Speeches by Greenwood.

“It is about what the necessary standards are. What is the licensing authority there to do? Clearly, it is about ensuring that the public are safe, have a quality of service, and are not going to face discrimination. To give you one example: there is one local authority that requires that PHV drivers wear shirt and trou…”

“I am open to considering that. The concerns that we have are as Liz and I have set out, but we are certainly not averse to looking at those sorts of ideas.”

“I rather suspect that the problem would just move somewhere else. When I look at some of the PHVs that are licensed in my local authority area, it is clear that some license with Nottingham City Council, and some with other licensing authorities nearby other than Wolverhampton. It would just end up moving the problem.”

“No, absolutely.”

“That is an interesting question. It is something that we have talked about because, obviously, TfL is the licensing authority for London. As I understand it, it does not have an elected licensing committee. It decides policy, and then the application of its licensing policy is delegated to officers. In lots of local au…”

“The power that is set out in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill would give us the ability to put requirements on that. I would be interested in the Committee’s view. Obviously, there is a big incentive for local authorities to process licence applications in a timely fashion, particularly if you want…”

“It is going to be because it has invested in doing that. It is almost self-fulfilling that, once you have done all that, you are going to become faster and more efficient. I do not think it is an ideal situation. We want people to be licensing where they intend to work. That is why we have looked at these short-term me…”

“Hopefully, not very many.”

“Frankly, it was rather reluctant about the role it had ended up with. I do not think it was ever the intention to become the go-to licensing authority, and it does not have any choice. If someone turns up at Wolverhampton, asks to be licensed and meets the standards, they will be licensed there. There is a bit of a myt…”

“The disadvantage of having local authorities demand a particular sort of branding is precisely because people often work for a number of operators and, therefore, drivers might object to that. Obviously, taxis having a particular livery in their local authority is probably commonplace, but for PHVs if you require a sta…”

“That would be against our best practice guidance.”

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

“Certainly, I met with Wolverhampton very recently. I cannot remember whether it was just before Christmas or just after.”

“Obviously, using a handheld mobile phone while you are driving is clearly illegal. We do not want people to be driving in a distracted fashion. I am sure it has always been the case that you would have radio calls while you were driving. I do not think it is good practice for people to drive and have conversations on t…”

“No, it could do that.”

“Alongside the combined authority area.”

“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…”

“Obviously, I was not the Minister responsible for taxi and private hire at that time, but my instinct is that there was already a recognition of the importance of ensuring that safeguarding was incorporated in our standards. Casey gave us further evidence and greater impetus to make sure that these things were in place…”

“In making decisions, you want to have the fullest possible information to help you to make those decisions. Clearly, the police can share information on those who might not have a conviction that would result in them appearing on enhanced and barred lists, but that might cause you to apply that fit and proper person te…”

“We want licensing authorities to make sure that they are enforcing around that and that they are making it as easy as possible for people to report when those problems happen. It should not be entirely down to disabled people to have to do that reporting. I cannot remember the technical word for it, but local authoriti…”