TAXI AND PHV INQUIRY: MPs told cross-border licensing chaos is ‘flooding’ regions with drivers and driving down pay
- Perry Richardson
- 11m
- 4 min read
Union leaders and industry bodies have told MPs the taxi and private hire licensing system across England is “broken”, warning that a lack of national standards and weak enforcement is putting both drivers and passengers at risk.
Giving evidence to the Transport Committee last month on 15 October, representatives from Unite the Union, GMB, the National Private Hire and Taxi Association (NPHTA), and the Licensed Private Hire Car Association (LPHCA) set out the serious problems they say are facing the trade due to outdated legislation and patchy regulation.
Paul James from Unite called the current structure “broken and needs fixing”, blaming successive governments for failing to act: “They have let the profession of taxi and private hire down immensely by not ever implementing any recommendations from the Transport Committee in 2011, the task and finish group report and the Law Commission.”
The session focused heavily on the consequences of cross-border hiring. David Lawrie of the NPHTA told MPs that “flooding of many regions” with out-of-area drivers was reducing earnings and forcing drivers to work excessive hours. “That means that the cost and the income for the drivers are massively reduced, which then means they have to work longer hours in order to comfortably maintain a living wage.”
James added: “We have drivers living in their vehicles over the weekends… reports from our members at Manchester airport and Heathrow… drivers who live in their vehicles. We believe it has a massive impact on their mental health.”
Andy Mahoney from LPHCA described licensing policy as “a mess”, with over 270 licensing authorities operating different rules. He said the result is an industry where enforcement and compliance are impossible to manage effectively.
He urged: “The solution has to be one single, absolute, national standard for licensing and enforcement. That way, everybody works on the same level.”
Calls were made for councils to be given national enforcement powers to suspend or fine drivers operating in their area regardless of where they are licensed. At present, officers must refer issues to the licensing authority that issued the driver’s badge, creating delays and enforcement gaps.
Unite’s James said: “If nothing else, we need to source the professionalism of the taxi and private hire trade, accredited training and standards, close the cross-border hiring loophole and give national enforcement powers to licensing officers.”
MPs were told of growing concern around safety, with abuse of drivers now a regular feature of the job. Lawrie said the situation is worse than official figures suggest: “We believe that it is a lot more than 50% of drivers who are subject to verbal and physical, violent, racial attacks.” He added: “Drivers do not report it because… there is a very slim possibility that the police will turn up.”
GMB’s Eamon O’Hearn warned: “There is no body that is necessarily responsible for them; again, they fall through the cracks.” He said drivers lacked employment protections seen elsewhere in the transport sector, calling the trade a “Cinderella element”.
The lack of proper complaint handling was also criticised. James described a system where drivers are suspended or lose their licence on the strength of unproven claims: “They then have to prove that they are not guilty before somebody has proven that they are guilty.”
Mahoney warned that complaint systems are unworkable: “What is a complaint? Was it that a red car turned up when they actually wanted a white car? That we were five minutes late? What is a complaint?”
CCTV and audio recording were backed as deterrents against abuse. Lawrie, who also operates a CCTV business, said councils often misunderstand data protection rules and that more should be done to educate authorities and drivers. “There has to be an absolute national standard,” he said, noting that more than 100 councils have adopted a shared approach already.
James added that Unite recommends drivers have approved CCTV and their own data controller licence to manage footage securely. “It will become a deterrent for unsocial behaviour towards drivers and protect the travelling public,” he told the committee.
The use of national platforms and digital dispatch systems has also exposed flaws in the 2015 Deregulation Act. James described it as being abused: “It gives operators the power to transfer a job to another operator for them to complete the journey… the whole system is being imploded by platform-based operators.”
The session exposed divisions in how to resolve cross-border working. Unite backed a “start or finish” test to keep jobs local. Others, like Mahoney, argued for preserving flexibility, especially for rural areas and specialist work. “If we do not have cross-border, then the people who flood into an area will just be licensed with that area that they flood into,” he said.
Looking to the future, O’Hearn suggested growing combined authorities may help deliver the kind of joined-up regulation that is lacking now. But without action, he warned that drivers will continue to fall through regulatory cracks: “You have a significant gap in that area.”
Committee members will hold further sessions with operators and other stakeholders to assess whether changes to law, enforcement or devolution could close those gaps.
