Why a taxi driver’s home address has nothing to do with the cross-border licensing problem
- Perry Richardson
- 6 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Calls to link taxi and private hire licensing to where a driver lives surfaced in Westminster, but the argument is drifting into territory that does little to solve the cross-border problem and risks creating new pressures the industry cannot absorb.
The place a driver lays their head at night has no bearing on licensing integrity. What matters is the authority under which they operate and whether the regulatory framework ensures they predominantly work in that area.
Hackney carriage drivers demonstrate this clearly. They can only ply for hire in the district that licenses them. No matter whether they rent a flat ten miles away or own a home fifty miles out, the law keeps them rooted to the licensing area when they are on the road. Their working geography, not their residential postcode, governs compliance. Cross-border activity is effectively controlled because the licensing area defines the operational boundary. Their living arrangements are irrelevant.
Private hire drivers, by contrast, fall into a different system where a booking can be accepted anywhere in England as long as the operator, driver and vehicle share the same licensing authority. This creates the conditions for cross-border working, but again, housing choices have nothing to do with it.
Debate over residency rules distracts from the real issue: where drivers work, not where they sleep
Layering a residency requirement on top of this would not touch the underlying cause. It would simply penalise drivers priced out of the places they serve. London illustrates the point without complication. Thousands of professional drivers meet the capital’s licensing requirements yet cannot afford to live within its boundaries. Suggesting they should uproot their families or accept lower earning potential elsewhere in order to continue working is not credible policy. The same pattern appears in Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh border regions and other urban centres where housing markets long ago outpaced driver earnings.
Residency rules would also leave the enforcement challenge unsolved. A driver could live locally yet still take bookings a hundred miles away if the licensing system allows it. Conversely, a driver living outside an area can still comply fully with the expectations of the authority that licenses them, as hackney carriage drivers do every day. The issue is whether licensing frameworks compel drivers to work in the district that regulates them, not whether council tax records match their badge.
The sector has pushed repeatedly for national minimum standards and a clear definition of where private hire work should take place. A start-or-finish rule, or a requirement to work predominantly in the licensing area, goes directly to the heart of the problem. It aligns regulation with operational geography, strengthens local oversight and removes the incentive to licence elsewhere. None of this requires dictating where a driver must live.
Housing pressures and wage constraints already weigh heavily on the workforce. Introducing a residency condition would add yet another hurdle and more red tape without addressing any of the structural drivers behind cross-border work. The task for policymakers is to regulate the activity, not the home address.
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