Blue Line Taxis (Newcastle) Ltd v The Council of the City of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM |
| Judgment Date | 27 September 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] EWHC 2599 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/3872/2012 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 27 September 2012 |
[2012] EWHC 2599 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT IN LEEDS
Leeds Combined Court,
1 Oxford Row, Leeds LS1 3BG
Mr Justice Hickinbottom
Case No: CO/3872/2012
Jonathan Rodger (instructed by Nicholson & Morgan Solicitors) for the Appellant
John McGuinness QC (instructed by Melanie Bulman, Solicitor, Newcastle City Council) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 30 July 2012
Introduction
This is an appeal by way of case stated against the decision of 10 January 2012 of District Judge Earl, sitting in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Magistrates Court, concerning the decision of the Regulatory Committee of the Council of the City of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ("the Council") to revoke the licence of the Appellant ("Blue Line Newcastle") to operate private hire vehicles. The District Judge overturned that decision on the basis that it was ultra vires, on grounds that are not relevant to this appeal. However, he found against the Appellant in respect of other grounds upon which it relied, which related to conditions the Council imposed on its private hire vehicle operator's licence in respect of the telephone number to be used for the operation. In this appeal, the Appellant challenges the District Judge's decision in relation to those grounds.
Legal Background
For the purposes of this appeal, there are two types of car available for hire to transport passengers: hackney carriages (or "taxis") and private hire vehicles (or "minicabs"). Whilst other differences were recently identified and considered by Burton J in R (Eventech Ltd) v The Parking Adjudicator [2012] EWHC 1903 (Admin) (see, especially, at [12]), the differences between hackney carriages and other hire vehicles relevant to this appeal are that (i) a taxi may be hired by pre-booking or "plying for hire" (i.e. soliciting or waiting for passengers on the street without prior booking), whereas private hire vehicles can only be hired by a pre-booking; and (ii) private hire vehicles can only undertake work through a separately licensed operator, and a booking can only be made through that operator.
Hackney carriages in London were first regulated by Royal Proclamation in 1635, and then by the London Hackney Carriages Acts 1831–53 and the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869. The 1869 Act and regulations made under that Act (notably the London Cab Order 1934) remain the principal taxi legislation in London. Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, the functions of the Metropolitan Police and Secretary of State in relation to taxis were transferred to Transport for London where day-to-day licensing functions are now carried out by officers in the London Taxi and Private Hire Unit.
Outside London, taxis are regulated by the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 ("the 1847 Act") as supplemented by the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 ("the 1976 Act"). The 1847 Act provides for the licensing by local authorities of hackney carriages (section 37), and hackney carriage drivers (section 46). Only a licensed hackney carriage, driven by a licensed driver, is permitted to ply for hire. Sections 45 and 47 of the Act create a number of criminal offences to enforce that restriction.
Although they cannot ply for hire, other vehicles can be hired to transport passengers on a pre-booked basis. Private hire vehicles were not regulated until 1976, when, outside London, they became subject to the 1976 Act, albeit under a regime different from that applying to hackney carriages. Such vehicles remained unregulated in London until the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, and were not fully regulated until 2004. The licensing authority in London is again Transport for London. This appeal concerns out-of-London private hire vehicle operations, and I need not consider London further, except to say that in a number of respects the London scheme is materially different from that out-of-London.
In respect of out-of-London, Part II of the 1976 Act provides for the licensing by local authorities of private hire vehicles (section 48), drivers of such vehicles (section 51) and the operation of such vehicles (section 55). It is well-established that all three licences must be issued by the same local authority (section 80(2), as explained in Dittah v Birmingham City Council [1993] RTR 356 (" Dittah"), and Shanks v North Tyneside Borough Council [2001] EWHC 533 (Admin) (" Shanks")).
"Operate", for this purpose, means "in the course of business to make provision for the invitation or acceptance of bookings for a private hire vehicle" (section 80(1)). Operators have been described as "the lynchpin of the current private hire vehicle licensing scheme" (Law Commission Consultation Paper No 203, "Reforming the Law of Taxi and Private Hire Services: A Consultation Paper" (May 2012) ("Law Commission Consultation Paper"), at paragraph 2.15).
The operation is geographically fixed in the operator's licensing area: that area must be where the operator's premises are located, bookings made and from which vehicles are dispatched ( Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Council v Khan [1994] RTR 87, and Shanks). It is an offence for operators to operate outside that licensing area; nor can they subcontract work to operators outside that area ( Dittah). It is therefore clear that Parliament has determined that the licensing regime for private hire vehicles is inherently local in nature – presumably on the basis that "devolved decision making in relation to the application of the legislation is beneficial in that local authorities are in the best position to determine what is needed most in their area and what the main problems and issues are" (Law Commission Consultation Paper, paragraph 2.8) – and it is a "central principle of this legislation" that "the authorities responsible for granting licences should have the ability to exercise full control over the operation of private hire vehicles within their area" ( Shanks at [12], per Latham LJ).
However, although the operator must be based and "operate" exclusively in the relevant licensing authority's area, that does not prevent a pre-booked journey, in whole or part, being made outside that authority's area. So long as the relevant operator's licence, vehicle licence and driver's licence are all issued by the same local authority, then it is irrelevant that any particular journey undertaken by a private hire vehicle neither begins, nor ends, nor passes through the area for which that authority is responsible ( Dittah, at page 363D-F); although it may be that, if an operation engages in journeys none or few of which pass through the geographical area of the licensing authority, then a licence may not be forthcoming from that authority (see the comments of Foskett J in respect of the analogous hackney carriage regime in R (Blue Line Taxis) v The Council of the County of Northumberland [2012] EWHC 1539 (Admin) (" Northumberland County Council") at [61] and following).
In respect of licensing the operators of private hire vehicles, section 55(3) of the 1976 Act provides:
"A District Council [i.e. the licensing authority] may attach to the grant of a licence under this section such conditions as they may consider reasonably necessary".
Section 47 of the 1976 Act gives a power, in similar terms, to the licensing authority in respect of a licence of a hackney carriage.
It is apparent from the wording of section 55(3) that, "Licensing authorities have considerable scope for setting vehicle conditions" (Law Commission Consultation Paper, at paragraph 4.48); and, in the context of the analogous section 47, it has recently been said that those words "are wide and emphatically so" ( Northumberland County Council at [64], per Foskett J).
However, wide as a licensing authority's discretion to impose conditions might be, the discretion must be exercised against the background of the conferring legislation and to further the objectives of the 1976 Act ( Padfield v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food [1968] AC 997 at page 1030). The patent intention of the Act is to impose a regulatory scheme which (i) is focused on operators and (ii) is inherently local in character, including enforcement by the relevant local licensing authority. The scheme imposes obligations upon operators in part because, no doubt, enforcement against a relatively few operators is easier than enforcement against relatively more drivers (see Law Commission Consultation Paper, paragraph 4.69). As part of that enforcement obligation, it is for that authority to ensure that those operating private hire vehicle services from their area do so from their area, using only vehicles and drivers licensed by them; and to enable dissatisfied or concerned customers to complain about an operator to that authority, as the first and primary port-of-call.
Where an applicant has been refused an operator's licence under the private hire regime, or is aggrieved by any conditions attached to such a licence, he may appeal to the Magistrates Court (section 55(4)).
Finally, although breach is not a criminal offence, where an operator fails to comply with the conditions of its licence, the Council may revoke the licence (section 62(1)). Where an operator is aggrieved by the decision to revoke, there is a right of appeal to the Magistrates' Court (section 62(3))
The Factual Background
In 1958, a private hire business was established in the North East...
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