§ 26. Mr. Amessasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the Minister of State's visit to Basildon in November.
§ Mr. David MitchellOn 17 November I addressed a seminar arranged by the Essex Taxi Federation and sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon. This enabled me to describe the opportunities made available to the taxi trade by the Transport Act 1985, and the benefit to the public of lower cost taxi journeys made under the shared taxi provisions in the Act. This will lead to more business for taxi operators, as the market grows. I also described the new opportunity for enterprising taxi operators to initiate pre-booked shared taxi journeys.