§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT MERSEYMy Lords, I hope not to detain the House more than a few minutes because I know there is a very important debate to follow. This Bill is a Bill to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1925, and it is designed to bring within the scope of that Act the taxicab drivers of London and also the bargemen who ply on the River Thames. The taxicab drivers are in a peculiar position, because they are not paid a wage; they work on what is called a contract of bailment—that is to say, they take out the taxicabs and they are paid a portion of the earnings that they make. This, of course, does not apply to those taxicab drivers who own their own cabs.
When the 1925 Bill was drawn, arrangements were made in one of the clauses to protect these bailees and bring them within the scope of the Bill—that is to say, the taxicab driver who took his cab from the owner and was working on this bailment system was brought within the scope of the Bill, and if he was injured in an accident he received compensation. But in the last twelve years the process of letting out these taxicabs has very much altered, and a large proportion now of the 11,000 taxicab drivers in London do not get their taxicabs directly from the owners, but only from a middleman, who himself has got them from another. Generally, the original owner is either a finance company or the manufacturers. They let the cabs out on the hire-purchase system to garage proprietors and others, and the garage proprietors then make these contracts with the taxicab drivers, so that the driver is not in fact hiring out his taxicab from the owner, but from somebody else who is acquiring it by hire-purchase. The whole genesis and meaning of this Bill is to bring in the four or five thousand taxicab drivers who are at present in the anomalous and, indeed, unjust position of not being protected in any way, and of being unable to receive any compensation should they incur an accident. The Bill is a one-clause measure, and the two subsections merely give a further implication to the 108 governing words in the original Act. The Bill went through as an agreed Bill in another place without any opposition or amendment, and I understand that the Home Office are willing to give it their support in this House. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Mersey.)
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, I rise only to say that His Majesty's Government support this Bill and hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading this afternoon.
VISCOUNT MERSEYMy Lords, I understand from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that he did not hear me mention the fact, and therefore I repeat that the Bill also applies to bargees, who are hirers or plyers for hire of vessels on similar contracts.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.