Making the case for national standards

You can’t help but admire the way Steve McNamara goes about his business. As the prime representative of the London hackney carriage trade, he’s tireless in his efforts to put the black cab at the top of the Capital’s transport agenda.

Unfortunately, this results in the wishes of a dwindling number of traditional taxi drivers gaining unwarranted priority over those of the private hire trade – a business that outnumbers the black cabs by nearly five to one, and which always seems to get the rough end of the stick when it comes to TfL’s attempts to regulate our industry.

McNamara was centre stage again at the recent attempt by the London Assembly to come up with some kind of action plan for Mayor Sadiq Khan.

The agenda ended up being dominated by the whinges and gripes of the cabbies. For example, the LEVC taxi is too expensive. Forcing the dirty diesel ‘black bombers’ off the road has damaged our residuals. The knowledge is too difficult. We get speeding tickets in 20mph zones. And so on.

By the time the London Assembly had listened to all that, made some vague recommendations and addressed the vexed question of the infernal Pedicab market, what was left for the private hire sector? Not a lot. Some glib platitudes about cross-border hiring, capping numbers and licensing apps.

Meanwhile the TfL policy juggernaut rolls on, demanding that cars be festooned with ludicrous warning stickers and restricting the choice of vehicles to such an extent that many operators will simply hang on to their older cars.

As for chauffeurs – who represent almost as many drivers as the hackney trade –there was not even a mention. The professional drivers who transport the great and the good might as well not exist. The private hire and chauffeur sectors need to raise their voices!

The overall takeaway from the London Assembly report is of a regulator and a group of politicians who do not understand their own market, and are prepared to bow to the strongest winds – emanating in this case from the formidable Mr McNamara.

Meanwhile in Manchester, even Mayor Andy Burnham, one of the more able politicians (I know that’s not saying much!), is getting his knickers in a twist over the Deregulation Act.

Why are so many Manchester-based drivers getting licensed in Wolverhampton, he wailed. Maybe it’s because Greater Manchester councils are charging too much and taking too long to issue licenses?

And no, the process is not somehow less stringent just because it’s cheaper and quicker to get a license in Wolverhampton. The DBS checks are the same, and so, to a very large extent, are the vehicle and driver standards.

Wolverhampton has seen an opportunity and grabbed it, hiring extra people to speed up the process. If Manchester wants to stop its drivers using Wolverhampton, there’s a simple answer – match the West Midlands city in terms of price and efficiency.

Of course all this – and the London issues – could be fixed at a stroke if we had a proper system of national licensing for private hire and taxi drivers and vehicles. Not the vague “minimum standards” that have been mooted in previous reviews of the sector.

A proper national license, costing the same wherever you are in the UK, and requiring the same checks and balances.

A national license could be administered by any council – but the standards would be the same and so would the costs. A central database has already been mooted as the way to ensure that any council knows the history of every driver, and every car.

This would remove nonsense about window tints and other nif-naf that gets council knickers in a collective twist. And it would stop half-witted licensing authorities imposing arbitrary bans on specific vehicles, or forcing beleaguered drivers out of the trade because they cannot afford to upgrade to an EV that they can’t even use because there is inadequate local charging infrastructure.

The Deregulation Act was a positive step in this direction. The only reason councils don’t like it is that they are losing money to sharper neighbours such as Wolverhampton.

What we really need is a proper, national debate, not countless regional and local attempts to rearrange the furniture. And that debate needs to be led by the industry, not the politicians and bureaucrats.

We know our industry better than they do. And even though we don’t have a united front, we should be able to reach a sensible consensus, that looks after the needs of all industry participants from ride-hailing driver to black cabbie to big fleet to top-line chauffeur. Can’t we?