The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett) on securing this debate on this important issue for his constituents. I also welcome the supportive comments made by the hon. Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless). In response, I would like to set out the measures that the Government are putting in place to improve access to rail travel for people with reduced mobility. While I have this opportunity, I also want to explain the particular circumstances which, unfortunately, have so far prevented enhancement plans for Crayford from being achieved.
The provision of a modern, accessible public transport system in which disabled people have the same opportunities to travel as other members of society is key to improving the life chances of disabled people, promoting social inclusion and making it easier for older people to work or volunteer. We are fully aware that, without accessible transport, disabled people are limited in their ability to access work, to visit friends and family, to participate in leisure activities or to use essential services such as health care and education facilities. That is why successive Governments have taken strong action to ensure that public transport services are increasingly accessible to the large population of disabled people who live in Great Britain, and I believe that the UK’s record in this area speaks for itself. I might also add that these issues affect not only disabled people: when I first became a father, the need to carry the buggy brought home to me just how many steps there were in railway stations.
When the railways first arrived in Crayford in the 1860s, they symbolised the future of transport. They were fast, reasonably comfortable and cheap to use. Unfortunately, 19th century railways were not built with the needs of 21st century travellers in mind, and it is only in recent years that serious attention has been paid to making stations more accessible. As my hon. Friend mentioned, the previous Government published the Railways for All strategy in 2006, which set out what the rail industry as a whole was doing to improve access to rail services, particularly for disabled people.
The coalition Government understand the importance of rail stations to passengers’ overall journeys and place the highest value on promoting equality and fairness. We realise that accessible stations make a huge difference to people’s journey experience, and we remain committed to making further improvements. To date, 148 stations across England, Wales and Scotland have been targeted to receive main scheme funding for an accessible route to and between their platforms. I am pleased to report that the Access for All programme described in the strategy is rolling out across the network, with accessible routes already installed at 42 stations, which are now complete, and good progress being made on the programme nationally. By the end of the current financial year, we expect a total of 65 stations to have been completed.
The busiest stations have been prioritised, as improving these will benefit the largest number of people. The stations have been chosen on the basis of Office of Rail Regulation station usage statistics, weighted by the incidence of disability in the local area based on the 2001 census. As a result, the investment is being targeted at the busier stations in areas with a higher proportion of disabled people. A proportion of the stations were also selected to ensure a fair geographical spread across the country.
As my hon. Friend will know, however, Crayford station was not selected in the main scheme programme. However, since 2006, small schemes funding has also been made available, for which local authorities, train operating companies and other interested groups can bid, to make smaller scale or locally focused access improvements to stations. In total, the small schemes programme has provided almost £25 million of match funding towards investment of almost £100 million supporting improvements to meet local needs at more than 1,000 stations.
As my hon. Friend says, Crayford station already has a level access route to the upside platform. We believe, as he does, that a step-free route could be provided relatively easily to the downside platform as well by resurfacing and making good the disused station approach road. As he knows, in 2007 Southeastern successfully applied for £51,000 of departmental funding towards a project estimated at £102,000 to make this a reality. I am very sorry to say that in March 2008 Southeastern withdrew the application, citing land ownership issues, particularly the fact that the disused right of way belonged to J Sainsbury plc.
We understand, however—my hon. Friend touched on this in his introduction—that an agreement has been reached between Bexley council and Sainsbury’s to transfer the ownership of the land to the council and that this will be finalised shortly. This will remove Southeastern’s original reason for dropping the scheme and I am therefore disappointed that it is now citing the need to install revenue protection gates as the reason for not providing the required access.
I should add, of course, that the Government support gating as a means to protect revenue and increase security at stations, and the entrance to the London-bound platform at Crayford is already gated, but this should not be at the expense of providing access. The Department has recently commissioned research showing that providing level access to platforms can deliver increased journeys and therefore increased revenues for train operators, so I would like to encourage Southeastern seriously to look at this issue again and to give full consideration to the operational arrangements that would be required to enable access via gates to a new entrance on the other platform. Even if gates are not staffed, there are other examples, such as at Luton, of remote control of gates to entrances where passengers with tickets that cannot operate the gates place their ticket on a screen which is viewed by the operator before the gates are opened.
Small schemes funding was made available again later in 2008 for work taking place during the 2009-10 financial year. I have to report to the House that the Department received no further applications for work at Crayford. Following this debate, I will ask my officials to ensure that my comments as well as my hon. Friend’s are drawn to the attention of Southeastern’s managing director, Charles Horton.
I should make it clear that the Access for All programme is in addition to commitments made in franchises and other programmed major station improvements. It also builds on the raising of standards over recent years, including the requirement on train operating companies to take account of accessibility standards in the code of practice on train and station standards for disabled people. For example, the accessibility of booking facilities and the provision of assistance for disabled passengers have also significantly improved.
We have also recently updated the code of practice setting out the access standards for infrastructure work at stations to align it with new European standards, and these have complemented significant advances in rail vehicle accessibility over the past decade. In addition, we are working with the industry to update the way in which disabled people’s protection policies, which set out how the train operators will meet the needs of their disabled customers, are written.
There is no room for complacency, however. I do not think that anyone in this Chamber would underestimate the scale of the challenge or believe that the Railways for All strategy represents the end of our task. We recognise that progress in improving the accessibility of stations and stops must be accompanied by improvements to the accessibility of rail vehicles.
Under the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 1998—more commonly known as RVAR—introduced under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, all new rail vehicles introduced since 31 December 1998 have had features making them significantly more accessible to disabled people, such as larger and easier access to priority seats for disabled passengers; the use of tonal contrast in liveries and finishes; a minimum number of spaces for wheelchair users; boarding devices to facilitate wheelchair access; provision of handrails and handholds; and provision of audible and visual passenger information. More than 6,200 accessible rail vehicles are already in service and all rail vehicles must be accessible by no later than 1 January 2020. Together with the code of practice, these provisions will deliver consistent access standards for vehicles and stations across the whole rail network for the first time.
My hon. Friend might say that there is not much point in making train vehicles accessible if the stations to access them are not accessible as well. That is also a point that I hope Southeastern might take on board. The 2020 “end date” dovetails with similar provisions for buses and coaches, ensuring the existence of an accessible transport chain and giving disabled people certainty that they will be able to access all public transport vehicles in future.
We should bear it in mind that, although they may not have been built to modern accessibility standards, many thousands of older rail vehicles have already been made more accessible by refurbishment. That includes fleets of older trains such as those serving my hon. Friend’s constituency, which, as he will know, have recently received accessibility improvements.
However, the need to improve access to the railway does not stop with stations and vehicles. On occasion, barriers such as a lack of confidence, poor travel information and the attitudes of staff may affect disabled people’s ability, confidence and desire to use public transport. That is why we have supported the production by the Association of Train Operating Companies of a staff disability awareness training DVD through the Access for All small schemes fund and its full access audits of every station in the country, which will allow a better focus in the targeting of future improvements.
As rail vehicles and stations are made accessible to disabled people, the facilities that they offer greatly benefit other passengers such as pregnant women, parents with pushchairs and those carrying heavy luggage. Indeed, all of us at one time or another in our lives will be grateful that those provisions have been put in place. A great deal has been achieved, but the railway industry is far from complacent, and will continue to work with the organisations representing disabled people—and, most important, with disabled people themselves—to improve services further. It is clearly regrettable that the access at Crayford station remains below modern acceptable standards, and I share my hon. Friend’s concern about that.
Services on rail are covered by the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which is soon to be replaced by the Equality Act 2010. It is the duty of Southeastern to make reasonable adjustments to the way it provides its services so that disabled customers do not find them impossible or unreasonably difficult to use. It might make physical adjustments, or it might make the service available by an alternative means such as the provision of an accessible taxi to the next level access station; but that is a much less satisfactory—