Speeches by Greenwood.

“I am absolutely aware of the issues and it is not a good situation. I do not want people to shop around for licences. The idea of introducing national minimum standards is partly because we wanted to act quickly, particularly in response to Baroness Casey’s recommendations, and there was an opportune way to do that. We…”

“National minimum standards is what we are introducing in this current legislation to make a very valuable first step in tackling the issues that Baroness Casey identified. Certainly, in our discussions with her, she has been incredibly supportive both of national minimum standards and of us changing the licensing level…”

“Thanks, Chair, I am really glad to be here having this discussion. I want to see the sector better regulated, and the public to have a range of services that they can be confident are safe, accessible, available and affordable, whether that is in a taxi or a private hire vehicle. It is absolutely clear to everyone that…”

“That is not something that I have had a discussion about.”

“As we develop our proposals in the future, we absolutely want to draw on the work that the Law Commission and the task and finish group did. Although it is now a little while ago—I think it was 12 years ago—many of the issues that they identified and put forward suggestions around have not changed markedly. We would ab…”

“I absolutely agree that emissions are a big issue, particularly in our towns and cities. It is perhaps less of an issue for a taxi and PHV operating in a much more rural area. There is an argument for saying that if you are a licensing authority primarily looking after a city or urban area, that it is reasonable to inc…”

“Yes.”

“The other thing to say, of course, is that the more requirements we put in, the more cost we put into the system. That has consequences, does it not? We know that a lot of people rely on taxis and private hire vehicles, particularly people who perhaps cannot afford a car of their own, or disabled people who would not b…”

“The power that is set out in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill would give us the ability to put requirements on that. I would be interested in the Committee’s view. Obviously, there is a big incentive for local authorities to process licence applications in a timely fashion, particularly if you want…”

“I do not think so. We are quite open to looking at the views that people want to put forward.”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd; I know you have a deep personal commitment to road safety. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon) on securing this debate and thank him for raising the vital issue of road safety and vulnerable users, specifically horse riders. It is clear that t…”

“It is going to be because it has invested in doing that. It is almost self-fulfilling that, once you have done all that, you are going to become faster and more efficient. I do not think it is an ideal situation. We want people to be licensing where they intend to work. That is why we have looked at these short-term me…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I agree with him. As has already been noted, despite the investment of £2.4 million in paid advertising raising road users’ awareness of the changes to the code, it is clear that more action is needed. As set out in the strategy, we are considering options to improve the saf…”

“That would be against our best practice guidance.”

“My hon. Friend has made his point very well. We will also continue to encourage safer road user behaviours in order to improve safety for all vulnerable road users, including horse riders, motorcyclists, cyclists, pedestrians and road workers. Our flagship road safety campaign, THINK!, will continue to do that, alongsi…”

“As a Government we already set standards for vehicle emissions to protect everyone who uses our roads. With vehicle age there is obviously an issue around vehicle safety, so we require all vehicles on our roads to undergo an MOT. It would not be unreasonable to think that for taxis and PHVs, which are obviously doing a…”

“There are two things. Obviously, by its nature, if we move from 263 to 70, there will be a greater degree of consistency because there will be fewer licensing authorities each approaching it in its own way. There is the potential for greater efficiency just by making the licensing authority a larger organisation. If we…”

“It is about what the necessary standards are. What is the licensing authority there to do? Clearly, it is about ensuring that the public are safe, have a quality of service, and are not going to face discrimination. To give you one example: there is one local authority that requires that PHV drivers wear shirt and trou…”

“Let us not pretend that there is a "nothing is going to change" option here because, in the context of local government reorganisation, there is already going to be change in many places about what the licensing area is. Part of bringing it to a strategic level is just to make it more manageable and sensible for people…”

“Obviously, I was not the Minister responsible for taxi and private hire at that time, but my instinct is that there was already a recognition of the importance of ensuring that safeguarding was incorporated in our standards. Casey gave us further evidence and greater impetus to make sure that these things were in place…”