Exactly Station Loon this man is a complete and utter muppet he is going to wreck the taxi trade in Scotland in his greed to get a plate. At the moment in Kirkcaldy rank space is at a premium day and night with overspilling ranks and a constant battle with Traffic Wardens. If this muppet gets derestriction god its unthinkable. Drivers at the moment are struggling to earn £20 per day from around 12 hires this man is living in cloud cuckoo land

Letter to Ms Sandra White MSP - SNP

Dear Ms White

I was encouraged by your statement in the News of the World that you propose to raise the matter of the blackmarket in taxi licences with Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

For your information, please find attached my report "Breachiing Human Rights" which highlights the practices of Edinburgh's council in its deliberate actions to protect the blackmarket which operates here. This includes its hiking of application fees to four times the next highest in Scotland in order to deter such applications and avoid pressure on issuing licences which would be to the detriment of the operating cartel and blackmarket trade in licences.

It is the artificial restriction of taxi licences that creates the under supply premium which has seen licences being traded for £50,000 on the blackmarket.

Drivers recognise unmet demand in the marketplace which leads to public safety being compromised as difficulty hailing a cab encourages the public to take risks with unlicensed vehicles - as highlighted in the NOTW article.

Knowing this, Edinburgh recently denied 92 licences, appeals are now in court and appear to be being deliberately protracted by the council.

The council discriminated against applicants by granting to those on a closed interested parties list which has no foundation in Law - as was attested to by Lady Cosgrove in the case - Dundee Taxi Company v Dundee City Counccil (details in attached document). This is contrary to natural justice.

Recently Aberdeen Council de-restricted its taxi licensing claiming that it was anti-competitive, was unsustainable and and no longer justifiable. West Lothian is also de-restricting.

De-restricting taxi licences would end at a swoop the blackmarket for taxi licences and return control of licences back to the councils.

Was it the intention of Parliament that restricting licences should lead to them being traded as a commodity on the blackmarket whereby qualified taxi drivers are denied unfettered access to the tools of their trade, discriminating against them under Human Rights?

Why has the Scottish Parliament not reconsidered section 10(3) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 in accordance with both European and UK competition rules as well as the Human Rights Act 1998 - all of which were enacted after the 1982 Act?

Ms While, in the public interest, will you exhort Scotland's Parliament to do so now and update the Law accordingly in order to end the blackmarket in taxi licences and discrimination of qualified drivers denied unfettered access to the tools of their trade?

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Regards

Jim Taylor

Copies to Kenny Macskill - Justice Secretary
Richard Baker - Scoottish Labour Justice Spokesman
James Mulholland - NOTW Journalist
Gavin Brown MSP - Edinburgh & Lothians

I can tell you Kenny's response!!!
The situation is a retrospective mess "but IT's (plate values) here", Glasgow is dealing with IT.

All that will happen is Jim will force through tighter restriction as far as Multi plate holding is concerned, there is absolutly no chance in hell that our Capital city will de-restrict the number of licences.

I wrote to Kenny and the above quoted response was sent to me, Kenny has forwarded the idea to tighten restriction against multi plate holders on to CEC and the transport division, his response went on. We certainly need to clean matters up and things are happening in the west.

I've just checked my e-mail response from Kenny and it reads

eh !!!!!

you might want to check if you have an email account in the name of mckaskil

I've just checked my e-mail response from Kenny and it reads

The system is a mess, the trade in plates in retrospect a mistake, we certainly need to clean matters up and things are happening in the west, I'll factor this (my idea to tighten restriction of Multi plate holding) in to both Colin Keir and transport division here (scot gov) who deal with these matters.

As i say Kenny accepts that the problem is here as happened in NEW YORK, now don't you think like NEW YORK and to the benefit of NEW YORK rather than change your way JIM there is more chance CEC will tighten restriction on multi plate holding (the only problem highlighted by your notw article) and see the potential to actually make more money out of the profiteers (ECPH) rather than screw the hard working individuals who make this trade the professional trade it is

NEW YORK NEW YORK jim

you mean mckaskil is aware that local authorities are breaking the terms of the 1982 act.

kenny mckaskil ......our justice minister.

go on Dougie publish the whole email, blow the whistle.

on second thoughts you might want to check with him if its ok to blab.

you say this as though it matters.
Dougie you ain't in the debate never where and never will be.
all you've said so far is you've delivered your ideas through mckaskil's back door and yet you don't have the support of the trade,nor do you represent anyone,is that the kind of fair guy you are Dougie
your views have been slated by both sides as nonsense.
and they are.
as for the personal attacks.

a bit of banter is OK by me, its your ideas that are being discredited here if that discredits the author then so be it.

unlike you Dougie I've learn't to read exactly what is said by politicians.
what was really said was we will pretend to look into it,and we were not aware of the problem,even though they are fully aware because they implemented and facilitated it in the first place.