Standing Committee A
Tuesday 2 March 1999
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]
(Except clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4 and schedules 1 and 2)
Clause 176
Transfer of hackney carriage functions
Question proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the Bill.
4.30 pm
Question again proposed.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following: Government amendments Nos. 885 and 886.
Government new clause 63--Hackney carriages.
Government new clause 64--Hackney carriages and private hire vehicles: alteration of metropolitan police district.
New clause 55--Fees for licences--
[]. After section 11 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869 (licences by whom to be granted) there is inserted--
" Fees for licences
11A.--(1) A person, on making an application for the grant or renewal of a licence under this Act, shall pay such fees as Transport for London may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, determine.
(2) Transport for London may decline to proceed with an application for the grant or renewal of a licence until any fee due in respect of that application is paid.'.".
New clause 67--Smoking in London taxis and PHVs--
().(1) A person shall not smoke or carry lighted tobacco in a taxi or private hire vehicle where passengers are by means of a prescribed notice informed that smoking is prohibited.
(2) For the purposes of this section, 'prescribed notice' means a notice or marking of such type and displayed in or on a taxi or private hire vehicle in such manner, as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.
(3) A passenger who contravenes subsection (1) may be required by the driver to leave a taxi or private hire vehicle and, where the passenger refuses to comply with that requirement, may be removed by the driver or, on the request of the driver, by a constable.
(4) A person who--
(a) contravenes subsection (1),
(b) refuses to comply with a requirement made in accordance with subsection (3), or
(c) resists lawful removal in accordance with that subsection,
is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of any enactment requiring certain hirings to be accepted, it shall be lawful for the driver of a taxi bearing a prescribed notice to refuse to carry a passenger who is smoking or carrying lighted tobacco.
(6) In this section--
'private hire vehicle' means a vehicle licensed under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998; and
'Taxi' means a hackney carriage licensed under section 6 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869.".
New clause 68--Smoking in London taxis--
"(). (1) A person shall not smoke or carry lighted tobacco in a London taxi where passengers are by means of a prescribed notice informed that smoking is prohibited.
(2) For the purposes of this section, 'prescribed notice' means a notice or marking of such type, and displayed in or on a London taxi in such manner, as the Secretary of State may by order prescribe.
(3) A passenger who contravenes subsection (1) may be required by the driver to leave a London taxi and, where the passenger refuses to comply with that requirement, may be removed by the driver or, on the request of the driver, by a constable.
(4) Nothing in subsection (3) shall be taken to relieve a passenger from the obligation to any pay fare and where a passenger is required to leave or is removed from a London taxi in accordance with that subsection before reaching his destination he shall be liable to pay the fare up to the point where he is required to leave or is removed from the taxi.
(5) A person who--
(a) contravenes subsection (1),
(b) refuses to comply with a requirement made in accordance with subsection (3), or
(c) resists lawful removal in accordance with that subsection,
is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(6) Notwithstanding the provisions of any enactment requiring certain hirings to be accepted, it shall be lawful for the driver of a London taxi bearing a prescribed notice to refuse to carry a passenger who is smoking or carrying lighted tobacco.
(7) In this section 'London taxi' means a hackney carriage licensed under section 6 of the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869.".
Government new schedule 6--Hackney Carriages.
Government new schedule 7--The Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998.
Ms Linda Perham (Ilford, North): I welcome to you to the Chair, Mr. O'Hara. I am pleased to speak to new clause 55 on behalf of my hon. Friends the hon. Members for Romford (Mrs. Gordon), for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin), and for Eltham (Mr. Efford), and myself. The new clause is supported by the London Taxi Board and by London First. I believe that it is the first new clause to be proposed by Government Back Benchers in the Committee.
The new clause concerns a matter of considerable importance to transport in London. It would allow an administrative charge to be introduced for the Knowledge. It would correct the anomaly by which the testing of applicant taxi drivers--known as Knowledge boys and girls--is funded through the taxi drivers' annual licence fee. That would bring parity with the newly licensed minicab industry.
The Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 allows minicab applicants to be charged for their test. The new clause would allow the same principle to be applied to licensed taxi driver applicants. It is therefore of great importance to the modernisation of London's taxi industry. Members of the Committee will be aware that my constituency is home to many taxi drivers. [Hon. Members: "They call it green badge valley."] Yes, that is right. I hope that the new clause will be welcomed by my local and, indeed, by all licensed taxi drivers as a key component of that modernisation.
To become a licensed taxi driver, applicants devote hundreds of hours to training and testing to demonstrate an awareness of routes around the capital and a street-by-street knowledge of London's topography. The testing procedure is rightly rigorous. However, like all testing procedures, it costs time and money--syllabuses must be produced, appointments made and examiners paid.
Approximately 85 per cent. of applicants never attain the Knowledge. Knowledge appointments at the Public Carriage Office--the PCO--which cost the applicants nothing, are often missed, thereby wasting more resources. The costs are covered by already qualified drivers through the licence fee. That is the equivalent of the driving test being subsidised by the road tax. London First commented that when the Driving Standards Agency was set up, with the test fees going to fund the service and with clear performance standards, the long waiting times for driving tests were eliminated.
Applicants take an average of three years to progress from initial application to being fully licensed. Twenty years ago, that process took, on average, less than a year. The increased testing and waiting period is a direct result of the clogged system. The PCO does not have the resources to finance a modern and efficient testing procedure.
The new clause is intended to allow appropriate change to be made to those structures. I am aware that a management consultant is undertaking a report into reform of the Knowledge. The likely outcome of that study is a recommendation to move to a modern, computerised testing system. The new clause would allow the finances to be raised to fund such a system.
The charging of fees for the Knowledge should be able also to provide resources to improve enforcement procedures, especially to protect the public from unlicensed operators. That matter is of great concern to licensed taxi drivers and they often discuss it with me. It is the issue most frequently raised by those of my constituents who are licensed taxi drivers. The new clause would be an important step in allowing the taxi industry to develop and modernise its role as a vital component of London's integrated transport network. If my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London does not accept the new clause now, will she give a commitment to make proposals at a later stage to include the payment of fees for licences for the black cab trade in London?
Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): Before lunch, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) opened the debate on clause 176 stand part. I endorse much of what he said about the London taxi service and I join him in paying tribute to it. London has one of the best public transport systems in the world. That is a completely non-political point--a fact of life. Road, rail, sea and every type of transport that one can think of is available in London, and an integral part of the system is the London taxi service.
Those of us who travel to various corners of the world and wrestle with the local taxi services will know the affection with which one regards the London taxi service and its cabs. In New York--which is, I have always understood, an English-speaking city in the United States of America--it is fairly rare to find a taxi driver who speaks English, let alone knows where one's destination is.
Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North): Go to Birmingham.
Mr. Ottaway: I find the taxi service in Birmingham almost as good as London's, but it is the London service that we are discussing today. It follows that we welcome the fact that the Government have transferred the old taxi service to Transport for London largely unchanged.
The Conservatives have no trouble with the proposal set out in the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Ms Perham). I hope that the Government will consider it sympathetically.
I have a sense of unease about the new clauses tabled by the Liberal Democrats about smoking in taxis. They have been proposed by the London taxi services and we have all received the same circular about the matter. The new clauses would simply allow a taxi driver to declare whether smoking should be prohibited in his cab. We have heard quotations from a speech that the Minister for Transport in London made about a year ago in which that principle was endorsed and I deduce from that that, if the new clauses are not accepted, they will be considered sympathetically.
My sense of unease relates to the fact that smoking is a perfectly lawful occupation, and if people want to smoke they ought to be able to do so as and when they want. I realise that smoking on public transport inconveniences and annoys other passengers. To that extent I understand smoking bans on some aircraft and separate smoking and no-smoking sections on trains.
The back of a cab is for sole hire and the only person who would be concerned about smoking is the driver, who might feel that he was affected by smoke coming through from the back of the cab. However, there is a partition between the driver and the passenger sitting in the back, and I would have thought that it was easy for the driver to protect himself, particularly as more modern cabs have much more robust screens between the passengers and drivers and communication is by means of an electronic intercom rather than by sliding the window backwards and forwards.
Nevertheless, we will listen with interest to the Minister's response to the new clauses. There is a conflict of principles in them, and I will be most interested to hear how the Minister responds.
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