THE TASK AND
FINISH GROUP’S RECOMME
In 2017 the (then) Minister for Transport John Hayes MP announced in the Commons that he was to establish a Task and Finish Group (TFG) to examine taxi and private hire li- censing, with a view to highlighting the current dilemmas faced by licence holders and recommending possible leg- islative reform.
The Group was set up with Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq as Chair; coming from the field of merchant banking, he was chosen as a totally independent Chair without any connec- tions to any one facet of the industry. The remaining mem- bers of the group comprised, two MPs; representatives from the GMB; the Local Government Association; Trans- port for London; trade associations – the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, and the Licensed Private Hire Car As- sociation; the Suzy Lamplugh Trust; and the Competition and Markets Authority and myself Donna Short, Director of the National Private Hire and Taxi Association (NPHTA) and editor of PHTM.
The Chair submitted his report summarising and covering the deliberations and negotiations of the group, which took place over a series of ten meetings. The report was submitted to Government in July 2018 and published on 28 September 2018. Taxi and PHV licensing was devolved to the Welsh Government in April 2018 but the Statutory Guidance will continue to apply until legislation governing this is changed so as to break the link with the English taxi and PHV legislation.
The Government response was issued by the current Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, Nus- rat Ghani.
Some recommendations have been endorsed and will be implemented; some are already in force; some will require new legislation, and some have been rejected.
At the same time the Government has issued a draft Statu- tory Guidance document for licensing authorities; this doc- ument is out to consultation for ten weeks. The full Government response to the Task and Finish report and the draft Statutory Guidance document are available to read in full, and the links are accessible via the PHTM website:
www.phtm.co.uk
The draft Statutory Guidance document is now out to consultation; the deadline date for responses is 22 April 2019. The scope of the guidance is defined in legislation: ie. “The Secretary of State may issue guidance to public authorities as to how their licensing functions under taxi and private hire vehicle legislation may be exercised so as to protect children, and vulnerable individuals who are 18 or over, from harm.”
Because the two documents were issued simultaneously, the reaction we’ve received since the documents were published indicate a high degree of confusion – understandably – as to exactly which of the documents are out to consultation. Issues such as cross-border working, drivers’ working conditions, private hire numbers which are responded to by Government from the TFG report cannot be included in the statutory guidance as they do not relate to safeguarding.
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PHTM approached the Department for Transport for clarification on this point; their response is as follows:-
out which of the recommendations the Department proposes to take forward. Many of the short-term recommendations made by the Chair of the Task and Finish Group in his report are for licensing authorities to make full use of their extensive existing powers and these are a matter for licensing authorities to consider. “The timeframe for taking forward the recommendations that the Government has committed to depends on whether legislation is required. Work has already started to take forward some of the recommendations, for example the Department launched, on 12 February, its consultation on draft statutory guidance to be issued to licensing authorities on the use of their powers to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm which will run until 22 April. Those reforms that require legislative change, for example national minimum standards, will be subject to consultation in due course.
“ ”
As we understand it, the above means that the draft Statutory Guidance is out to consultation as a matter of protocol. However, the Government response to the TFG report is a “done deal”; that is to say, the Government has responded to each point in the report, and that response stands. Some of these points require further review and negotiation but that process is further down the line for those recommendations that require new legislation - at which point they will to go out to consultation “in due course”.
For simplicity we have listed the 34 recommendations of the Task and Finish Group and the Government’s position on them in specific groupings, best categorised by the following symbols. We accept that they are not in numerical order but instead in groupings of different degrees of acceptance and position.
Govt
The Government’s response to the report of the Taxi and Private Hire Licensing Task and Finish Group sets
✓
Government agrees/
implementing/ already in existence
Government reviewing
Govt ✗
Government rejects
Leg.
Government to seek new legislation
SG Government
consulting on draft Statutory Guidance
PHTM readers can access the online response channel on your mobile:
https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/taxis-licence/
MARCH 2019
▲ Review
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