Mr. Hugh Creegan:

The licence for this only allows people to drive a particular type of vehicle and to operate in a particular area only. The licence does not allow people to drive a taxi, a normal hackney or a limousine. It is purely to serve the needs of the local rural area. An area knowledge test does not apply and would not make sense. Someone coming from the area knows far more about it than any test or set of questions we could set. A test is not part of it.

With regard to car pooling or sharing, this is tied into the draft regulations. We have excluded from draft regulations the need for people involved in non-commercial car sharing to get a licence. There was a doubt about this.

The phrase in the previous Taxi Regulation Act was carrying somebody "for hire or reward", with reward being the key word. In those circumstances, one must potentially have both a driver's licence and a vehicle licence. Definitions of "for reward" are much wider than one might think at first glance. To avoid any problem over two people deciding to share journeys to work and somebody alleging they needed both a driver and a vehicle licence, we simply excluded them categorically. It is non-commercial car sharing only that is excluded from the licensing. In terms of insurance for that type of activity, my understanding is that if there is no reward involved, insurance companies have said they are fine with it because it is not a commercial service. They do not have an issue with private car sharing, as I understand it.