Speeches by Greenwood.

“Obviously, there are lots of different options around tackling out-of-area working: for example, that you could only pick up a fare in your area and take it somewhere else, and do another one from wherever you were back into the area. As Liz said earlier, there are some disadvantages of making those sorts of restrictio…”

“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…”

“Perhaps we were less worried about carbon emissions, congestion and things. Obviously, one of the other issues is about there being sufficient service availability, particularly when you have major events. When there is a major event happening, particularly in your city or my city, you will get taxi and private hire ve…”

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

“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…”

“I do not think it is a good situation that so many drivers are licensing with Wolverhampton. I would not want to give that impression. I get the impression, just from the conversations I have with colleagues who have not looked into taxis and private hire, that perhaps Wolverhampton was being unfairly penalised as bein…”

“The disadvantage of having local authorities demand a particular sort of branding is precisely because people often work for a number of operators and, therefore, drivers might object to that. Obviously, taxis having a particular livery in their local authority is probably commonplace, but for PHVs if you require a sta…”

“We certainly want to draw on it. I would be very clear that there is a need for fundamental change to the regulations to put them all in a sensible place. We have the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976), and then we just have a series of sticking plasters really to tr…”

“That is a really important question. There are some areas that I do not think we would actually allow for any variation from. When it comes to safeguarding, safety and accessibility, we want to set standards that it would be hard to improve on. For example, when it comes to safeguarding, we want every local authority t…”

“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…”

“I am the Minister for Local Transport.”

“Alongside the combined authority area.”

“I do not have a strong view on that, but those are some of the issues we would want to consider.”

“That would be against our best practice guidance.”

“The current guidance around what is fit and proper is almost like your family route: would you feel confident to put someone who is close to you in a car with this person at any time of the day or night? That is an easily understandable test, frankly. It is possible to draw up a list of what is fit and proper. It is qu…”

“No, no, no. I was trying to make sure I understood what you were getting at.”

“Obviously, we want there to be sufficient wheelchair accessible vehicles that serve the needs of disabled people who want them. It is fair to highlight the fact that wheelchair accessible vehicles are not necessarily the best accessible vehicles for all disabled people, because the higher step in and quite large area i…”

“Probably early April, yes.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Deaths and serious injuries resulting from road traffic collisions tear apart families and communities, and they come at great cost to our national health service and our country. Those are just some of the reasons why we are acting to reduce them.”

“Safer roads are an essential pillar of the safe system approach that underpins our road safety strategy. We have had a number of conversations about investments in infrastructure, and road safety remains the top priority for National Highways as it devises its road investment strategy.”