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New bill plugs gaps in disability rights for taxi and PHV users Mark Bursa Legislation passed by parliament last month will give disabled people new rights when travelling by taxis or private hire vehicles, although there are already concerns over how well they will be enforced. The private member’s bill aims to fill gaps in the protection given to disabled people under sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act 2010. One of the gaps concerns laws that impose fines of up to £1,000 on drivers of taxis and private hire vehicles who refuse to accept wheelchair-users, try to charge them extra, or fail to provide them with appropriate assistance. But those laws – finally brought into force in 2017 following delays from successive governments – only apply in those areas of England, Scotland and Wales where a local authority has drawn up a list of all the wheelchair-accessible taxis and private hire vehicles in their area. The new ‘Taxis and private hire vehicles (disabled persons) bill’, originally introduced by Conservative MP Jeremy Wright, will now force all local authorities to maintain and publish such a list. But it will also impose new duties on drivers of vehicles that are not wheelchair-accessible to carry a disabled person and their mobility aid and provide “reasonable assistance”, without charging extra, for example if a wheelchair-user wants to transfer to the passenger seat and store their wheelchair in the boot of the vehicle.
The Equality Act already bans operators of private hire vehicles from refusing a booking because the passenger will be accompanied by an assistance dog, but the new legislation will also now prevent them refusing bookings from any disabled person because of their impairment, or from charging them extra for providing them with assistance. Junior transport minister Baroness Vere said this week that the government had given the bill its “full support” and that it “goes a long way” to reducing the impact of discrimination on disabled people, who “rely on taxis and private hire vehicles more than most”. Transport access campaigner Doug Paulley, who has fought for years to highlight gaps in the legislation and its enforcement, welcomed the new
bill and the strengthened rights it offered. But he said the problem with the bill was that it relied on existing enforcement mechanisms. He said: “By making it a criminal offence for taxi drivers to discriminate against us in various ways, parliament clearly intended to make it easier and more effective to enforce. But the number of such prosecutions, compared to the number of such incidents, makes it very clear that this legislation is not enforced and discrimination is rife. “The postcode lottery is a massive factor, with different taxi licensing authorities having very different competence, policy and energy in this area. Bringing other disabled people up to the same protection wheelchair and assistance dog users currently have is a very low bar indeed!”
It is the second taxi-related blunder to hit the council after it emerged that signs directing the public to new city centre taxi ranks had not been put in place. Drivers said they were losing income because customers didn’t know where to find a taxi while the traditional Old Town Street rank was out of commission due to city centre redevelopment works. Martin Leaves, secretary of the hackney cabbies’ Plymouth Licensed Taxi Association (PLTA), said: “Some people say not having the knowledge test would make it quicker to recruit drivers, but do we
want them driving around using a satnav? We want drivers to be professional, and to be professional they should do the knowledge test.” Plymouth councillors approved the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy 2022 at its March full council meeting. The police has been dogged with controversy because it removes the limit on hackney cab numbers and insists that “black cabs” are painted green and white by 2027. The council had wanted to remove the necessity of private hire drivers having to pass the Knowledge of Plymouth (KOP) Topographical Test. But although the policy had been dropped, the document the councillors voted for still contained the wording “Topographical Knowledge of Plymouth (KOP) test (for hackney carriage applications only)”. A Plymouth City Council spokesperson said: “We are sorry for any confusion caused and will be reviewing this to determine whether to return the policy back to full council.”
Council blunder means Plymouth PH drivers can avoid knowledge test A Plymouth City Council blunder has meant new private hire drivers will not have to take a knowledge test of the city’s streets. Councillors voted to accept a controversial new taxi licensing policy in March 2022 - but a misprint that wasn’t noticed meant they approved the test only for new hackney drivers. So from May 1, new private hire drivers do not have to take a knowledge test. Now councillors want to amend the error, but cannot do so until a full council meeting, which can’t be called until after the May local elections.
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MAY 2022
