ALL THINGS LICENSING
Article by Mike Smith, Senior Specialist for Licensing and Community Safety at Guildford Borough Council and Vice-Chair of the Institute of Licensing South East Region.
Please note that this article represents my own views which are not presented as the views of the Institute of Licensing or Guildford BC.
PHTM EXPO
Firstly I wanted to thank the PHTM team, exhibitors and attendees for an excellent Expo in Milton Keynes. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Institute of Licensing (IoL) stand and being part of the seminars discussing licensing matters; and am looking forward to next year.
It was great to speak to so many members of the trade and suppliers about the work of the IoL which will hopefully lead to more members of the industry becoming members and realising the benefits through improved professional licensing knowledge.
Turning to the seminar which I was a part of, this was a Q&A on the state of legislation and featured speakers from the Department for Transport, Welsh and Scottish governments, Uber and James Button and myself from the IoL. Questions were put to us from the audience and the session was capably chaired by Dave Lawrie and Steven Toy from the NPHTA.
The seminar was scheduled for an hour and whilst we overran slightly we could have easily spent an hour discussing the first topic of inconsistency between CCTV policies between neighbouring areas, with the delegate posing the question as to why his licensed area required it and the neighbouring borough didn’t. There were also questions about issues up and down the country including the geofencing of an area around a railway station which I have written about in December 2024’s PHTM and a lively discussion bet- ween a hackney driver in Aberdeen and the repres- entative from Uber about their operation in the city.
There were a number of other questions directed towards the Uber representative and judging by the number of audience members who wished to speak to them after the session, there is no sign of interest in the app-based operator subsiding. Uber has been really engaged with the IoL and being a broad church organisation we want the trade and regulators to come together to improve professional knowledge
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and understanding. Certainly Matthew the Uber rep responded very well to some difficult questioning and I am sure it was beneficial for others to hear Uber’s views on topic’s affecting the industry.
However, one common theme from the session was very much one of a need for national consistency, a message which I am sure representatives from the DfT and Scottish and Welsh governments will have taken away. Paul Elliott, one of the Taxi Policy advisors at the DfT and now veteran of many PHTM EXPOs really has his finger on the pulse when it comes to taxi and private hire issues and did advise that the DfT will shortly be consulting on the proposals in the Devolution White Paper to move taxi and private hire licensing functions to the upper strategic transport authority. We will await these proposals, and what if any measures the government will be proposing to improve consistency and the problems caused by out of area working, with great interest.
Minimum fare for private hire drivers
One area which the panel didn’t have time to explore is the relatively recent argument for a minimum fare for private hire journeys. Steven Toy and I discussed this briefly after the seminar and this is clearly one where there are good arguments either way.
Section 65 Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 sets a maximum fare for hackney carriages by saying that:
A district council may fix the rates or fares within the district as well for time as distance, and all other charges in connection with the hire of a vehicle or with the arrangements for the hire of a vehicle, to be paid in respect of the hire of hackney carriages by means of a table (hereafter in this section referred to as a “table of fares”) made or varied in accordance with the provisions of this section.
The taxi licensing regime is relatively unique in providing the means for regulators to restrict prices, however the legal power to set fares is a discretionary function – ‘a district council may fix the rates’ – they don’t have to. However, in practice, taxi fares are capped to a maximum in most areas, presumably to create a level playing field, and to provide public protection from unscrupulous charging practices.
So, whilst there is a legal power to set a maximum fares for hackney carriage journeys, there is absolutely
JUNE 2025 PHTM
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