Opinion: A private hire driver says:  Wanted, organisation to represent the nation's licensed PH drivers, and no one else.

The most striking aspect of the recent House of Commons Transport Select Committee meeting wasn’t the way the lads from the OFT made a pig’s ear of defending their report, nor the fact that as the meeting continued, the noses of some of those representing the taxi trade grew and grew, but the fact that there was no one present to put across the views of the average PH driver.

We have nearly 80,000 licensed PH drivers in England and Wales, and nearly 40,000 soon to be licensed PH drivers in London. But who really represents them?

Of the national associations, I think in all fairness we can rule out the National Taxi Association and it’s Scottish counterpart the Scottish Taxi Federation. They represent what they say on the tin, and that doesn’t include licensed PH.

I hear many of you say that the National Private Hire Association (NPHA) is the one, but in my view they are a PH operator’s association. Nothing wrong with that, and at times what is good for PH operators is just as good for PH drivers. But not always, and I didn’t see the NPHA representing anyone at the Select Committee meeting.

The Transport and General Workers Union could well be, and some say should be, the one that the average PH driver looks to. But when you consider the anti-PH rhetoric printed in Cab Trade News, and from its representative at the Select Committee, it clearly wishes to turn its back on those 120,000 potential new members.

Locally, there are many good PH associations that represent drivers in their dealings with councils. These boys and girls try their hardest, and more times than not make good local progress. However, a fragmented trade isn’t going to gain a seat at the top table when national issues are discussed.

In London the London Private Hire Car Association is well run, and has been highly instrumental in bringing the mini-cab trade into the 21^st century. But again, in my opinion, they are a bosses association.

The GMB London Professional Drivers Association could be the one to watch. They have a small number of activists who spend a lot of time trying to get the very best for the London PH trade. If there was as much passion shown nationally as they show within London, then perhaps licensed PH drivers wouldn’t be ignored by government, and discriminated against by councils.

We then wouldn’t have had a situation where 120,000 drivers are ignored, either deliberately or not, by those who pretend to have an open mind, when in reality they haven’t got a clue.

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