---

Private Hire and Hackney Carriage Vehicles

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which highlights the fact that so many authorities are responsible for licensing, and the complexity of various initiatives taking place. I understand that the Law Commission will examine certain aspects of regulation, but he makes an excellent point about the need for best practice to be applied across the country. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response and his thoughts on the balance between localism and trying to tackle a national concern. My view is that it would be unfair to expect drivers to bear the cost of CCTV, particularly if the price of the equipment remains in the hundreds of pounds. I do not expect public money to be made available in these straitened times, but I do know that in 2006 Bedford borough council worked with Bedfordshire police to use some of the proceeds of crime moneys to implement CCTV in a pilot scheme at low or no cost to drivers. In Leicester, funds from the tackling knives action programme have been used. In other local authorities, advertising on cabs has been enabled to fund the cost of CCTV. I ask the Minister to consider the possibility of the more widespread use of proceeds of crime moneys for this purpose. I mentioned the lack of statistics on crime. I always think that if we do not track something, we will find it hard to make improvements. Therefore, will the Minister work with the Home Office to track more formally the statistics on criminal attacks on private hire drivers, including aggravated racial abuse? Will he also comment on whether he will seek opinions from the private hire and taxi trade as input to the Prime Minister's alcohol strategy? Unfortunately, so many of these incidents of crime correlate with alcohol and drug misuse.