Sam Carling

I strongly support this Bill and was proud to serve on the Committee. The Bill will deliver an enormous transfer of power out of this place and into our local communities. As a former councillor, I know that trusting local representatives to make decisions about local services and issues leads to much stronger outcomes. I want to speak strongly in favour of the Government’s new clauses 49 to 57, which provide for the introduction of national minimum standards for taxi licensing. I am delighted to see the Government bringing forward those measures, which I and others, many of whom have spoken today, have proposed to tackle the huge problem with cross-border licensing, which is an issue for both taxi drivers and passengers. Right now, local councils have significant flexibility around taxi licensing policy, without a baseline, which means there is huge variance between councils. Yet drivers can operate anywhere once licensed. Unsurprisingly, that creates huge demand for licensing from councils with laxer standards. Wolverhampton has become the UK’s taxi licensing hub. In the first five months of last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) mentioned, the council issued over 8,500 licences, which is more than 30 times any other council in the midlands. From April 2023 to March 2024, 96% of licences went to people living elsewhere. Wolverhampton-licensed taxis now operate nationwide, and a third of taxis in Manchester are registered in Wolverhampton, 80 miles away. That is not the drivers’ fault, as seeking out the best deal possible is understandable, particularly if it is cheaper or if processing times are faster. However, there are several problems. First, drivers who do the right thing and register locally are undercut by those going to councils with weaker standards, creating a race to the bottom that harms both drivers and passengers. We must emphasise that drivers want this to be fixed too, so that rogue operators can be dealt with. There is a real democratic deficit: local authorities cannot regulate their own standards effectively and they lose control, as seen in Peterborough in my area, where plans for CCTV in taxis had to be dropped because locally licensed drivers would pay more while others would avoid the cost by licensing elsewhere. Secondly, climate and emissions aims are undermined too. Peterborough city council will not license a vehicle that is over nine years old, but Wolverhampton allows cars up to 12 years old. There is a lot of variance on that.