the writers of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. The reasons that you cross-border, either as private hire or hackney car- riage, is because of the demand of the passengers, pure and simple. In this day and age the mobile phone is the biggest supplier of business to the industry that there has ever been. If you are answering these cross- border questions, then put down your evidence. If you are a private hire operator, show clearly and unequivocally that this is the demand that you are seeking to support. If you are just outside London and can’t transfer bookings across borders, and this affects your business, then say so. If you are a hackney carriage driver on a radio circuit, the same condition should apply to you: freedom of movement, and freedom to take a job whether it is within your bound- ary or not, at the demand of a member of the public. And if you have taken a job out of area, and travelled to a distant airport, why should there be any criminality against picking up a passenger there and bringing them back home again? This is the 21st century...
So to these questions, do not answer just Yes or No – say much more in support of your answers.
DEREGULATION
Evidence, evidence, evidence – let’s have some evidence. If you read the consultation document, various reports and evidence are included there- in. Once again, the OFT report raises its ugly head. There are 94 councils in England and Wales that still regulate taxi numbers, or have re-regulat- ed, or that have a restricted licence issuing scheme. According to modern reasoning, control of this market should not be permitted. Barriers to trade should be knocked down. Everybody should be aware of this – shouldn’t they? But clearly they are not, and clearly there are some conflicts within this consultation document. My own personal amusing moment on deregulation is the analysis of the strength and credibility of unmet demand surveys – especially the bit where, probably quite correctly, the assumption is made that in doing these surveys and requiring public questionnaires to be completed, the writing of those questions can be twittered and jittered to get replies that would support restricted numbers, or go against restricted numbers. The suggestion is that some councils that want to continue to regulate write questions which sup- port that view; those that want to deregulate write different questions – eg. “Don’t you think there is an awful number of taxis on the road day and night?”
or “Isn’t it terrible how long you have to wait at midnight to get a taxi home?” Sounds naive, doesn’t it? But such stuff does go on. Which calls into ques- tion whether unmet demand surveys are worth the paper they’re written on. But then when you hand the OFT report to a company that has spent all its life doing unmet demand surveys, why wasn’t there a paragraph at the front of that document stating who set the questions, and for what purpose? All I do know is that some 94 councils in England and Wales still retain number limits; that is 20 more than ten years ago, so there is clear and unequivocal evidence that councils have been re-regulating – because of the effects imposed upon them by their deregulated status. We did supply the Law Commission with photographs of overcrowded ranks from various parts of the country, and in numerous meetings before the consultation document came out, the concept of councils being able to control numbers for reason – ie. congestion in the marketplace – was indeed mentioned on these occasions. So it was a great surprise when this information or questions relating to the effects of deregulation were not included in the consultation document. Yes, there are questions saying “Should we or shouldn’t we?” Yes, there is a fair bit of work setting out the situation on deregulation. But why has congestion evidence been omitted? Some of our members have supplied photographic evidence, but that covers less than 20 councils. I have put this request in at least three editions of this paper, but here it is again. If you have a couple of small ranks and hundreds of vehicles trying to get onto those ranks, queues in the High Street, hundreds of parking tickets issued to drivers queuing to get on the rank, double parking, triple park- ing, parking in loading bays, parking in disabled parking zones.. all of this. Are you in an ancient, narrow-streeted city where your over-ranking does indeed cause traffic chaos on a daily basis? Where is your evidence??!! I know it is out there, and short of spending the next month in my car going the length and breadth of the country to obtain this evidence, I suggest you get on with it. This is something which is of clear, major interest to hackney carriage groups, and doesn’t really affect private hire. Or does it? If you are in one of the 94 regulated councils, how many drivers are you going to lose if deregulation takes place? How many drivers can you afford to lose in this financially disastrous time? Were you a private hire operator in a council that has deregulated, and have you got proof of how many drivers you did lose? Well, that would be evidential as well.
So to these questions, do not answer just Yes or No – say much more in support of your answers.
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