Rogue council handing out taxi licences ‘like sweeties’ - Andrew Gwynne MP
Aden Simpson
| PoliticsHome
Labour MP Andrew Gwynne talks to PoliticsHome about closing a loophole in nineteenth-century taxi licensing laws which currently enables previous offenders to drive cabs unchecked.
What do you do if you’ve been refused a taxi licence by your local authority for a history of violence, or even child sexual exploitation? For thousands of would-be cab drivers, the answer has been “Rossendale.”
Thanks to a loophole in hackney carriage law that dates back to 1847, a small local authority in Lancashire is handing out taxi licences “like sweeties” to anyone rejected by their own council, as a way of generating extra income.
While the hackney carriage licence stipulates that drivers must only operate as a hackney carriage - able to pick up customers from the street or taxi ranks - within the boundaries of the issuing authority, they are permitted to operate with a private hire company, such as Uber, anywhere in the UK.
“Its an abuse of power, and the consequences are really quite serious,” said Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, a nearby constituency. “Not just for local taxi companies - because it’s flooding the market with Rossendale taxi plates - but also because passengers are effectively getting into cars with people who their local authority have deemed unsuitable to have a taxi licence.”
“In Tameside, and other Greater Manchester authorities, they have stringent checks for people who apply for taxi licences. They look at criminal records, incidences of violence, child sexual exploitation, all those kinds of things,” he added.
“Yet there’s a local authority, Rossendale, that’s basically handing out taxi licences like sweeties as an income generation scheme, and it’s a problem for every other local authority.”
According to figures released today by Tameside Council, Rossendale issued 2,500 hackney carriage licences in 2015, for a population of around 70,000; one taxi for every 28 people and, more than all ten of Greater Manchester’s metropolitan authorities put together.
In contrast, Tameside Council has a population of 220,000, and only 150 hackney carriages.
Rossendale taxi plates have been spotted operating as far away as Bristol. This alternative route is so well-known in fact, that when typing ‘hackney carriage’ into Google the first suggested search term is ‘Rossendale.’
“The fact is they’re using it as income generation, to subsidise their libraries and swimming pools and council services,” Gwynne added. “That’s great, but actually it’s really destroying the taxi business across Greater Manchester, which is the nearest neighbour to Rossendale, and it’s also undermining some of the fundamental principles of the taxi license regime.”
He gave an example from one of his constituents in Tameside, who after being racially abused by a private taxi driver, took down the taxi plate and reported the incident to Tameside Council. It later emerged the driver had been refused a licence by Tameside for ‘legitimate reasons,’ but then received one from Rossendale without the same checks.
“If you decided that you wanted to be a taxi driver in Bristol and you’d been turned down by Bristol Council for various reasons - it might be a history of violence, or because you have racist views, a variety of reasons you’d be refused - but you know that you can get one from Rossendale and operate on the streets of Bristol, you’re going to do it.”
With the rise in app-based private hire companies, such as Uber and Lyft, the need to update the licensing regime is even more urgent.
“This applies to Uber in exactly the same way,” said Gwynne. “They’re private hire vehicles that come to pick you up when you order a taxi through Uber. In terms of public safety and assurance, you want the confidence that the person who’s come to pick you up to take you wherever it is you’re going, actually has been subject to the appropriate checks, and not just been given a licence willy-nilly.
“The rules need tightening up,” he added. “I’m sure in 1847 when these rules were drafted nobody appreciated all those years later that Rossendale Council would be exploiting what they’ve found is an income generating loop hole.”
