HACKNEY CARRIAGES (Hansard, 19 February 1964)

§ Sir Barnett Janner (Leicester, North-West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal certain obsolete provisions of the law relating to hackney carriages in the Metropolis. Believe it or not, Mr. Speaker, when a man begins his occupation as a taxi driver in the Metropolitan Police District, or the City of London, he is handed a booklet called Abstract of Laws. Similar volumes of varying thickness have been issued, pursuant to Section 8 of the London Hackney Carriage Act, 1843, for more than 120 years. Believe it or not, the driver of a cab, with all his other preoccupations, is told in this volume: The abstract is not an exhaustive statement of the law. For this reference should be made to the text of the Statutes etc. quoted. The list in the present Abstract refers to the Acts of 1831, 1832, 1833, 1843, 1850, 1853, 1853 (No. 2), 1867, 1869, 1896, 1907, the London Cab Order, 1934, the London Traffic (Miscellaneous Prohibitions and Restrictions) Regulations, 1958, the Road Traffic Act, 1960, and the London Traffic (Parking Places) Consolidation Regulations, 1957. The Abstract says that this is only a list of the principal Acts the contents of which have to be observed by what I care to call the "learned taxi driver". Today, the book contains only 32 small pages compared with the 96 presented to the taxi man in 1921.

The plethora of Acts and regulations would take a considerable time for even the most skilful lawyer to digest, leave alone the unhappy driver of a cab. In the circumstances, the House will no doubt wonder how the driver of any hackney carriage can possibly avoid making himself liable to penalties under Section 56 of the Hackney Carriages Metropolis Act, which reads as follows: If he shall make use of any abusive or insulting language or be guilty of any other rude behaviour"— we are talking about a taxi driver now— to or towards any person whatsoever"— the penalty for which is the forfeiture of £5 and, in default of payment, commission to the common gaol or house 1208 of correction and, after conviction, to the possibility of the Commissioners of Stamps, if they so think fit, to revoke his licence and to refuse to grant him any other licence.

That provision still exists on the Statute Book and it also fixes a similar penalty—and I emphasise that it is similar—on the proprietor or driver of any hackney carriage, or any other person having the care thereof, who shall, by intoxication, or by wanton and furious driving, or any other wilful misconduct injure or endanger any person in his life, limbs or property. This is precisely the same penalty as for saying rude words after having to digest all that amount of law. The House will probably regard this as ridiculous.

Believe this or not, Mr. Speaker, but Section 55 of the same Act reads: If the driver of any hackney carriage"— and there are only non-horse-drawn hackney carriages in London now— shall leave such hackney carriage unattended in any street or road, or at any place of public resort or entertainment, whether such carriage shall be hired or not, it shall be lawful for any officer of police, constable, or other peace officer, watchman, or patrole, to drive away such hackney carriage, and deposit the same, with the horse or horses belonging or harnessed thereto, at some neighbouring livery stables or other place of safe custody; and such driver shall forfeit twenty shillings for such offence; and in default of payment of the said penalty upon conviction, and of the expenses of taking and keeping the said hackney carriage and horse or horses, the same, together with the harness belonging thereto, or any of them, shall be sold by order of the justice before whom such conviction shall be made, and after deducting from the produce of such sale the amount of the said penalty, and of all costs and expenses as well of the proceedings before such justice as of the taking, keeping, and also of the said hackney carriage, and of the said horse or horses and harness, the surplus (if any) of the said produce shall be paid to the proprietor of such hackney carriage. This Act applies also to Leicester and there is not a single horse-drawn carriage in Leicester. Some time ago, a summons was issued against the driver of a hackney carriage—not in Leicester—because he had left it in a cul de sac where it could not possibly have interfered with anybody. It is true that the magistrates dismissed the summons and did not impose a penalty and could not have imposed the additional penalty of selling the mythical horse or horses, harness and so on.

1209 Section 17 of the 1843 Act imposes the following obligation to the taxi driver: Every licensed driver, conductor (and water-man) shall at all times during his employment, and when he shall be required to attend before any justice of the peace, wear his ticket conspicuously upon his breast in such manner that the whole of the writing thereon shall be distinctly legible; and every driver, conductor (or waterman) who shall act as such, or who shall attend when required before any justice of the peace, without wearing such ticket in manner aforesaid, or who, when thereunto required, shall refuse to produce such ticket for inspection, or to permit any person to note the writing thereon, shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of forty shillings. It is not unknown for a taxi driver to be rebuked by a court for not wearing the badge even when giving evidence which had no connection with his occupation. Why should he have to wear his badge at all times during his employment? I do not understand, but I am sure that the Home Office does. His period of employment obviously includes the time when he is not actually driving, but that is how the Act reads.

Last Session, the House gave me leave to bring in a similar Bill and on that occasion I quoted from a book written by a working taxi driver, Mr. Maurice Levinson. It would not be out of place to quote a few words from it today. He remarks on the strangeness of the Public Health Act, 1936, which says that it is an offence for a taxi driver to carry a corpse or a person suffering from an infectious disease. In the next breath it says that he can. He comments: I challenged any lawyer to make head or tail out of the following. Before I copied it out of the `abstract of laws' I read it four or five times, and I still don't know what it means. Here is the wording: …it is an offence for the driver of a public conveyance knowingly to convey a person suffering from a dangerous disease, i.e., smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, scarletina or scarlet fever, or any of the fevers known as typhus, enteric, relapsing continued or puerperal, and other infectious disease to which the Act has been applied by the L.C.C. or a sanitary authority. That seems to be clear enough, or so the writer says, but it adds: The driver of a cab may refuse to convey a person suffering from a notifiable disease until paid a sum sufficient to cover loss and expense incurred in having the vehicle disinfected. Which of the two provisions is the driver to accept, the first or the second? 1210 Apparently a driver is allowed, after all, to convey a person suffering from a contagious disease if he is compensated for disinfecting his taxi.

What if a person dies from a contagious disease? This time the Public Health Act combines the two paragraphs into one and says: A public conveyance other than a hearse may not be hired or used for conveying the body of a person who had died from a dangerous infectious disease unless the owner or driver is previously notified that the dead person died from such a disease. In that case he must have it disinfected afterwards. I should imagine that if a person were suffering horn a contagious disease he would not bother to tell a taxi driver, anyway. The Public Health Act, 1936, would not enter his mind, unless he was warned about the situation in the first place by his doctor or any other kind of medical authority. This man writes: No doubt many of my passengers have been suffering from venereal disease, especially when it was so widespread in the country during and after the war, and indeed, in most countries in Europe. Any passenger with any self-respect at all will keep it to himself. The last thing he will do is to tell a cab driver that he is suffering from any kind of disease. He knows that the first thing a cab driver will do is to churn his gears into action and clear off. I do not want to abuse the privilege of the House by taking up more time than I am entitled to, but there are many more obsolete provisions which require to be swept away, many of which are so embedded in the Acts that they are extremely difficult to unearth. For instance, I am told that it is still the law that every taxi-cab has to carry a bundle of hay. I am also told that there are provisions concerning the question whether a person can relieve himself on the side of a cab, and if so, on which side. Apparently these provisions are contained in some fascinating, obsolete Acts.

It is obvious from what I have said that it is time the situation was altered. I am sure that the House will agree that we cannot allow these obsolete statutes to remain in force. I am, therefore, asking the House to give me leave to bring in a Bill to deal with some of these provisions in the Metropolis, and perhaps later Leicester and similar constituencies will be included in a Bill introduced by the Home Office when it realises just how silly are some of the present provisions.