Where Tom Harris may agree with Kenny MacAskill

Any regular reader(s) may have concluded that one of my pet subjects is the hugely exciting world of taxi licensing. Thus it's entirely appropriate that on the day when a House of Commons select committee issued a report on the subject, this was slightly overshadowed by another such committee grabbing the political and media spotlight by conducting a meeting on something or other that was one of the most anticipated parliamentary events of recent years.

A further irony is that this blogpost concerns an aspect of taxi regulation which has to my knowledge featured in the Scottish national press only once in recent years, and that honour belongs to the now defunct News of the World.

That full article can be read here, with a summary of a follow up piece here. But in a nutshell, many local authorities restrict taxi vehicle numbers, which has the effect of denying new drivers the right to run their own vehicle, while incumbent operators exert a permanent stranglehold on the trade. Thus drivers either pay excessive amounts to rent a taxi or they can buy into the system by purchasing a licence, typically costing tens of thousands of pounds. Indeed, many can't/won't buy a licence because raising that kind of money simply isn't an option - banks won't accept the licence as loan collateral - and some refuse as a matter of principal, while many non-drivers with financial muscle run fleets of taxis which are rented out at excessive rates.

Hence when the NotW highlighted the issue in relation to the Glasgow trade, both Labour and SNP MSPs expressed their concern, and the matter was to be raised with Kenny MacAskill.

Thus perhaps the broadly similar system south of the border might have been expected to figure in the House of Commons Transport Select Committee's report published on Tuesday.

Er, no. It seems that it did merit one passing mention, but the issue was clearly regarded as unproblematic by the committee.

But the last report from the transport committee on taxi licensing in 2004 did in fact largely concern the matter of restricting taxi numbers, this following a lengthy Office of Fair Trading investigation and subsequent recommendation to remove the controls. But a committee meeting clearly hostile to the OFT and sympathetic to the unions and their parasitic closed shops resulted in a report recommending rejection of the competition watchdog's conclusions. The then Labour Government agreed with the OFT, but stopped short of legislating on the matter, presumably due to a lack of political will and unfavourable parliamentary arithmetic on the issue.

But with committee member Louise Ellman clearly sympathising with the unions last time round, that the Liverpool MP is now chairperson perhaps made it predictable that the issue of restricted taxi numbers was seemingly off limits this time round. Indeed, the impetus for the investigation came from the Liverpool taxi trade, whose closed shop was being undermined slightly by a large private hire firm which was licensed by another local authority - presumably to take advantage of a more favourable licensing regime: so-called 'flags of convenience' - but operating largely within the city.

Of course, taxi licensing is devolved to Holyrood, thus the transport committee's report has no direct relevance up here. However, what is perhaps interesting is that Glasgow MP Tom Harris is a committee member this time round, but clearly neither the situation in Glasgow itself nor its equivalent in England and Wales was considered by him sufficiently problematic to merit raising. And this was despite Labour MSP Richard Baker expressing concern in relation to the Glasgow situation last year and promising to raise the matter with Kenny MacAskill.

But when the NotW highlighted the Scottish situation last year it seemed likely that it would be quickly forgotten about, and there's no record of Mr MacAskill having ever made any public statement on the issue.

Thus as with Tom Harris south of the border, there were probably too many vested interests, too many union pals and generally just a can of worms waiting to be opened, hence better swept back under the carpet from whence it came.

And of course with the media preoccupied by other matters - and indeed the transport committee's report probably wouldn't have merited much in the way of headlines even at the peak of the silly season, never mind conveniently just before MPs start their lengthy summer hols - the politicians and vested interests are essentially given free rein on the issue.

Interesting also that a news article in last weekend's Sunday Post was about a Labour proposal that Scottish MPs could stand as list candidates for Holyrood and effectively do both jobs part-time. The rationale being that with devolution Scottish MPs have little to do at Westminster and list members at Holyrood haven't much to occupy themselves with either because of their lack of a specific constituency remit.

Thus perhaps Tom Harris could serve in both parliaments and could conveniently waste even more time ignoring the taxi cartels both north and south of the border!