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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, when we were discussing the previous amendment on pedicabs at Report, I said I thought that this was the taxi driver’s revenge. I have subsequently met people from TfL who explained the purpose of the noble Baroness’s amendment and some of the background. I listened carefully and questioned the definition of a pedicab. A pedicab is exactly the same as something that is not a pedicab if it is being plied for hire. If you have a pedicab that you just use for taking your family out on a Sunday afternoon, it is not a pedicab because you are not plying it for hire. In theory, a pedicab could be a two-wheeled tandem; it could probably not be one-wheeled, but it could certainly have three or four wheels. Therefore, I worry about the definitions in the amendment. I have heard from TfL that it intends to move forward with a licensing system. That is clearly essential. Any vehicle that is plying for hire needs to have insurance and registration so that it can be identified. I do not have a problem with that. I am pleased that TfL is doing this, providing it does it fairly. I worry that there is no process for doing it outside London. TfL appears to be going down the route of calling them stage carriages under the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869. Other authorities have tried to call them hackney carriages, which they clearly are not and could never be. There is a problem which is not addressed by this amendment or any other. I hope that my noble friend will make a commitment to look into a national system of registration that is appropriate for pedicabs. I talked to the London Pedicab Operators Association—there is one, my Lords—which produced some very good arguments. I have also seen part of the London taxi drivers’ campaign against them which is quite incredible. Cab Trade News of 1 October says:"““Whilst the third world is doing all it can to lose the last of these degrading pedal powered contraptions, some unscrupulous operators are clogging up the streets of the Metropolis with the same slow, traffic halting bikes””." In other words, it is preventing us taxis using our monopoly. Whether we think we can find a taxi late at night and would prefer to have one of these or one of the unlicensed cars that one sometimes has to take, I do not know, but the campaign is pretty horrible. There is a picture of the grim reaper and a scythe outside Big Ben, with a Transport for London sign saying ““Licensed to Kill””.