Agenda item - Chair's Communications

23.1.    The Chair provided the following communications:

At the last Non-Licensing Committee I promised that there would be an Extraordinary Taxi forum in order to discuss issues raised by taxi firms about the safety of taxis in the city.  The meeting was held on the 21st December and the taxi companies and unions were well represented. Fred Jones, general manager for cities in the UK, was there to represent Uber.  There was a real opportunity to ask questions about safety and concerns about the large number of Transport for London taxis in the city.

At the last Committee meeting it was also stated that officers had tried to contact TfL in order to arrange a meeting to discuss the joint enforcement of taxis in Brighton and Hove - this helps to level the playing field a bit between Brighton and Hove Licensed taxis and Tfl licensed taxi drivers. The officers have continued to try and arrange a meeting but there has been no reply from any of the people contacted at Tfl.  After the Extraordinary taxi forum I wrote a letter to the Mayor of London and had a good response to a short while ago.

Here is a short extract from the letter:

"I believe that a national change is needed to address the issue of cross-border hiring so that all taxi and private hire vehicles journeys either start or end inthe area in which the driver, vehicle and operator is licensed. As part of my taxi and Private Hire Action Plan,I committed to lobby Government for a change in the law. The action plan is available on Tf l's website.

Both my Deputy Mayor for Transport,Val Shawcross CBE, and I have raised this issue with Government Ministers and the Department for Transport. Whilst

this issue is recognised by the DFT,it has stated that it is not minded at this stage to introduce such a requirement.This is disappointing but I believe the issue needs to be addressed and we will continue to lobby Government. I would welcome your support in raising this issue".

The Mayor goes on to give me a contact name at TfL,saying that the contact would be happy to meet us.We are at present in the process of arranging that meeting”.

The Local Government Association is also committed to lobbying the government for a change in the legislation regarding taxis as a considerable number of local authorities are experiencing problems with Tfl licensed taxi drivers. I went to a Licensing Conference at the LGA in early February and this issue of taxis was addressed there and I heard of the many problems experienced in places such as Birmingham, Bristol and Worthing.

Indeed to inform the committee that at the last Taxi Forum the representatives from local taxi firms and unions all left the meeting in protest at three Brighton and Hove licensed taxi drivers being there as representatives of Uber. Officers are determining how to organise the next taxi forum meeting in May.

We continue to scrutinise Uber with great care and attention as we are obliged to because the renewal of their licence in November is dependent on it.