Does Andy Burnham have a point on out-of-area taxis and private hire working? Industry signals suggest he does
- Perry Richardson
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is right to question whether government plans to merely reduce out-of-area private hire working will deliver the change ministers are promising, according to a growing body of evidence from within the licensing and enforcement community.
Burnham’s stance on the topic is rooted in a long-standing concern that cross-border hiring has weakened local oversight and diluted accountability in the Greater Manchester region. While the Department for Transport’s proposal to consolidate licensing into around 70 local transport authorities represents the most significant reform in decades, it stops short of an outright ban on out-of-area working, a gap Burnham argues risks repeating past mistakes.
Support for a tougher approach is not limited to Greater Manchester. A number of licensing authorities and regional leaders have publicly backed an “ABBA-style” model, which refers to a system where drivers can only take bookings that start or finish within the area that issued their licence.
That debate is centred by the findings of the Casey Review into group-based child sexual exploitation, led by Baroness Carey, which exposed serious failures in safeguarding, data sharing and regulatory oversight. The report highlighted how fragmented systems allowed risks to go unmanaged across boundaries, raising questions over whether partial reform is sufficient given the severity of what went wrong.
Support grows for tougher regional control, but questions remain over whether Government reforms match the scale of past failures
Under the government’s plans, areas such as Greater Manchester would move from 10 district licensing authorities to a single body, likely administered by Transport for Greater Manchester. Ministers argue this would reduce boundary-hopping and improve enforcement, but critics note that it does not eliminate the issue altogether. Drivers would still be able to work across the borders of these larger regions, retaining many of the same pressures seen today.
The practical question is how different those regional borders would be from the existing council lines. A driver licensed just outside a large transport authority area could still legally operate within it, particularly in busy urban fringe zones. For passengers and enforcement teams, distinguishing between locally licensed vehicles and those from neighbouring regions may remain just as complex.
National minimum standards, also proposed by the Department for Transport, would raise the baseline for checks and safeguarding, but they are unlikely to remove cost differentials between regions. Local policies on vehicle emissions, age limits, CCTV, accessibility and testing regimes will continue to vary, shaping operating costs in ways that incentivise licence shopping.
For Burnham and those aligned with his view, that undermines the idea that consolidation alone will solve the problem. Without stronger limits on where licensed vehicles can operate, they argue, the system risks entrenching a larger-scale version of the same market distortions that prompted reform in the first place.
As the consultation progresses, the central question is whether government is prepared to go beyond reduction and accept a case for stopping cross-border hiring or a ABBA style model.
