Taken from: MRBLACKCAB FORUM Manchester.
The clock is ticking. Tuesday am will tell us what is to happen to our trade.
I initially feared the worst; I felt that it would result in deregulation and a single tier licence allowing private hire cars to operate like Hackney’s.
The whole select committee process was the result of Unite Liverpool constantly complaining about Delta cars Sefton working out of their area and having cars parked AWAITING bookings in Liverpool centre. Liverpool Licensing have a much better enforcement policy than Manchester, they operate large operations monthly and publish the results of those operations to the PUBLIC, thus reassuring everybody that professional operations and the drivers involved are quite safe.
What I failed to realize was the power and influence some of the big private hire operators have. We should have been warned, last year when the equality bill was being debated, the effects to private hire were suddenly withdrawn at the Lords stage of enactment. How much did that cost to do, what arrangements were made? Whatever the price.. What a great result..
The big boys in the private hire trade were the last to give evidence at the select committee. Three in particular were INVITED to appear and assist the committee. The were Griffin (Addison Lee), Mc Laughlin (Delta Cars) and Shanks (Blueline Newcastle).
I realize now that a single tier licence would have wiped out these companies and every other PH company in the country, why would anybody pay £100 a week subs when their was no need. The following guys gave oral evidence to the committee and whilst I am a cab man and generally in opposition to PH, I am reluctant to say they gave good account of themselves and I feel held some sway over the Committee.
I have selected (cut and paste) some of the remarks which caught my eye, I have marked in bold salient points. Read for yourself and let me know what you think.
Q62 Chair: Do you accept that your activities have affected taxis in Liverpool adversely?
Paul McLaughlin: I think they have affected the hackney industry per se, but the individuals within that industry haven’t been affected in the same way as you might think. There was a rather important question asked about the livelihood that Mr Maynard made earlier. He asked the question whether any hackney drivers had left the industry and the answer from the Unite the Union was no. I strongly dispute that. There are hundreds and hundreds of drivers who have left the hackney carriage industry to work with a different business model. Those drivers are joining Delta on an almost daily basis and they do a different style of working within exactly the same area.
Q64 Chair: Mr Shanks, what effect has the prohibition on subcontracting of bookings to a private hire operator in a different district had on you?
Ian Shanks: A little bit like Mr McLaughlin here, we are 57 yards the other side of a boundary. Some 75% to 80% of our business is in Newcastle where we aren’t licensed, and it causes a huge amount of difficulties. Again, we have been through various High Court cases and we just want national standards with local control. We would like the Committee here to look at trying to roll out what we have in London, because if it is good enough for one third of this country’s trade, we would like it for the other two thirds.
Q65 Chair: Mr Griffin, would widespread subcontracting be likely to lead to the biggest private hire firms controlling a network of smaller operators?
John Griffin: We can subcontract nationally if we choose to, and we do. If we have a pickup in the north of England, we have reciprocal arrangements with other companies in the north and we will use them because it is sensible to do so. What I would like to say is that during these discussions what we are missing out here is a very important ingredient, which is the impact as a transport industry we have on pollution. It is very important to understand that. Drivers driving around empty, going back to bases where they are polluting the environment, is a very serious issue. In London alone there are 4,000 premature deaths entirely related to pollution from motor cars. We have to look at revisiting the whole licensing strategy and the impact it has on our society in pollution terms.
What we should be considering is having a national standard, controlled by local interests, but we should have the vehicles tested in Ministry of Transport-MOT-stations. They should be trained up to do the work. They would be delighted to have it. They would charge more for it. It would work. I believe that we just need to revisit the whole thing because the way that we are approaching it is becoming so Dickensian. Everything I hear today underlines that.
What are we dealing with here? If we are dealing with service to the public, then a person driving back empty to a location for some spurious reason does not in any way contribute to that. We need to look at that. We need to look at the impact that person driving empty back to base has on our atmosphere. We need to address that. We have a responsibility to do that. That is very important and it should be number one on the agenda here today.
From my point of view, we are not in any way offended by what is going on in the provinces. It is not what concerns us. We have an open house in London which works very well. The service is very good; it means we compete very fairly. Everybody is under the same restrictions, has to meet the same criteria and it works. Nationally there is no reason why that shouldn’t work. There is no reason why we should go back to these archaic conditions. Everything that we do in London works and I recommend the rest of the country takes it on board.
The idea that one authority is trying to find some magical financial interest in lowering the standards for financial gain is unacceptable. Let’s tell these people, "This is the standard. Comply with it. Do whatever it takes to make sure it happens", and after that let anybody who wants to pick up anybody, as long as he is licensed and he has the credentials to do so, do it. Don’t restrict him.
Q66 Kwasi Kwarteng: There are two issues here. There is one about the standards in terms of a national standard and then there is the separate issue of where people operate. What you are saying is you would have a national standard and allow everyone to operate anywhere.
John Griffin: Absolutely.
Q67 Kwasi Kwarteng: But a lot of other people are suggesting that there should be some sort of local licensing.
John Griffin: Why?
Q68 Kwasi Kwarteng: From a personal point of view, I am inclined to agree with you, but I want to put that case forward. People would say that there is a certain way that a local authority works in terms of transport with localized licenses. You have no truck with that argument.
John Griffin: None at all. That is where we are and that is where we need to leave from. We need to put that behind us. We need to revisit the whole strategy. What are we trying to achieve here? Are we taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Is this a problem? Where is the evidence for this problem? The evidence we see before us is that there is a great deal of pollution being gathered and drivers are being disadvantaged because they could earn money they are denied. The whole thing is a nonsense; it really is. It’s pathetic.
We need to look at the whole strategy. There are vested interests here and those vested interests have to be told, "We have bigger interests than you." We have this whole question of pollution; we have the service to the public and the levels of that. All of that is an issue.
Kwasi Kwarteng: Your position is very clear. Thank you very much.
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Paul McLaughlin: Could I add something more on the standards, using Liverpool and Sefton as a point of comparison? You will have read in the Liverpool City Council submission that Liverpool operates higher standards than some authorities. They were careful not to mention Sefton but they might have. We’d be forgiven for inferring they might have been referring to the neighboring authority to which they were losing drivers. In the case of Sefton in comparison with Liverpool, I think it is important to mention CRB Enhanced 2 on both sides of the border; the medical is exactly the same standard. There is practically no difference, except for the knowledge test.
If you look at how the customers have responded to those standards, of course the area we operate in-Merseyside-is 200 square miles of people all descending on one tiny city centre, which is a quarter of a square mile. Everybody then comes back out of that quarter of a square mile city centre. It is reasonable to assume that, if thousands of people are using Delta to go into that city centre, when they come back they have the option of using a locally licensed cab or they can ring the firm that took them in there. Because the amount of work we are doing has become so apparent now, over the recent years, out of the 8.5 million bookings we do, 1.25 million bookings last year were within one quarter of a square mile. I would argue that we couldn’t have generated the custom for 1.25 million people to be asking us to pick them up if we hadn’t maintained standards.
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Q33 Kwasi Kwarteng: I have looked through your written evidence and, sure, I think there should be national standards applied; I completely understand that argument. But the word that comes across a lot in this is the "low" standards, yet there is no real description of what these "low" standards are. Could you give me a bit more colour on that, perhaps,
Q50 Kwasi Kwarteng: I am sorry, but can I just be a devil’s advocate? I use cabs all the time, certainly in my constituency, and I would not be able to tell you what make of car they were. Generally, I get to where I want to; generally, they use satnav. I wouldn’t be able to tell you where they were licensed. I just use a cab and I get from A to B, and that experience is pretty much the same every time I use it. When you say to us that this will be a much better experience, I am still trying to get my head round that. I am not denying what you are saying, but I am just trying to understand how a better trained car driver is going to make my experience better. That’s all I’m saying.
Tommy McIntyre( UNITE) Could I just go on a bit with my answer? Our licensing officer is here so you will be able to ask him the same question later on, if he sees any difference. But certainly from our side, talking to people, they say, "It was brilliant. I got in the cab and the driver started talking about architecture and things like that", when they were going through the city. "Did you realize what this building was or what that building was?"
Kwasi Kwarteng: I travel at night.
Tommy McIntyre: They have lights on these buildings.
Chair: Can we keep the answers short? (Chair is a UNITE Member assisting McIntyre)
Kwasi Kwarteng (MP) I just want to get from A to B. I don’t really want an architectural experience.
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Tommy McIntyre: All we are saying is that that vehicle shouldn’t stop there. I have tried to say from day one that we are not trying to restrict the traveling public. My wife or anybody else’s wife can order a cab from wherever they want to. For argument’s sake, if I was in Liverpool and I am dropping off in Manchester, if I haven’t got a fare, then I would have to return back. But if, while I was going to Manchester, over the radio system I got another job, fine; there is absolutely no problem with that. What we are talking about is the guy or the girl, when they have finished doing the job, sitting in a neighboring borough, in some cases for several hours.
Q39 Mr. Leech(MP Manchester) That’s the issue about whether or not it is enforceable. How do you prove that Mr X has taken a job from Manchester to Stockport and he just happens to be waiting for the next fare which isn’t for another 10 minutes, so he is just waiting on the street for that next fare back? How do you actually enforce that change?
Tommy McIntyre: It’s so simple now with the event of satnavs and the way satellites work these days. All the data heads in a cab or private hire vehicle show where that vehicle was sent to and, indeed, will show if he is booked to do anything else. All licensing officers are trained to be able to get in that vehicle and read that machine. That is exactly where it would come from. An enforcement officer would look in and say, "You are sitting here. You have been here for half an hour or whatever. You haven’t got a job. Why are you sitting here?"
Q40 Mr Leech: The answer could be, "Well, I am actually on my break. I just happen to be here on my break."
Tommy McIntyre: "Take your break in your own area", I would have said.
Q11 Mr Leech (Manchester) : Mr McIntyre, I can understand your argument for wanting to make the change and, certainly, on the comment that Mr Rix made about Berwick Council licensing taxis that were operating in Paignton, clearly that is ridiculous and the enforcement of those taxis would be incredibly difficult. But in certain areas, and I will use my own constituency as an example, my constituency borders both Stockport on one side and Trafford on the other side, and there are private hire operators who are based in Manchester but incredibly close to the border with Stockport or the border with Trafford on the other side. Surely, in terms of customers who might live on the Stockport side of the border as opposed to the Manchester side of the border, they may be disadvantaged in certain circumstances if a taxi base is very close to their house but on the wrong side of the border. Wouldn’t it be better to have an area within which a base could operate as opposed to necessarily just the local authority?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa....0-i/uc72001.htm
After reading this evidence and the replies from the Committee members I believe that the forthcoming report will recommend a National Private hire licence for both Drivers and vehicles. Local authority licenses for Operating bases. I also believe they will de-limit all taxis in area’s where a limit still exists.
The whole report talks about the difficulties in taking enforcement action because of costs, ability or inclination. The answer to this is, if you cant stop the crime, decriminalize, stop it being an offence.
The report will be the first step of a huge argument across the nation. As Griffin says in his evidence “There are vested interests here and those vested interests have to be told, "We have bigger interests than you.”
Please read the full report and let me know if I have it all wrong.
Manchester Taxis, Stockport Taxis, Manchester Airport Taxis, Taxis Cheshire: 0161 483 1099
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