If you are a taxi driver you may well have heard in the last few days about some of the amounts being paid out to over the cost of transporting a number of asylum seekers here in the UK by taxi. Apparently, this was brought to a head following an investigation carried out by the BBC.

Apparently, some asylum seekers have been allowed to travel in taxis from their hotels to some appointments. One example was an asylum seeker who made a journey of around 250 miles that resulted in the taxi driver charging the Home Office £600 with the journey relating to visiting a GP.

Some opposition parties were critical of such journeys.

Obviously, there will probably be some taxi drivers who welcome such work as it sounds like it provides a good additional source of income in a service industry that probably has quite a lot of competition. Taxi drivers are no different to many people in the UK who are having to work extra hard to generate an income to support their families faced with increased household expenditure for things like rent, food and utility bills.

Surely taxi drivers should not be criticised for taking on such lucrative work as and when it becomes available.

Taxi drivers will have different views on whether they prefer to make short journeys about town of just a few miles or prefer to travel 200 to 300 miles on a journey. From a fuel cost point of view it may be that the longer journey is potentially more cost effective when it comes to the number of miles per gallon a taxi driver gets out of his or her vehicle.

There will be some people who are of the opinion that some journeys by asylum seekers could be made on public transport such as by bus or train that is possibly going to be cheaper than if a taxi was used to transport an asylum seeker.