Vol. 530 No. 3
200 Ms O. Mitchell asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if he will bring forward to January 2002 the date before which all taxis must be accessible to the disabled or before which new licences will be issued only in respect of such vehicles as the cheaper £100 fee is not a sufficient incentive to ensure additional accessible taxis or prevent the loss of existing accessible taxis. [3637/01]
It has not been practicable to provide for a universal requirement of wheelchair accessibility in the short term given that early and rapid progress is needed to respond to customer demand for taxis. However, in recognition of the need to promote and incentivise the provision of wheelchair accessible taxis, the fee for the grant of a new wheelchair accessible taxi licence has been fixed at £100, with a £5,000 fee for ordinary taxi licences. I have put on record my intention that by end 2003 the process will commence of making all taxi vehicles wheelchair accessible. This period of notice has been carefully considered and I do not propose to amend it.
201 Mr. Currie asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the proposals he has for some form of compensation for those such as widows of taxi drivers, who are suffering hardship as a result of his taxi deregulation policy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3663/01]
The Government is committed to progressing a number of mitigating measures for certain taxi licence holders, including a proposed tax relief by way of capital allowances for the actual capital cost of the licence, and an administrative scheme to address high licensing fees paid to certain local authorities. My Department will issue instructions to licensing authorities on the latter measure very shortly.
As part of the Government's policy in introducing the new regime for taxi licences, it was announced that existing taxi owners as of 21 November 2000, would be able to write off the actual cost to them of these licences as a capital allowance. In this regard, the Finance Bill, 2001, preliminary list of measures announced on 26 January 2001 provides: a write off period of five years in line with the new write off period for capital allowances for plant and machinery; the commencement of the write-off period for taxi licences to be backdated for three years to 21 November 1997; that the write-off will be allowed against the trading income of the licence owner who drives a taxi and against both the trading and rental income only where one licensed vehicle driven by the licence owner is also rented out on a part-time basis.
The Minister for Finance has separately stated his willingness to consider hardship cases in the context of the Finance Bill provisions.
