Cab drivers in Leeds are campaigning against a proposed deregulation of the trade, which they fear could cost hundreds of cabbies their jobs and decrease the quality of service in the city.
The Government is presently considering getting rid of Section 16 of the Transport Act 1985 – which permits councils to limit the number of hackney carriages in their local authority area based on supply and demand – as part of a review of ancient taxi laws.
The amendment would free up the trade and also lower service quality, make jobs even harder as cabbies are already struggling due to less people using taxis, the increased cost of private hire insurance and the high cost of fuel, say the campaigners.
The numbers of cabs are reviewed regularly, and Leeds currently has 537 licensed hackney carriages.
In addition to that, there are around 5,000 private hire licenses operating in the city.
The chairman of the Leeds Hackney Carriage branch of Unite the Union, Paul Landau, said that the worst knock on effect would be on night-shift drivers who don’t own a car but will lease one from a licence ‘proprietor’, a colleague, on a ‘double shifted’ basis.
Landau said, “If Section 16 is repealed under this new legislation, the restriction on numbers of taxis in Leeds and other cities will be lifted and anybody could go along to the licensing department and say ‘I would like a hackney licence’ and go to work,”
“In Leeds you could see the numbers triple overnight, or go higher.
“The potential for mass unemployment is huge.
“In Leeds we could see anywhere up to 500 jobs lost instantly in the Hackney sector.”
Landau said that it hadn’t worked for other cities who had deregulated the hackney trade, as they went back to capping the numbers due to the pressure it was putting on drivers. He also said that the “massive influx” of new taxis would increase the city’s pollution levels.
