# Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, Section 12: Requirement for private hire vehicle driver’s licence.


(1) No vehicle shall be used as a private hire vehicle on a road in London unless the driver holds a private hire vehicle driver’s licence.
(2) The driver and operator of a vehicle used in contravention of this section are each guilty of an offence.
(3) The owner of a vehicle who permits it to be used in contravention of this section is guilty of an offence.
(4) It is a defence in proceedings against the operator of a vehicle for an offence under subsection (2) for the operator to show that he exercised all due diligence to prevent the vehicle being used in contravention of this section.
(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(6) In this section “private hire vehicle driver’s licence” means—
(a) except where paragraph (b) or (c) applies, a London PHV driver’s licence;
(b) if the vehicle is in use for the purposes of a hiring the booking for which was accepted outside London in a controlled district in England and Wales, a licence under section 51 of the 1976 Act issued by the council for that district; and
(c) if the vehicle is in use for a hiring the booking for which was accepted in Scotland, a licence under section 13 of the 1982 Act,
and for the purposes of paragraph (b) or (c) it is immaterial that the booking in question is a sub-contracted booking.
(7) This section does not apply to the use of a vehicle for the purposes of a hiring for a journey beginning outside London in an area of England and Wales which is not a controlled district.

---
Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/12 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/private-hire-vehicles-london-act-1998/section-12
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.