MR. GODDARD CLARKE (Camberwell, Peckham)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the statutory rules and orders of 1907 (No. 199), made under The Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, 1869, providing that no distance recorder or taximetre shall be affixed to any hackney carriage without the seal or mark approved by the Commissioner affixed thereto, and that if a recorder or taximetre not having such seal or mark intact be affixed to any hackney carriage the licence of that carriage shall be liable 1232 to revocation or suspension, and of the fact that the learned magistrate at Bow Street on the 14th instant declined to enforce the scales of fares made in accordance with the above rules as applied to motor hackney carriages, on the ground that the taximetre affixed to the carriage, the driver of which was being then prosecuted for charging an excessive fare, had no such seal or mark as the rule requires, he will say whether there are any other motor hackney carriages plying on the streets of London for hire having taximetres affixed thereto, and which are unprovided with said seal or mark; and, if so, will their licences be revoked or suspended until such time as the said rules are complied with.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) None of the taximeter motor cabs, about 140 in number, which are now plying in the streets of London, have yet had their taximeters sealed as prescribed in the new Public Carriage Order. The cause of the delay has been the necessity for careful inquiry and experiment in order to decide what tests taximeters should be subjected to before sealing. This question is now, I hope, on the point of being settled. In the meantime the cabs already equipped could only have been prevented from running at great loss to their owners and some inconvenience to the public, and, while steps are being taken to ensure full compliance with the order at an early date, the Commissioner of Police does not contemplate taking such action as is suggested in the Question.