Speeches by Greenwood.

“I absolutely agree that emissions are a big issue, particularly in our towns and cities. It is perhaps less of an issue for a taxi and PHV operating in a much more rural area. There is an argument for saying that if you are a licensing authority primarily looking after a city or urban area, that it is reasonable to inc…”

“The requirements that we put on for licensing of drivers and operators are neutral. I also wonder whether the distinction between app-based operators and traditional operators is still valid. In my own local authority, I have been using DG Cars for donkey’s years. Back in the day, you would phone up and book one. Now t…”

“There would be a very strong incentive for your taxi to comply with the ULEZ regulations.”

“As a Government we already set standards for vehicle emissions to protect everyone who uses our roads. With vehicle age there is obviously an issue around vehicle safety, so we require all vehicles on our roads to undergo an MOT. It would not be unreasonable to think that for taxis and PHVs, which are obviously doing a…”

“Yes, that is appropriate. I cannot remember if it is our statutory guidance or best practice guidance but we have already set out that people should have a certain level of English. It is important for communicating with passengers and for understanding safety information. I know local authorities have different ways t…”

“When we look at our provisions or proposals around national minimum standards, our starting point is based on the statutory guidance that the Department already provides and the best practice guidance. When it comes to safeguarding, we expect all drivers to have an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service and barred lis…”

“Absolutely.”

“Yes, and I wondered if that is why some local authorities were putting in a requirement around vehicle age. Where there seems to be a slightly odd way of applying it is that some local authorities seem to have an age for first licensing that does not apply when renewing your licence. Theoretically, and Liz can correct …”

“That is a really important question. There are some areas that I do not think we would actually allow for any variation from. When it comes to safeguarding, safety and accessibility, we want to set standards that it would be hard to improve on. For example, when it comes to safeguarding, we want every local authority t…”

“I am absolutely aware of the issues and it is not a good situation. I do not want people to shop around for licences. The idea of introducing national minimum standards is partly because we wanted to act quickly, particularly in response to Baroness Casey’s recommendations, and there was an opportune way to do that. We…”

“We certainly want to draw on it. I would be very clear that there is a need for fundamental change to the regulations to put them all in a sensible place. We have the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976), and then we just have a series of sticking plasters really to tr…”

“National minimum standards is what we are introducing in this current legislation to make a very valuable first step in tackling the issues that Baroness Casey identified. Certainly, in our discussions with her, she has been incredibly supportive both of national minimum standards and of us changing the licensing level…”

“Thanks, Chair, I am really glad to be here having this discussion. I want to see the sector better regulated, and the public to have a range of services that they can be confident are safe, accessible, available and affordable, whether that is in a taxi or a private hire vehicle. It is absolutely clear to everyone that…”

“As we develop our proposals in the future, we absolutely want to draw on the work that the Law Commission and the task and finish group did. Although it is now a little while ago—I think it was 12 years ago—many of the issues that they identified and put forward suggestions around have not changed markedly. We would ab…”

“Probably early April, yes.”

“The other thing to say, of course, is that the more requirements we put in, the more cost we put into the system. That has consequences, does it not? We know that a lot of people rely on taxis and private hire vehicles, particularly people who perhaps cannot afford a car of their own, or disabled people who would not b…”

“I do not think so. We are quite open to looking at the views that people want to put forward.”

“Yes.”

“One thing that is quite interesting if local authorities want to take action to discourage out-of-area licensing is to look at what their own requirements are. We had quite an interesting example in Oldham. It was concerned about the number of its drivers who were licensing out-of-area. It looked at its own requirement…”

“If a taxi driver has their licence suspended, in effect, you are taking away their entire livelihood. That is the difficult judgment to be made. Our expectation at the moment is that as a taxi licensing authority you would look at any allegations quickly, but you would want to look at it thoroughly before you took that…”