Taxi Driver Online

Minister calls for national taxi standards to stop "easy rides" from councils offering second-rate licences during visit to Worcester

https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/18 ... worcester/


Robin Walker, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Worcester (left) with Nus Ghani, taxi minister in Worcester on Thursday November 14 (Image: Worcester News)

TAXIS need higher national standards and drivers should not be able to get an 'easy ride' from councils offering second-rate licences, the taxis minister has said.

Transport Minister Nus Ghani said setting standards applicable to all councils would prevent cab drivers from obtaining a licence from a neighbouring authority with less stringent rules before plying their trade elsewhere, during a visit to Worcester.

Ms Ghani said the rule changes in 2015 which allowed cross-border hiring were not a mistake but how people used taxis and “the world had moved on.”

She said: “My perfect scenario would have been that we had a central database that is managed centrally.

“Local authorities love running their licensing remit and there is no way I was going to remove that from them.

"The standards have to be the same. We have to be transparent. When people don’t have the right to have a licence, they should be denied it regardless of where they go.”

Ms Ghani said taxis were a “moving trade” and it was difficult to now set boundaries as it would make things very complicated.

Taxi bosses in the city have previously criticised the change in rules because it allows “every Tom, Dick and Harry" to ply their trade.

Mohammad Sajad, from Worcester Taxi Drivers Association, said Foregate Street was a "mess" and over-ranking was caused by too many taxi licences being handed out by councils outside of the city and Worcester City Council needed to carry out more enforcement.

Ms Ghani visited Unity House in Stanley Road with Conservative parliamentary candidate for Worcester Robin Walker on Thursday (November 14).

Ms Ghani said the plan to put the plan into law was due to start over the summer but had been thwarted by Brexit.

She said: “Once we have raised those standards, it means that phishing around for a quicker licence, a licence which is just easier to secure because somebody behind a desk says ‘that is fine by me, because we’re related and I know you’ or whatever, that is just not going to happen.

“The way for is to do this is to have national standards. So as a taxi driver you can’t just wake up one morning and say I’m not going to come to Worcester, I’m going to go next door, I’m going to go to Birmingham, it doesn’t matter because all the standards are going to be high.

“Once you are struck off it’s going to be kept at a central database. Nobody will have an excuse that they didn’t know.”

So it wasn't a mistake but we need radical change

Have things really moved on that much since 2015? Doubt it - usual political spinning of trying to make it look like there's not been a cock-up while saying that it all has to be changed


If it wasn't managed centrally then would it be a central database?


Well that's a good reason not to let them retain the licensing function. Not.


Eh? So what's the reform going to be about?

So standards would be raised and would be the same across the country, and adminstered by LAs. But cross-border working would continue?


Eh? Well if that's a problem then it's presumably illegal now and shouldn't need new legislation to sort it

have to agree with you old boy the bloke spouts too much nonsense to be credible

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

The bloke is in fact a woman

Which should have been evident from the newspaper's photo illustrating the article



To be honest I had to turn to my old friend Google to find out whether the minister was a he or a she when I first saw the name, but when in doubt, find out.

Rather than bumping months old threads just for the sake of it, say

there were 4 people in the picture and only 2 listed so assumed it was the one sat in the middle of the picture not the one of the others

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

well if the phones would ring more i wouldn't be so bored boy is it slow tonight

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Totally unacceptable

Should have been obvious from the photo which one was Robin Walker, and the other three in the picture are woman, therefore...

Trade's usual mid-November blues?

much slower this year

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

It's not too clever down here.

But I do think these few weeks are the worst of the year, even worst than some in Jan/Feb.

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IDFIMH