Private Hire Vehicles (London) Bill [Money] (Hansard, 16 March 1998)

§ Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)
We have not made much progress, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have we? The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions seemed to confuse the Ways and Means resolution, which concerned fees, with the money resolution, which we are now debating and which would cover the costs arising from the Bill. Perhaps the hon. Lady will check her brief when she replies to this second debate. We are discussing the costs of the administration, or bureaucracy, which would cover the licensing regime. Again, if one looks to the explanatory memorandum in the Bill for guidance, one immediately gets into difficulty, although it does give some clue. It states: It is estimated that the overall annual cost of administering and enforcing the new law will be about £4 million". It helpfully adds: roughly twice the cost of regulating London cabs". It is difficult to see how that figure was arrived at, because the immediately preceding sentence states: It is… difficult to predict how many"— vehicles or drivers— will be licensed once the Bill comes into force". The sentence before that—I am rather bizarrely reading backwards on this occasion, but I am sure that the House can see why—states: There are no records of how many operators, drivers or vehicles there are in the London private hire vehicle industry. Therefore, we are starting from a complete supposition.
Presumably, both the Government and the promoter of the Bill are acting in close co-operation in this matter. The Minister did not seem to be sure whether she or the promoter should be bringing these matters to the House. However, you usefully pointed out, and I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it is the Government's responsibility to lay money and Ways and Means resolutions before the House, because only they can do so. Therefore, if it is a Government resolution, it is not unreasonable of us to expect the Government to explain it, even if it is related to a private Member's Bill.
One of the worrying aspects of what has been happening recently—all too recently—is that more and more private Members' Bills, which almost certainly emanate from the Government in one form or another but are, perfectly honourably, picked up by private Members, have large financial implications. You must recollect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that not all that long ago few, if any, private Members' Bills—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
Order. That may be an interesting procedural point, but we are debating the money resolution on the Private Hire 1066 Vehicles (London) Bill, and the hon. Gentleman's remarks must be confined to the terms of that money resolution and not others.

§ Mr. Forth
I am grateful to you for your guidance, as ever, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and of course I shall adhere to it.
This money resolution arises out of a Bill with a large number of clauses, with potentially considerable financial implications. In this case, we are expected to believe that the overall annual cost…will be about £4 million". By its very nature, that must be a guess, because no one knows how many of the vehicles there are. When we were discussing the Ways and Means resolution, the Minister said—although I thought that she thought we were discussing the money resolution, because she used that term more than once—helpfully, and it was the only helpful thing that she told the House, that start-up costs would be involved and would have to be financed. One can readily see that there is a problem.
I am guessing, but perhaps when the Minister gives what I hope will be a fuller explanation than we have had so far, she will tell us, as the money resolution states, that it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State which is attributable to the Act. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) very properly raised a matter that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) characterised as hypothecation. That is in the area of the wording of the money resolution, which states it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred". That does not sound hypothecated; it sounds more like our old friend the blank cheque.
I think that we are being asked to agree that whatever the cost of the bureaucracy required to set up a regime based on an unknown number of vehicles and drivers, the money will be provided by Parliament. It may be, if we are to believe the Ways and Means resolution so scantily explained by the Minister, that the fees raised under that will cover the annual cost, but we do not know. Nothing has been made clear. I heard no answer to the question of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington.
Once again, we are operating in unknown territory. We have a substantial private Member's Bill, a highly regulatory measure that will affect a large but unknown number of people who operate private vehicles in London and provide a service much valued by many sectors of society throughout the city. However, we are asked to vote an amount of money unknown but for the estimate of about £4 million per year, roughly twice the cost of regulating London cabs. I do not know how much further that takes us because, depending on the number of vehicles, it may be a high or a low figure. If many private cab drivers decide to try to dodge through the obstacle course set up by the Bill and abide by its bureaucracy, regulation and fees, it may be that the service would not be affected, the revenues would be substantial and it would be self-financing.
I can equally imagine the opposite. Very many operators and vehicles could disappear from the roads, scared off by the suggested regime and the level of fees. 1067 Fee income would fall and we would be left with a bureaucracy that would have to remain in place but whose costs would not be covered. We would be back with the terms of this money resolution, and the House would have voted moneys for a bureaucracy that had succeeded only in diminishing an important part of London's life.
Those are all vital questions. I have no doubt that if the Bill goes into Committee, they will be examined in great detail. I hope that they are. In the meantime, we are yet again being asked to approve something without having had any proper explanation. It defeats me why the Minister appears to want these debates to be conducted back to front. Life might have been simpler, I might not have needed to make my modest contributions and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington might not have needed to say much, if she had given us some detail of how she envisages the measure working. We have yet to get such an explanation. We did not get it in considering the Ways and Means resolution. I wait eagerly to find out whether she will give a more satisfactory explanation under the money resolution. She has by now had time to examine her notes properly, to find out whether she should address the money resolution or the Ways and Means resolution. I hope that one way or another, she will answer my questions and satisfy the House before we are asked to approve the measure.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)
On Second Reading, I raised an issue relevant to the motion, the work of the Public Carriage Office, an annexe to the Metropolitan police that is responsible for issuing licences for black cabs and is proposed as the body to be responsible for issuing licences for minicabs. The motion proposes that we agree that money be given by Government out of moneys provided by Parliament for expenditure linked to the measure's working. It is a perfectly normal motion.
I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me what mechanism there is for monitoring and auditing the expenditure that we are about to authorise, so that those of us who are critical of the work of the Public Carriage Office and think that it does not do its job well and needs a great kick up the backside",—[Official Report, 23 January 1998; Vol. 304, c. 1269.] as I said on Second Reading, can have some control, through the Government, over the money that the Bill allows it to be given. In theory, the Bill allows the PCO an unlimited amount of money, and although it will not in fact be unlimited, I want some assurance that expenditure will be properly audited and that Parliament and the taxpayer can ensure that the PCO spends our money wisely.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Angela Eagle)
Had the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) wanted to explore in more detail some of the issues relating to the Bill, he might have turned up for Second Reading. He could have contributed to that debate and raised a series of general issues, instead of waiting for the much narrower money resolution debate. If he is so interested in the Bill, he might ask his right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) whether he can serve on the Standing Committee on the Bill. I am sure that in that way he will make a concrete contribution to the passage of the Bill through the House.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) asked about how the money would be audited and the answer to his question is, in the usual way. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), is present and I am sure that he would be willing to explain to the hon. Gentleman how Parliament audits the expenditure of money in the usual way. If he has other suggestions he wishes to make, that is clearly a matter for the Committee stage, so perhaps he will raise his questions with the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire as the Bill proceeds through Parliament. We are at the stage of the money resolution and all those points can still be debated.

§ Mr. Jamieson
I have to inform the House that on the reasoned amendment, we reported that the votes for the Noes were 347. They were 357.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I think that the House will have heard that correction. I shall see that the record is corrected.