Taxi drivers, base owners and operators, and passengers will help determine whether the UK needs to introduce national taxi standards.
The House of Commons Transport Committee is reviewing current taxi and PHV licensing regulations to see how standards can be made more consistent across the country.
Audit
The move follows a recommendation from Baroness Casey’s National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse with cited differences in standards across different Local Authorities and cross border working as a major concern.
Now the Transport Committee will examine whether current Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards – which are implemented by individual licensing authorities – are enough to maintain safety, or introducing national standards is the way forward.
The BBC reports that the question was recently brought up by MP Antonia Bance.
Referring to out-of-area working, Ms Bance asked: said: “What action is the minister going to take to make sure that local taxi licensing is done locally to high standards?”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the matter was being taken “very seriously”, promising that authorities not following compliance would be held to account.
She told MPs: “Baroness Casey has rightly brought this issue into sharp focus and we’ve committed to legislating this issue.
“We will work as quickly as possible and consider all options including out-of-area working, national standards and enforcement, seeking the best overall outcome for passenger safety.”
Legislation
Current regulation allows licensed private-hire drivers to operate anywhere in England and Wales, provided they have passed background checks and have the correct taxi insurance in place.
The lower cost of licensing and speed at which applications are processed has made Wolverhampton a popular choice for out-of-area drivers, with a Taxi Point report highlighting that 96% of private-hire licence holders lived outside the city between April, 2023, and March, 2024.
City of Wolverhampton Council said it was operating in line with current legislation. It told the BBC safeguarding remains its “number one priority” adding: “It is illegal for the council to refuse applicants a taxi licence on the basis of where they live. It is also illegal for licensing authorities to impose a limit on the number of private-hire licences they issue.”
The issue is that each authority enforces the current legislation differently. As Taxi Point explains, “licensing responsibilities currently lie with local authorities, including Transport for London, city councils and combined authorities. While these bodies work within a statutory framework, they are allowed to set their own safety, conduct and accessibility rules. This has led to inconsistent standards between areas.”
Transport Committee chairman Ruth Cadbury said: “When it comes to the licensing and regulation of taxi and private-hire vehicles, a strange patchwork of driver and vehicle standards now exists across every town and city in the country.
“This inconsistency has given rise to a situation that just isn’t good enough for drivers or for the public, who can unknowingly leave themselves vulnerable when getting into the back of a stranger’s car.
Confidence
“This committee will investigate whether a more standardised, more rational regulatory and enforcement regime could do away with the phenomenon of one city receiving applications from all over the country. We want to examine how an improved system could give greater confidence to consumers, particularly disabled people, women, children and other vulnerable people. And we need to look at how the system could make it clear who a passenger can complain to if standards aren’t met.”
The Transport Committee may decide that changes need to be made to current regulations to maintain standards, or it could see that introducing national standards is the only way forward, with cross-border licensing and out-of-area working expected to be a major focus.
It will also be an opportunity to look to the future of the taxi and PHV trade to ensure regulations apply to accessibility, as well as advances in technology, from booking apps to self-driving cabs.
The Transport Committee is now accepting written submissions from those with knowledge of the sector, which can be submitted to the committee’s website, by September 8.
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