My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling these amendments, which are very interesting. I will speak to the amendments as opposed to the Private Member’s Bill, but I will have quite a few comments on that too.
I have nothing at all against pedicabs, though I do not like the noise and they get in the way sometimes—but then so do bicycles, although they do not make noises.
My worry is, first of all, with the definition of a pedicab. As I read it, it would also include a tandem bicycle. Who would know whether my passenger on the back was paying me? I think one has to go into a bit more detail than that.
There are more and more pedicabs going around which are actually pulling freight. I am sure the noble Baroness would not want to stop them being an environmentally friendly form of freight. If the vehicle had two seats, and if the driver had a friend on the back and somebody said, “You’re paying for it”, he would come under this regulation. That is before we get into the question of electric assistance, which I think some pedicabs have. Frankly, some of them go very fast and I do not think it is particularly safe, but we have to make sure that the definition is absolutely right.
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The noble Baroness spoke a lot about protecting the taxi industry and black cabs—we all love black cabs—but they are in competition with Uber and quite a few others now, and I do not think that one needs to, or should, restrict competition just because one feels that these pedicabs get in the way. Maybe the answer is for them to have parking places as black cabs do. My big worry is whether they are insured, because that is obviously very important if you are carrying passengers. Whether the freight ones should be insured is debatable, because we would then be asking whether bicycles and cyclists should be insured, and that is another can of worms.
The biggest problem is that, in London, as the noble Baroness has said, the legislation goes back to 1869 and the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, which seems to allow them to go around as they do. But pedicabs are used in many other towns and cities outside London and they have a problem because they are not allowed unless they are registered as a taxi, I believe. The legislation needs to cover the whole country in a similar way so that people can use it. We need to make sure that the vehicles have insurance, and do a few other things, but I do not see the need for having a difference in London just because of a piece of legislation that is 150 years old.
I have quite a few comments on the Private Member’s Bill if it ever comes here. I am happy to talk to the noble Baroness in the meantime, but I thought those comments on her amendment might be helpful. I look forward to other noble Lords’ comments as well.