Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This Bill may look familiar to some hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who introduced a similar Bill in the 2017-19 Parliament. I am pleased to see him in his place today and thank him for his hard work on the earlier Bill, and I thank all members of the all-party parliamentary group on taxis, which he now chairs.

I am also indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), both former Transport Ministers, who have worked hard on this issue and whose assistance in recent weeks has been invaluable.

I am also grateful to those three Members for co-sponsoring the Bill, along with my right hon. Friends the Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) and for Tatton (Esther McVey), the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson).

This Bill has a very simple purpose, which is to ensure that only those fit to hold a licence are entrusted to carry the public. It will enhance public safety by mandating the sharing of relevant and necessary information. Simply put, better decisions are made when more information is available.

Although the Bill’s focus is to protect the public, it will also protect the hundreds of thousands of decent, hard-working drivers from having their reputation tarnished and their profession diminished by the abhorrent behaviour of a small minority who would seek to abuse their position of trust.

Just under 343,000 taxi and private hire vehicle driver licences are currently issued in England. Decisions on licensing are made by 276 licensing authorities. In each case, the authority must reach a decision as to whether a person is fit and proper. Although this is not defined in law, there is, by and large, consistency in safety-related criteria and processes. All licensing authorities require an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service criminal background check, and virtually all have the enhanced DBS checks carried out. This is reassuring, but it is only part of the picture.

There will be many cases across the country where the conduct of an individual has been unacceptable. However, these incidents might not result in the involvement of the police, let alone a prosecution or conviction. Some incidents may potentially be a criminal offence, but I am sure we all accept that not every crime reported ends with a conviction. That is not to say these incidents did not happen.

This Bill does not trespass into the realm of the Disclosure and Barring Service; rather it provides an additional means to enable the sharing of relevant information. Neither does it alter any of the existing processes that enable a driver to challenge the decision of a licensing authority. It will require licensing authorities to keep registers of licences issued and to make this information available on request. There is no mandatory requirement to share information with other licensing authorities on revocations, refusals or suspensions. Some licensing authorities do use the voluntary national register of taxi and private hire licence revocations and refusals—quite a mouthful, but it is commonly referred to as the NR3. It is commissioned by the Local Government Association and operated by the National Anti-Fraud Network. Although some licensing authorities check information on NR3, others rely on applicants self-declaring whether they have had a licence refused, suspended or revoked. As one might expect, those with something to hide are unlikely to declare it, even if they face a greater sanction for not doing so.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this Bill to the House. I noticed that clause 1(g) includes as “relevant information”, whether an applicant

“has threatened, abused or insulted another person”.

That is quite a broad position, which could be misinterpreted by different local authorities. I am quite interested in what my hon. Friend thinks needs to be done in terms of an appeals process in case someone is taken off the road, because that is how a local authority has interpreted whether someone is suitable to be a licensed vehicle driver, taxi driver or whatever it may be. Is there more to be done on the appeals process?

My hon. Friend raises an important concern. The Bill would not change or constrict licensing authorities’ existing discretion to grant licences to drivers.

I should just clarify that local licensing authorities have licensing panels that hear evidence and give taxi drivers opportunities to make their case, so protections are already in place.

My hon. Friend is correct. The Bill does not change the existing licensing authorities regime and does not affect the appeals process, appeals panels or applications to the magistrates court.

The relevant information that led to the decision would not be recorded on the database but kept by the licensing authority and shared with other licensing authorities if they requested it. The information on the database would simply flag instances of applications for a driver’s licence being refused or of the suspension or revocation of a driver’s licence.

This is an important Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that the timeliness of the information sharing is crucial? If someone has their licence revoked but seeks to get one from another authority, we do not want the information not to be on the database for the second licensing authority to check. It is crucial that information is shared in a timely manner and can be checked. Will my hon. Friend speak to that?

That very point is considered in the Bill, which gives local authorities a time limit for the entering of such information on the database. In that way, playing one local authority off against another—that circumnavigation, loophole or lacuna—is effectively dealt with.

To achieve its aims, the Bill enables the Secretary of State to provide or designate a person to provide a licensing information database. It enables the database operator to charge a fee in respect of the costs of the database, but such a fee will not be levied automatically.

I risk repeating a mantra, but better decisions are made when more information is available. The existing legislation enables only the authority that issued a licence to take action against it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important Bill to the House. Of the 15,000 private hire licences issued by City of Wolverhampton Council in 2019, many were for drivers spread across the United Kingdom, including at least one as far away as Perth, which is quite some taxi drive. Does my hon. Friend think that the Scottish Government and other devolved national Governments should, following what will hopefully be the Bill’s passage, work with the UK Government to reciprocate the flow of data to ensure that all authorities throughout the United Kingdom have access to the best possible information?

My hon. Friend raises an important point about passenger safety applying throughout all four nations. The Bill will provide for the devolved nations to access the database and they are strongly encouraged to do so.

To follow up on and clarify that point—I am from a devolved nation—would the Bill only require licensing authorities in England, not those in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, to input the information, but they would have the benefit of that information? Has my hon. Friend had any discussions with devolved authorities about whether they would adopt a similar approach to the inputting of the information?

My hon. Friend is correct that the devolved nations would be able to access the database. I am not aware of discussions among or engagement between the devolved nations and the Department for Transport.

As I was saying, the existing legislation enables only the authority that issued a licence to take action against it. The Bill will enhance safety by requiring licensing authorities to report information on certain serious safeguarding or road safety matters to the authority that issued the licence.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I would be delighted to take my first intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

I am always pleased to get a first. I am aware of occasions where people with wheelchairs or mobility rollators have been unable to use taxis. Will the Bill safeguard accessibility for disabled people to use taxis and ensure that they have equality with those of us who are able-bodied?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I feel as though I have obtained my proper parliamentary wings, having now taken an intervention from him. He raises an important point on the rights and needs of disabled passengers. The Bill does not deal with access to vehicles, but it does deal with safeguarding. I believe it will help deliver that provision for those who are most vulnerable in our society and require public authorities to ensure that safety is of paramount concern in licensing decisions.

The Bill would give the Government flexibility to designate a database provider or to provide the database themselves. Given the existence of NR3, it would make sense to use that database so that the Bill’s provisions can come into effect quickly. I recognise that NR3 does not currently allow for the recording of suspensions, but I wanted that in the Bill in case such functionality is added at a later date. Many local authorities already pay a fee to the National Anti-Fraud Network for use of a wide range of services, including access to NR3.

The ability of the database operator to charge a fee would enable the National Anti Fraud Network to continue to recover NR3’s running costs. Indeed, it is anticipated that rather than starting from scratch with a new database, there will be use of the existing voluntary database operated by the National Anti Fraud Network—of which NR3 forms a part—which is already subscribed to by 256 of the 276 licensing authorities. However, only 138 such authorities use the NR3 element. I am reliably informed by the Local Government Association that, with little or no additional costs, the NR3 database could fulfil the Bill’s requirements if the Secretary of State so designates.

The Bill’s objective can be illustrated no better than through use of the current voluntary scheme. Luton Borough Council recently ran a check on the NR3 database for a driver applying for a licence. The search revealed a revocation in another local authority area, due to a safeguarding concern, which the applicant failed to disclose. Consequently, Luton—rightly—refused a licence due to that deliberate withholding of information.

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous with his time. I commend him on the Bill. I am sure he is aware of the scandalous situation of the special educational needs and disability travel contract in Sandwell, with Sandwell Council having handed it out without checks being conducted. Is the safeguarding of children with special educational needs in respect of large travel firms the sort of thing that the Bill and use of that database would combat to ensure the safety of those children?