A NEW YEAR WITH NEW BEGINNINGS, OR MUCH OF THE SAME? OR COULD IT BE EVEN WORSE?
Andy Peters Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
In December it was announced, as per the PHTM report, that the government is issuing a White Paper called the ‘English Devolution White Paper’ which includes a major shakeup of the taxi/PH industry. In fact there is actually only a small section that refers to taxis and private hire licensing in the document.
To fully understand what devolution means is explained in two paragraphs: “This White Paper sets out how we will achieve this, backed up by our landmark English Devolution Bill, which will empower communities to take back control from Westminster. Taking back control – if it means control for communities, not politicians in Westminster – is absolutely essential for growth.” And “We will give Mayors strong new powers over housing, planning, transport ,energy, skills, employment support and more, backed up with integrated and consolidated funding.”
The document itself has 89 pages and I suspect the one small section that refers to the taxi/PH trade was just slotted in at the last moment. But even so, this causes me, and should cause you, great concern where its states: “Larger footprint…” and “Greater economies of scale..”
“Taxi and private hire vehicles
Taxis and PHVs are an important part of our transport networks and some of the most vulnerable groups in our society rely on them. We recognise there are concerns about out-of-area working by PHVs and are exploring how best to address these concerns. As part of this, we will consult on whether to make all Local Transport Authorities (including Strategic Authorities) responsible for taxi and PHV licensing.
Administering taxi and PHV licensing across this larger footprint would increase the consistency of standards and enable more effective use of enforcement powers across a whole functional economic area. Greater economies of scale should also enable authorities to improve the efficiency of licensing, reducing the incentives for people to license out of their usual
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working area. This would be a significant change for the sector, and we will work with stakeholders to understand possible impacts before taking a final decision. In London, taxi and PHV licensing is already the responsibility of the Mayor and TfL.”
I fully admit that I am a great sceptic which I have evolved into after so many years of being in the trade. However, in a nutshell my interpretation is that to combat the ludicrous situation of POAW (Predominant Out of Area Working) or what I consider wrongly referred to a cross-border hiring, the apparent remedy is to make licensing areas bigger as referred to as “Larger footprint..”. And “Greater economies of scale..” to me means combining local councils. I may be wrong as there are no real details, but that’s my initial impression.
Effectively, and very worrying, this to me is adopting the same method by which Uber created the ‘Mythical Uber Regions’ to appease local councillors a few years ago which was a complete and utter farce. At that time I stated that this was Uber’s attempt at rewriting legislation to suit its own operational needs…. and blow me down… for all intents and purposes it looks like the government has been persuaded to look at doing that. We all know what influence a certain a multi-billion dollar global domineering company has. Although judging by the last government I suspect nothing has changed with this new lot either.
Hopefully I’m wrong in my interpretation, but instead of ‘keeping it local’ and keeping it so incredibly simple by allowing councils to apply an ‘Intended Use Policy’ to PHVs in the same way as hackney carriages; there seems to be a far more complicated resolution being drawn up behind closed doors. We know that natural cross-border hiring has to be in place, but the remedy to the current ‘Wolveritus’ issue, as it seems, is to have much bigger areas. I know, you couldn’t make it up!
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester has already hailed the new mayoral powers as a “big step forward” towards banning Wolverhampton PHVs from predominantly operating in Greater Manchester.
tinyurl.com/ab18122024 However, I am really intrigued as to why he considers this to be the case? What was there in that tiny section in the White Paper that even hinted at that. So, I have emailed him to ask as to why he has interpreted it that way?
JANUARY 2025 PHTM
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