Plate parasites  (21/7/2004)

A view from Scotland on Dundee's new political party promoting the interests of taxi owners.

As local and national successes for the British National Party and the UK Independence Party demonstrate, political parties predominantly associated with a single issue can make some impact, but apart from the racist connotations brought to mind by these two nationally-based parties, there is surely no greater a cynical and self-serving entity as that now gelled around the interests of Dundee taxi owners - the People's Independent Party (PIP).

Despite some slightly misleading reports in the local media, the important point to note is that it is the interests of taxi owners that will be promoted by PIP, not drivers per se; while this distinction may seem unimportant at first glance, particularly to those outside the trade, it is of fundamental importance.

As the ten years or so to last year's de-restriction of taxi numbers ably demonstrated, the main interest promoted by taxi owners, and indeed the central plank of PIP's raison d'etre, namely to restrict the number of taxis operating, serves only the interests of these owners and not the bulk of drivers nor the trade more generally.

Capping taxi numbers has not limited the number of vehicles operating in Dundee; all it has done is to force some drivers to drive for existing taxi owners or confine them to the private hire market, which in turn has benefited fleet owners.  The number of taxi drivers' badges in issue has increased steadily and has not depended on the number of taxis - from around 1,300 in the late nineties, to 1,500 at the turn of the decade to over 1,700 today.  Likewise, those who complain about the sudden increase in taxis following Dundee City Council's 2003 decision to grant licenses to anyone presenting a wheelchair accessible vehicle have clearly not examined the figures in any kind of detail.  Comparing the first six months of 2003 with this year (ie the period immediately following de-restriction) shows little change in the figures - the licensing committee generally considers applications for something around 15 new badges each month; this is less than one per cent of the total badges in issue, and there is no evidence of any significant surge in applications.

Thus limiting the number of taxis was all about decreasing the number of vehicles and providing a steady increase in new badges to solve the driver 'shortage'.  Those who complain about being worse off since de-restriction are clearly not alluding to less work being available, but having less chance of a steady supply of drivers who are forced to drive for someone else and line their pockets for this dubious privilege.

Of course, another major facet of controlling taxi numbers was that affording taxi owners at one point in time a near permanent stranglehold over the right to operate a taxi in Dundee meant that before de-restriction probably most taxis were controlled by people whose only connection with the trade was the money that they extracted from it; butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country and indeed the world were able to control Dundee's taxis while many of those actually driving were treated as second-class citizens.

Another facet of this was of course the increasing illegal trade in plate-hiring, which meant that even promoting the restriction of taxi numbers as benefiting taxi owners was grossly inaccurate, since perhaps up to half of taxi plate holders did not actually operate a taxi.

Which brings us back to PIP - it's main policy would certainly not benefit the majority of drivers, nor even all of the minority of owners, but plate holders pure and simply, with all the illegality and exploitation that that would ultimately involve.

This is not purely hypothetical, since the use of the past tense above to refer to absentee operators and illegal plate hiring is in itself not entirely accurate since these problems have by no means been eradicated from the Dundee trade.  This is because Dundee City Council has not just de-restricted taxi numbers but has also placed new licenses at a considerable disadvantage as compared to the existing licenses.  This is primarily due to the considerably greater expense of running wheelchair accessible vehicles but also because of other onerous (and possibly illegal) conditions foisted onto new license holders, such as running the vehicle at less than its full seating capacity so that if they get a wheelchair job every few weeks or so the wheelchair can be loaded more quickly, not to mention membership of the Taxicard scheme, which was purely optional unless of course the new plate holder wouldn't join, in which case it would become purely compulsory(!).

Then there was the transfer of a £1,500 subsidy for operating accessible vehicles from the taxi owner to the members of the Taxicard scheme - ie from a subsidy to the taxi owner to a subsidy to the taxi user.  Of course, from the taxi user's perspective this course of action is entirely laudable, but for a councillor to claim that accessible vehicle owners losing out on the subsidy would be unaffected because they would get more Taxicard work is preposterous.

It should also be borne in mind that it was the watering down of the subsidy in the 1990s which decimated the number of accessible taxis in Dundee, so any political kudos claimed by councillors should be qualified in this regard.

Thus as well as being blatantly discriminatory, these more onerous conditions have perpetuated the previous problems of absentee operators and illegal plate hiring.  The latter problem was highlighted late last year in a skilful piece of news management that prepared the ground for de-restriction, but it has now been swept back under the carpet from whence it came, and there will presumably be no mention of this in PIP's manifesto.

Moreover, the recent concern of councillors about plate holders effectively running unlicensed vehicles due to their failing to meet the deadline for renewing their license seems somewhat synthetic since the numbers involved and the period of illegality is surely negligible compared to the past and ongoing problems with plate hiring.  If councillors are so 'absolutely appalled' about people getting into a taxi not knowing that the insurance is invalid because of misuse of the plate then why do they maintain policies that perpetuate this?  Moreover, it seems highly likely that many of the people missing the deadline are in fact hiring their plate out or at least have only a minimal involvement in the trade, since surely those with any real involvement in the trade would only exceptionally forget about the application deadline for renewals. The May 31st deadline has apparently been applicable for years, often with pre-publicity in the local press to remind license holders, these saloon plate holders have very probably had their license for at least a decade, and these missed deadlines have been an issue many times in the past. Thus many of those missing the deadline are probably not particularly deserving, yet they are still afforded a new saloon license with implied recognition from licensing committee members of the significantly more onerous environment relating to accessible taxi operation, which in turn underlines their double standards.

It is a pity that Dundee City Council did not use the carrot rather than the stick to encourage more accessible taxis, which would have rid the city of plate-hiring for good.  For example, when advertising on taxis was permitted several years ago one of the mooted benefits was that it would enable owners to more easily afford accessible vehicles, as well as keeping the lid on fares, but the first benefit has yet to be attained, while there is little evidence that the second has, but in any case this would penalise those owners who would prefer their vehicle not to look like a Strathmartine Road lamppost.

So taxi owners who enjoyed a closed market for years, and were also given the right to raise revenue from advertising half a dozen years ago to enable them to eventually run accessible vehicles, and were afforded a four-figure annual subsidy if they did want to run one, are still allowed to run cheap saloon cars.  Meanwhile, new plate holders are immediately subjected to an open market and must run significantly more costly vehicles, do not receive any subsidy and have to undertake time-consuming wheelchair work which many of the current saloon owners and drivers simply won't entertain.  Perhaps councillors should consult their own 'Equality and Diversity Team' for advice - but wait, Dundee City Council's pursuit of equality only applies to those disadvantaged by things like racism and disablement, not those disadvantaged by council fiat!

Councillors could in fact have easily delivered a level playing field for all by specifying accessible vehicles for every taxi license, with existing saloon plate holders perhaps afforded a reasonable phasing in period.  However, this seems unlikely, particularly given the reaction of saloon plate holders to the overall increase in taxi numbers, although PIP is likely to be nothing more than a damp squib, and the threats of strikes and blockades and the like are probably more huffing and puffing than anything concrete - the chances of the largely part-time/journeyman late-night weekend workforce staging any kind of effective strike is probably slim indeed.  In any case, a two-tier structure of saloon and accessible taxis at least allows those afforded preferential treatment to think that 'there but for the grace of Dundee councillors go I', thus at least giving them the satisfaction of knowing that things could be worse, which in turn has provided a useful bargaining tool for councillors.

Of course, the Scottish Executive could eventually come to the rescue and specify blanket accessible vehicles, which would eradicate the hire-plate problem and divert the flak from councillors.  Except, of course, that the Scottish Executive likes restricted numbers and doesn't like the mention of the consequent illegal plate hiring, so who knows what will happen in several years time.

While the wheelchair issue in general is perhaps straying a bit too far from Dundee and PIP, it is worth pointing out that the current accessible vehicles mess evident throughout the country could have been avoided if the Disability Discrimination Act had been implemented in an orderly manner, and if the Department for Transport in London can't sort this out, then how on earth the Scottish Executive and DfT expected local authorities to make a good fist of implementing the ethos of the Act unilaterally is anyone's guess.

But no one should be in any doubt about the motives of PIP with regard to taxis - it's self-interest, pure and simple.  Even if Dundee voters were naive enough to elect any councillors on such a self-serving  and narrow mandate, if many of these are taxi license holders then presumably on ethical grounds they would not be able to vote on taxi licensing questions anyway, which begs the question, what's the point?

Of course, the party will not be entirely single-issue, and its aim is apparently the laudable one of any elected councillors representing the views of ward residents (forthcoming proportional representation permitting) and not having to adhere to the party whip.  That is presumably unless it's in relation to limiting the number of taxis, where the interests of the PIP councillors will presumably take precedence, except, of course, that they won't be able to vote on it anyway.  Got that?

It does seem possible that PIP's connection with the taxi trade has been overdone and that the party is less single-issue and self-serving as it seems.  Indeed, it's main achievement so far seems to have been the generation of significant publicity regarding the intended closure of a path on a Dundee housing scheme.  Moreover, PIP's first leader, ex-SNP councillor Alan Petrie, has demonstrated little knowledge of the taxi trade in the past and indeed has seemed a little gaffe-prone.  For example, a few years ago he described the Dundee taxi trade as 'one of the best in Scotland'.  However, this was shortly after Dundee played host to taxis that councillors themselves described as 'old bangers' and 'so dangerous they could kill'.  This was also at a time when the council's policies had reduced the number of wheelchair accessible taxis to single figures, which represented around one per cent of the city's fleet.  And the number of illegal and uninsured 'hire-plate' taxis was ballooning to perhaps as many as half the total fleet.  Later Mr Petrie complained about private hire vehicles 'touting' for fares, but this seemed to be a complaint about little more than cars siting around waiting for work, which is in fact what PHVs do since they can hardly disappear off the face of the earth while waiting for work.  Moreover, Mr Petrie was presumably confusing 'touting' with 'plying for hire' since neither taxis nor PHV are allowed to tout.

PIP, assuming it ever gets properly up and running, smacks more of student politics than a party likely to have councillors elected or to get anywhere near the levers of power.  The recent history of taxi licensing in Dundee demonstrates the likely consequences of PIP's main policy, and to that extent PIP might as well stand for the Parasite's and Illegality Party.

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