DELTA Merseyside Limited & Anor v Uber Britannia Limited

Under Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, operating a private hire vehicle means making arrangements for the invitation or acceptance of bookings. It does not include providing the vehicle.

Section 56(1) deems every contract of hire to be made with the operator who accepted the booking for the regulatory purposes of Part II. It does not require that operator to enter a real-world contract with the person making the booking or the passenger when the booking is accepted.

Such a duty cannot be implied unless compellingly clear from the statutory language, context and purpose. The licensing of vehicles and drivers, together with the statutory deeming provision, sufficiently serves passenger safety.

The appellants were private hire operators outside London. Their business models included accepting bookings while treating the driver as the provider of the journey or contract of hire. Uber, a rival operator, contended that the statutory scheme required the operator to contract as principal with the person making the booking.

Foster J made a declaration that a licensed operator accepting a passenger booking had to contract as principal with the passenger to provide the journey: [2023] EWHC 1975 (KB), [2024] 1 WLR 1350. The operators appealed.

The central issue was whether Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, expressly or by necessary implication, imposed that contractual requirement.

Appeal allowed. Lewison LJ, with whom Lewis LJ and Elisabeth Laing LJ agreed, discharged the declaration and made no further declaration.

1. The statutory definition of “operate” in section 80(1) concerns business arrangements for inviting or accepting bookings. Consistently with the earlier authorities, it concerns antecedent booking arrangements and not the provision of the vehicle. The regulatory scheme distinguishes accepting a booking from making a contract of hire.

2. Section 56(1) is a deeming provision. Applying the principles in [2020] UKSC 22, its scope depends on the statutory purpose. It operates only when a contract of hire exists. Such a contract is one under which the hirer gives consideration for transport. The provision then deems it to be made with the operator who accepted the booking, whether or not that operator provided the vehicle.

3. The fiction is confined to the regulatory purposes of Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. It neither prescribes when a contract of hire must be made nor requires the operator to make a real-world contract with the booking-maker. It also does not preclude another party from contracting, or require the booking-maker to be the hirer.

4. No such obligation arose by necessary implication. Passenger safety is secured principally through the licensing of vehicles and drivers. Section 55A(2) was too slight and contextually unsuitable a basis for implying a contractual obligation, particularly given sections 55A(3) and (4). Licensing authorities could instead impose an appropriate licence condition to require attendance after an accepted hiring.

5. The first-instance declaration was unsuitable. A booking-maker need not be the passenger, a booking need not specify a journey, and the declaration wrongly suggested that failure to contract would make an operator act unlawfully or commit a criminal offence.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the operators’ appeals, discharged the declaration and made no further declaration: [2024] EWCA Civ 802.
• High Court, King’s Bench Division: Foster J granted a declaration that an operator accepting a passenger booking had to contract as principal with the passenger to provide the journey: [2023] EWHC 1975 (KB), [2024] 1 WLR 1350.