Speeches by Arthur.

“You do not know if earnings are going up or down in relation to inflation, including waiting time.”

“Kimberly, I am picking on you but I think others have made the same point. You talked about the lack of incentives and training for drivers of accessible vehicles, but you could provide those incentives and training if you wanted to—as a company.”

“Black cab companies are able to operate at a profit in the most part, as I understand, with accessible vehicles, but for some reason you are saying that your business model is not compatible with that. Is it not that you are hammering down prices and disabled people are paying the price for that? I am looking at you bu…”

“Yes.”

“You could choose to have more accessible vehicles in your fleet and that would come at a cost to all riders. That is just the way it would work. I am picking on you, which is unfair—”

“Very quickly, James, before I was elected here last year I was a councillor in Edinburgh and I sat on the committee that dealt with taxi drivers. I thought that the flow of information between the police and the local authorities was very good and the police were quite precautionary in their approach. They would tell t…”

“Emma, if I was to call an Uber, how likely is it to be a wheelchair-accessible vehicle?”

“Is it more than 5% likely, more than 50% likely, more than 1% likely?”

“Is it not shameful you do not know?”

“I do not hear friends and colleagues telling me they find it difficult to get taxis anywhere.”

“Is that not incredible that you do not know? Is that not quite important? What does it say about your values as a company that you do not know how much of your fleet is accessible to wheelchair users?”

“So this is about you meeting minimum requirements rather than showing leadership and having more accessible vehicles in your fleet?”

“I think this was covered earlier to some extent by Emma’s comments about wheelchair-accessible vehicles. My question was whether you think we should mandate these in local authorities. I think you already said yes to that earlier, but I guess it is about how we do that. First, do you have some idea in mind of what prop…”

“Yes, because you are undercutting them with a cheaper fleet. That is what is happening.”

“Exactly.”

“I think I can predict the answer to my first question. There is evidence that app-based companies are focusing too much on their business model and not enough on compliance. Is there any truth in the suggestion that your business model comes before compliance with your local licensing arrangements?”

“You will say the same, I assume, Emma?”

“Perhaps a more legitimate concern is that in many jurisdictions you operate, I understand you do not have a physical presence in terms of a contact point. You may have a phone number or an email address but you do not have a physical person. What does that mean for interactions with you? If your customer—or one of your…”

“Thanks for making the point about video, Saskia. I am now kicking myself for not asking this in the previous session where video and audio recording came up. I do not want to lead you too much in your answer, but what access arrangements do you want around that recorded data? If you have a taxi or an Uber where you are…”

“Are they staffed?”