TAXI & PH BILL OBSERVATIONS
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...
Article by Dave Lawrie, Director NPHTA
dave@nphta.co.uk
Last month was exciting and interesting. We hosted the legislation Q&A seminar at PHTM EXPO, featuring the broadest spectrum of views and experts we have ever seen on stage, including Ruth Cadbury, Chair Of The Transport Select Committee, James Button and Mike Smith from the Institute of Licensing, David Hunter from TakeMe, Andrew Wescott from Veezu, and, of course, your very own David Lawrie and Steven Toy from the National Private Hire and Taxi Association. Click here to watch.
The King’s Speech
Imagine our delight at having sight of the King’s Speech, which was published literally hours before our panel. The contents are fully detailed below, together with some my observations in blue, but, in short, the overall view is: “Taxi Legislation is broken - rip it up and start again,” as has been suggested several times over the years by various stakeholders.
Draft Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill
l Taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) laws are outdated. The Government will make every day journeys safer, fairer, and easier.
l It will strengthen public safety, remove barriers for disabled passengers, and reflect how people travel today, including the use of booking apps.
l By supporting a growing and innovative sector while making streets safer - especially for women and girls - the Bill will deliver taxi and private hire services people can trust.
Let us not forget that the service must also offer greater protection for drivers, not only against attacks, but also by addressing what action the authorities take when things go wrong in order to protect our hard-working drivers and operators.
l This growing, nationally operating sector is regulated through an outdated and fragmented
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framework, leading to inconsistent standards, safeguarding risks, and ineffective enforcement.
National standards will help, but further legislative measures are needed to align licensing with journeys, enable information sharing, and ensure resources are matched to risk and activity. The draft Bill provides the necessary framework to address these systemic issues.
What does the Bill do?
l These reforms aim to modernise taxi/PHV laws. l The draft Bill will be put forward for pre-legislative scrutiny, allowing the Government to seek expert views from a range of stakeholders and create the strongest legislation possible.
This process has already started, with consultations held not only by the Transport Select Committee last year, but also through the devolution and empowerment legislation in January, alongside stakeholder meetings and the creation of a working group to develop this new approach. The first meetings have already taken place, involving 18 representatives from a wide spectrum of organisations, including operators, councils, council representatives, and driver representatives - myself included.
l The Bill will:
o Modernise taxi and private hire law to reflect the way people travel today, replacing a patchwork of outdated, Victorian-era rules with a single, consistent framework across England that passengers and drivers can trust.
For clarity, the only legislation dating from the Victorian era is the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, which did not address private hire at all. The legislation that included private hire was introduced in 1976 outside London, and not until 1998 in inner London. Even those laws, however, are now old enough to require serious reform.
Some people have interpreted this as meaning a single-tier system, abolishing either taxis or private hire and creating one combined licensing system.
JUNE 2026 PHTM
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