COMMONS watchdogs today demanded an overhaul of taxi and car hire rules following evidence of alleged abuses in and around Liverpool.

The transport select committee said that reform of outdated rules dating back to the horse-drawn carriage is “urgent and long overdue.”

Their inquiry focused on companies operating outside the district in which they are licensed, a practice known as “cross-border hire.”

The report said that one Sefton-based private hire firm operates throughout Merseyside using “a fleet spread out across the whole of the multi-borough zone that can respond to telephone requests quite literally within seconds.”

Unite the Union’s Tommy McIntyre complained that the company had snatched 55% of the work in the Liverpool area.

He added: “They are not actually paying any money whatsoever towards the licensing regime in Liverpool.”

The city council also pointed out that the use of new GPS technology allows operators to “control hundreds, even thousands, of vehicles efficiently by identifying a vehicle which is near to a booking request.”