying to achieve?

Alongside moving responsibility for licensing, the Department has said it is considering wider reform options on out-of-area working. Can you set out a bit more detail about what other options are being considered? Will these options make enforcement action possible closer to home than it is currently?

I think it used to happen before 2015 when ABBA was the norm.

Yes, that is absolutely right in the pros and cons we are thinking about in terms of the ABBA model. You could also say a proportion of journeys, so that you could create a bit more flexibility, and then you could look at near where you live. Your point about making these things enforceable is really key to our thinking as well. An advantage to checking where someone lives is it is much simpler and easier to do at the point of licence giving—actually checking in on the journeys that every individual is making to make sure they are abiding by the rules. The outcomes we are aiming to achieve are going to be achieved because it is much harder in a journey-restriction environment than it is in a close-to-where-you-live environment or, indeed, if you set the standards at such a level that people just do not license elsewhere because there is no point in doing so. Those things are then easier to enforce.

That is helpful, thank you. From speaking with trade unions and PHV drivers in my constituency, drivers are very open to displaying signage that is related to their local authority, but they often feel restricted by measures that compel them to display one sole operator, as they tell me that this limit is working in a very saturated market. Minister, would the Department envisage local transport authorities adopting powers to require consistent branding or livery so that vehicles are clearly identifiable to passengers? What would a preferred outcome be for local authority signage to be displayed?

Yes.

On traditional operators versus apps, does the Department believe that the current licensing conditions treat app-based platforms and traditional operators fairly, or does one face looser requirements than the other?

The licensing regime is consistent on the things that are expected. The market has changed and consumers using apps has become more prevalent. I am sure that has made the market difficult and different for people who are not app-based and there is greater competition. I do not think that is part of the licensing system.

Are working conditions for drivers a concern for the Department and, if so, what plans do you have to address this?

Jacob, you have a specific point that has come up during the inquiry.

Yes, it was about safety and distractions. I am sure that you have been in an Uber when a new ride has popped up and it is quite distracting for the driver. In our evidence, Uber said that it did not think that that was a problem but I am sure that we have our own experience of people tapping around on their phone, and it can be quite distracting. When you are thinking about national minimum standards, is that something you are going to consider as part of that, those distractions for drivers that can actually impact on passenger safety?

It is particularly an issue because they have to quickly decide if they want that ride or not and have to keep looking at their phone and swiping to decide whether to take the next ride while they are finishing the ride that you are in.

You must recognise that there is a difference between the traditional radio calls versus people swiping and audible noise and distraction.

Moving on to safeguarding, the Department has stated that the national minimum standards will be focused on safeguarding passengers. Of course, as far away as the Jay report, it has been said that safeguarding in taxi and private hire is a common thread in a number of very high profile and horrifying cases. What specific elements are the Department considering when it comes to safeguarding in the new standards?

Those two things are already pretty widespread, actually. As I say, all licensing authorities tell us that they do DBS checks and 96% tell us that they do safeguarding training already. The other natural one for us to consider is CCTV. That is one of those areas that I am sure the Minister will come to, where there are some finely balanced arguments, but we want to look at that and consider those arguments.

Did the publication of the Casey audit last year change or influence the Department’s thinking in terms of minimum standards?

Yes. It is important that we say that we are talking about a minority of drivers and that drivers themselves are often at risk of assault and abusive behaviour. I wanted to ask about particularly vulnerable passengers, including where there is a cross-departmental element to it. I am thinking particularly about SEND taxi contracts issued by local authorities. The quality of those contracts has been an issue in some areas, including in Birmingham. Do you see the new standards as an opportunity for looking at safeguarding in these kinds of areas? Are there discussions at this point between the Department for Transport and Department for Education, and other Departments that might have an interest?

Yes. There are some additional requirements already, in that there is a second round of DBS checking. It is a regulated activity, so there are some additional things in place when you are doing SEN driving. In terms of whether the Department has conversations with DfE, we do. As part of my broader portfolio I look at accessibility, so I talk to DfE quite regularly about not just taxi and private hire vehicle but also coach and bus provision. We are talking to it about that. As the Minister says, there is a question about what the right mechanism is for that and for addressing concerns, and whether that is national minimum standards for licensing for everybody, or whether this is a contractual and specific thing that we could look at in detail.

Presumably, we would want to avoid a situation where new national minimums are established for commercial drivers that are then not necessarily reflected in SEND home-to-school contracts, unless there is a very specific justification for doing so.

We will take this away and have a proper look at it because it is a very good point, but I think if you are licensed as a taxi and PHV driver you would have to have those requirements anyway, and then anything additional would be through the contracts. We will absolutely take that away and check that.

Finally, what is the Department’s view on the idea of making taxi and private hire driving a regulated activity like nursing or being a paramedic?

We heard evidence from some of your witnesses that that would be a step forward that they would like to see. As the Minister said, the Home Office probably has a lot of people saying that, and we have had conversations with it about some of these kinds of things. It is about the level of discretion that you may or may not want. Some evidence was given from the Institute of Licensing about some absolutes that come in once you are on that regulated list. Deciding if that is proportionate and appropriate in this context is the balance of decision-making that we would want to work through with the Home Office.

Yes. There is a cost element to it as well.

Absolutely, yes.

There is currently no statutory definition of what fit and proper means. What would the Department’s view be on potentially introducing one for taxi and private hire vehicle drivers?

Yes, it is, and that is right. It is this point of discretion. Discretion can go two ways, in that it can be perceived to add risk but also it can give that discretion to think, “That’s not on my list, but I’m still not comfortable with it.” It is about finding that right balance. The national minimum standards will absolutely support this. What we are looking to do is not necessarily define absolutely but to give a lot more structure around that decision-making. If you do not meet the national minimum standards, you are not a fit and proper person to be able to operate. There will be a level of discretion that sits above that in that definition the Minister is talking about, about the judgment that you make about whether you are comfortable or not.

When we were hearing evidence, at times it seemed to me that words like "arrested", "charged" and "convicted" were being used interchangeably. You could very well, therefore, have a taxi driver who was arrested for something, and a case could take a very long time before it got anywhere near charging, and they would entirely lose their livelihood. Do you have any views on that?

Which is not necessarily possible for a taxi driver.

I am getting nostalgic thinking back to when I was a councillor and I used to sit on the Committee that interacted with taxi drivers and PUC drivers. We would get advice from the police and what they felt a fit and proper person was. Do you think councils should always follow the advice of police on individuals?

Yes, I would agree with that. There is some soft intelligence that can come through the DBS system, and then there is the common law police disclosure engagement. That tends to come when an issue arises and then they are notified, rather than at the point of licensing. It is important that within the bounds of the laws that operate around that data sharing, obviously, that data is shared in a timely manner so that licensing authorities understand what the position is and can take an informed view.

Minister, in your letter to us you mentioned in-vehicle CCTV and suggested that that might be in scope for the national minimum standards, but you noted that there are concerns within the sector about that, and you have mentioned them today. In principle, does the Department think that CCTV should be a national requirement or should that be left to local discretion?

It will be part of your consultation process. If it is something that the Department decides to go forward with, what support would you put in place for taxi drivers, private hire drivers and operators?

Many of these things we have just been discussing are tools that are used to ensure the safeguarding of passengers. The NR3S is another such tool, and quite a few people have written to and spoken to us about the fact that they think access to that should be opened to operators. Does the Department agree?

Is that in theory, in principle, and therefore only in exceptional circumstances, or is there a role for automation in all this, regardless of who is in charge of licensing and enforcement?

There are some constraints around the current NR3S and who can use it and how, because it was designed for licensing authorities. What we agree with is that there is value in that information being available more broadly, and that requires some changes. I know the Committee has heard quite a lot about the idea of a national database of drivers. We see a change for operators accessing it as part of that wider change piece, which we are very interested in doing. As the Minister says, in principle, the more transparency of information sharing that there can be, the more timely and speedy that can be with operators being able to directly access that. That has to be a positive thing. There are some steps we would need to take to get to that point, but that is one of the things we are thinking through in terms of a wider database.

Coming on to that point about the national database, we have heard from people giving evidence that support the establishment of a national database. The Local Government Association is one of those organisations. What is your view on establishing a national database?

Yes. In the spending round we had some funding prioritised for exactly this. In the coming months we are doing discovery work, and then we have money available to start actually building a database. This is absolutely something that we want to explore and are taking active steps to do.

What is the Department’s assessment of the current effectiveness of enforcement nationally?

In the Department’s written evidence it was stated that for national minimum standards to be effective, they would need to be accompanied by appropriate enforcement mechanisms. What did you have in mind?

Some things the Minister has just talked about: those powers to be able to enforce against drivers in your area whom you have not licensed; the potential for fixed penalty notices for more minor breaches of licence, which if it was ringfenced could go back into improving the financing of licensing more broadly; the power to stop a vehicle without a police officer there. Those are the kinds of things that we are thinking about. We also hope that if they come alongside national minimum standards, because the standards will be more consistent, it will make it easier for one licensing authority area to enforce against another because there is a commonality of standards: you know what you are enforcing against. Those two things could work well together.

You touched on resources being a big challenge, and resources in the right place to make sure enforcement is effective. Going back to our friends in Wolverhampton for a second again, they have built up a huge surplus with the fees that they have been getting. They could probably tackle that resource issue by taking on more enforcement officers and sending them around the country.

It has officers in other parts of the country where it has enforcement officers. There is always a discussion about extent—

It could do a lot more. Other authorities will say they do not see enough of its enforcement officers, yet they have lots of drivers licensed by Wolverhampton.

Does the Department have a plan on how this can be tackled going forward?

Finally, regarding some work around setting national standards and national baselines for enforcement standards and requirements, things like data sharing, joint operations, public reporting and access to data: are they the sorts of things that are being looked at?

The first thing we are looking at through national minimum standards is around the drivers and the safety of the drivers, as you would expect. As part of that and as part of the powers that we are taking, we have the capacity and capability to look at other things around the operator data sharing and all those kinds of things. Those are other things we want to consider. Whether that is through national minimum standards themselves or through other mechanisms is something we want to work through, but those expectations are absolutely the kinds of things that we are thinking about.

Another aspect of the baseline would be the turnaround time because certainly, many of us have had constituents who are sitting waiting for a decision, and meanwhile they cannot earn money or go for another career if they are going to be struck off. There is another aspect to enforcement and licensing, particularly relicensing. In London, TfL, the regional authority, makes the decisions and has its own internal processes, which are transparent. There is no councillor involvement, an issue we have covered before. It has been suggested to us that where councillors sitting on licensing committees have a role, they can or could potentially come up with perverse decisions as to who should or should not be a driver or an operator. Going to a regional LTA model, will the role of councillors in that process be considered as part of that?

Our inquiry has led us to understand that there is currently some scope for joint enforcement between licensing authorities where there is agreement between them. Does the Department support going further and giving licensing authorities the statutory power to investigate and enforce against any taxi or PHV driver or vehicle operating in their area, regardless of which authority issued the licence? That might be one way of dealing with this whole, well, I am tempted to call it the Wolverhampton problem, but I might get in trouble. Well, I have done it now anyway.

Do you think that there might be additional resources or support that would be necessary to improve that capacity?

Do you see any other barriers beyond the funds or resources to prevent that more joined up enforcement?

Differing standards, because you have to be clear what you are enforcing against. The more consistent the standards, the easier it is to have joint enforcement and nationalised enforcement. Even in a world where there are journey restrictions in place, people can still legitimately drive into another licensing authority area as long as they are coming back, and that could be quite a long way away. There will always be this issue where standards are very different, where even if you had the powers to enforce, are you clear what you are enforcing against? Do you understand that? The more consistent those standards are, the easier it becomes for anyone to enforce against anybody else, regardless of where we get to on out-of-area working.

Just briefly, to bring that back to my earlier question about a national licensing standard, if enforcement is done locally, it therefore is down to the driver to enter into other jurisdictions or other areas of enforcement but also incumbent on them to know the rules. We have data technology and geofencing, which allows individual pieces of transport furniture to be allowed in some zones and not just yards further down the road. It is quite precise and articulate. Again, I would ask whether there is any further appetite in that context for local enforcement to possibly look at a national licensing system and apply the technology solution more to the local enforcement?

Some problems that we have heard from local areas are really down to quite local specific circumstances. It is quite useful to be able to call on a larger region of private hire vehicles if there is a big event, for instance, but then again, swarming and clustering around opportunity hotspots is probably what has led to issues of drivers sleeping in their cars. To be able to carry out some of that stuff on a very local basis might be an advantage to local enforcement authorities.

I am trying to think what that would look like.

No, that is fine. Let us imagine that the local job is more about enforcement and less about licensing. The enforcement authority could then potentially say, “Right, we’re actually going to put a red zone around this area here,” which means no private hire vehicles are allowed there without a pre-booked job at all. You just cannot go in there with a private hire vehicle. Just for instance, which would be a really articulate way of solving a particular problem in a particular area.

Yes, so particularly thinking about things like airports, where we heard evidence of people just being in the area and waiting for a job.

Indeed, yes.

Those are the kinds of things that we could think about. The risk in all those things is that you just displace the problem and people hover on the outside of it, do they not?

In that case, of course. I realise that, yes.

These are the kinds of things that we would need to work through. But there is something to be considered locally, particularly around those areas where there might be disadvantages to local people as well as the trade, in having people circling around. We do not want lots of empty miles. That is one of the things that we are really considering, and we need to think about all the options for how you avoid that.

Thank you. Sorry for the long-winded question.

That last issue is a major issue around Heathrow Airport. When the relaxation of out-of-area working came in with the regs in 2015, at that point apps were not in major use. Now we have apps. Presumably, it would be much easier nowadays to be able to flag up. You would have the queuing at the airport, or stations or whatever to have to deal with, but it would be possible to get an ABBA pickup now because one could specify that through the apps process. I do not know, let us say Nottingham to Birmingham Airport: a Nottingham driver could probably flag up to passengers at Birmingham Airport, “Anyone wanting to go to Nottingham?” The technology is there, surely?

Yes. When the changes happened in 2015, out-of-area working was always possible, but has increased even more because of the app-based technology. It was not necessarily just the 2015 Act that facilitated that. You are right, certainly on the big set-piece places like airports. With the ABBA model, the issue we think about more is things like on boundary areas, with local journeys: someone is going to a supermarket that is a mile and a half over a boundary and then they want to go on to somewhere else, and they cannot. Those things are harder to manage than perhaps the airports.

Yes, but technology has changed things in the 11 years since then. Okay, we are now going to move on to accessibility.

What is the Department’s view of the current effectiveness of enforcement around accessibility legislation and duties?

Just taking the guide dogs issue and the refusal there, what is the plan to make improvements in that area?

I would just add to what the Minister said: this is one of the reasons we want disability equality training to be mandated through national minimum standards, because we are seeing something like only two-thirds of people mandating that training. It may be that some drivers just do not know because they have not had the training. That is why the training is so important, so that people know. What we want to see is a reduction in the refusals: part of that is knowledge and part of that is enforcement.

You covered my final question there on the minimum standards around disability.

We heard from Transport for All about concerns it has about wheelchair accessible vehicles. Laurence mentioned that in Wolverhampton’s gigantic licensing database, wheelchair accessible vehicles are underrepresented. When we had the app operators in, they seemed a little passive about the whole situation. This is a market failure, is it not? Is it perhaps time for the Government to act?

The costs are a bit of a red herring though, are they not? In a building like this we have ramps and elevators because we accept that we want to spend a little more to create that more equal society.

Of course, I know.

We have Uber and Bolt, and they must have thousands and thousands of vehicles across the UK. Laurence talked about the number of vehicles in Wolverhampton, where wheelchair accessible vehicles are underrepresented. There is more licensing authorities can do—perhaps through minimum standards—to ensure that a proportion of their taxi and private hire car fleet are wheelchair accessible, so when someone calls for one, it is there and they can use it, rather than having to plan trips days in advance. It is about creating that more equal country. There is more the Government could do, because I did not get the feeling that Uber and Bolt were going to act in this area without guidance or perhaps something a bit firmer from the Government.

That is absolutely right. The problem is most acute in private hire vehicles, where there is a much lower percentage of them. It is therefore probably felt most acutely in rural areas; urban areas are probably better served through taxi fleets on this. The mechanisms are complicated and tricky, because there is the opportunity for licensing authorities to think about setting minimum percentages, but if you are not meeting that, does that stop you from being able to have any more private hire vehicles? Could that disproportionately impact other disabled people? There are lots of things to be weighed up, but as the Minister said, we are happy to take it away and think more about what we can do and how we can work with others. The makeup of the market is difficult because a lot of the drivers own their own vehicles and work for multiple platforms. While that does not mean that operators have no role in it, it is more complicated than it might be if everyone was employed directly by a single operator.

It goes back to how some operators are exploiting the way the legislation works, and people who require wheelchair accessible vehicles are paying the price for that. There is this drive to completely drive down costs all the time, and people with disabilities are paying the price. Like I was saying earlier, most people are willing to pay a little extra for a fleet that is better for their community as a whole. It is good that you have committed to looking at this. It is good. Thank you.

I actually take issue with that because it is understood that disabled people should not have to pay more for a service.

I mean people as a whole.

Oh, I see. Right, yes. The challenge is it comes down to the driver-owner or the operator who is going to have to pay the costs of a wheelchair accessible vehicle, because just enforcing or requiring operators is not going to magic more wheelchair accessible vehicles. We know from London, where black cabs and EVs are required to be wheelchair accessible, that they are more expensive: £60,000, £70,000, £80,000, if not more, whereas obviously a saloon car is a lot cheaper. What is happening in London is there does not appear to be any cut in the number of PHVs, but we are seeing a decline in the number of black cabs. It is basic economics. I am just asking, given the importance of accessibility, will the Department look at other methods to find a way that this cost differential, to provide an essential accessible transport mechanism for people who probably cannot use other forms of public transport, can be explored? The enforcement mechanism is not going to deliver that.

Particularly wheelchair users.

Just on information sharing between the police and licensing authorities, we have heard that it is very different across the country, and it is dependent on the relationship and agreements that licensing authorities have with the police force in their area. There is no official role for the police in the licensing of taxi or private hired drivers. We have heard from the Institute of Licensing that there have been serious cases where relevant information has not been available to licensing authorities because of concerns and restrictions on the data sharing agreement. Does the Department believe that this kind of information should be put on to a statutory footing; that information sharing should be on a statutory footing, with a clear duty to provide that relevant information within set timescales?

Yes, we have talked to the Home Office, and we issued guidance in October last year to try to clarify some of this. The information sharing under common law police disclosure is obviously far broader than taxi and PHV drivers, and there is legislation around what can and cannot be shared. With all things, there are interpretations about how much information can be shared. The judgment about whether there is pressing social need and all those things is made by individuals. The more guidance and clarity that there is about that, the more helpful it becomes. It is important to remember as well that a driver in their normal life could be arrested for something in a totally different part of the country from where they live, work, and are licensed, and so the more consistency there is about how information is shared, the better. A national database would also be helpful, because one of the things police do when they make an arrest is they ask the question, “What is your job?” And an individual will say or not say if they are a taxi driver. If there is a list of all the drivers there and available, that would help just to trigger the process to realise that this is definitely a taxi driver; it has been checked, we therefore know that there is something to share with a licensing authority. They will be able to see where they are licensed as well. The database will have a really important role to play in facilitating this.

So you see this as part of that national database?

Yes, it would help. It is not a panacea. That individual judgment about what constitutes a pressing social need is something, but just knowing that someone is a taxi driver is the first hurdle to get over, to know that you might need to share information.

Do you envisage that the national minimum standards will include measures to change or improve the complaints process?

Do you think it is clear for passengers at the moment, who have to go away and work out which council website they want to look at, or possibly search for a little sticker in the taxi? We have heard examples and evidence, for example, that perhaps it would be better if there were a national complaints portal. That way it would be very clear that wherever you caught a taxi or got a private hire vehicle in the country, you could complain in the same place and then it would be filtered down to the right person.

Yes. For your average constituent it is clearly not something you do very often, hopefully never at all, so do they actually know which council it is, particularly if it is near a border? Moving on from that, in your written evidence you said that you were aware, anecdotally, of large operators refusing to provide a driver’s PHV licence number after discrimination complaints. What do you think could stop this from happening?

Yes. The examples we have had are things like refusal to take an assistance dog, the journey is cancelled, then it is too late at that point to know what the licence number is and to formalise that complaint. That is not something we would obviously want to see happening, and we must see what mechanisms we would need to improve that transparency. Not all roads lead back to the database, but if there is more information readily available on drivers on the database, that might help with that. That is something else we would want to consider.

We have touched on this already, but would you envisage standards having expectations for how quickly licences can be suspended or revoked in a fair manner, both for drivers and passengers?

We should think about whether it might be appropriate for it to be in the national minimum standards or through some other mechanism. Being clear on our expectations about how quickly decisions are made, as you say, is a good thing for drivers and for passengers. When you become overly absolute, there might be difficult questions that need to be looked at. We would not want to not allow for proper investigation, but there are standards we want people to see, where we are not leaving things for long periods not being addressed.

Finally, does the Department think there is any merit in giving independent oversight of the taxi and PHV complaints process? For example, we have traffic commissioners who are rather good at licensing and that kind of thing. Has any consideration been given to giving them some powers in this regard?

If there are no other questions from other colleagues, I have a couple. Obviously, we are looking forward to seeing the integrated transport strategy in due course. What can we expect that strategy to say about taxis and private higher vehicles and an integration into local transport networks?

There are opportunities both in planning and design, say, of stations and airports, but also I have seen other jurisdictions where there has been a distinct area for Uber and app-based cabs. At the moment we seem to allow only some kinds of vehicles to pick up and drop off at stations but not private hire vehicles. I am hoping that that can be included when you are looking at that work. Okay, so thank you for that. The final question is, I know that the timing of the English devolution Bill is not in your gift, Minister, but once that gets royal assent, what sort of timescale are you looking at for a consultation and then any regulational or primary legislation changes in this area, in national minimum standards?

You have a current consultation going on in terms of the nature of the local authority, what tier of local authority, and that closes in April.

What most people in the sector and using the sector want to know is when will it be actually different? How many years do they have to wait?

Okay. Thank you, Minister, for your evidence today. I should have thanked you also for the letter to us on the changes that the Government propose to bring in. Feel free to write to us if there is anything you feel you want to flesh out in terms of the questions today, or anything else you feel that you wanted to answer and we did not ask. We know that you have opened a consultation on some issues, and I know that you will consider the evidence that we have gathered in this inquiry when you are considering next steps. Obviously, as you know, we expect to make our recommendations to you in due course. That concludes today’s session.