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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on introducing the debate and setting out his stall most effectively. It has been a good debate, with a large number of constructive comments from all the Members who have contributed. I assure Members that I take the issue seriously, as does the Department for Transport and the Government generally. I shall respond to the points made as best I can.
To be clear from the start, the Government agrees that it is important for airlines and airports to be sensitive to the needs of disabled people. As a minimum, they must comply with the European regulation that has been enacted to protect the interests of people with disabilities, though that in itself is not enough. I very much agree with the comments made by a number of Members today, including the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), that while we have seen significant improvements under successive Governments in bus and rail travel—I am not pretending everything is perfect, but a lot of improvements have been made—what is happening with the airlines is lagging behind. That is the biggest challenge for travellers with disabilities.
Let me set out the legal position. Aviation is an international business. Almost all the issues that arise are common throughout the world, and a substantial body of international law, whether created by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the European Union or individual member states, exists to support and help aviation passengers. For those people who are disabled or have reduced mobility, from whatever cause, European regulation 1107/2006 establishes their rights. The regulation is fully supported by the UK Government and has applicability in UK law under a statutory instrument, S.I. 2007, No. 1895.
The European regulation concerns the rights of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility when travelling by air. It gives rights to disabled air travellers, including the right to assistance at airports and on board planes, and imposes legal obligations on airports, airlines and their agents or tour operators in respect of the service that they provide to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility. To guarantee such assistance, passengers are required to provide notification to the airline of their needs at least 48 hours in advance. If no notification is given, airports and airlines are required to make all reasonable efforts to provide assistance. Forty-eight hours is a long time, and people obviously want to be as spontaneous as they can, so that is a challenge. The rail industry, for example, has done a great deal to reduce the time of pre-notification, so I hope that that issue might be improved in future.
The regulation is directly applicable in UK law and the Civil Aviation Authority has powers to enforce the regulation in the UK. Any company found to be in breach of its obligations could be subject to prosecution. On disability, it is fair to say that the EU and the USA are further advanced with legislative measures to secure rights to access and help for disabled air passengers.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation has also taken an interest in this area in its guidance, and we are engaging with it to share best practice, although even best practice leaves questions to be answered.
To help the UK air transport industry to comply with its obligations, the Department for Transport produced a code of practice, “Access to Air Travel for Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility”, along with a passenger booklet, “Your Rights to Fly—What you need to know”. The code incorporates the legal requirements and recommendations—for example, offering best practice as a way forward—but the Government expects the industry to adopt the recommendations unless there are practical reasons that make it unreasonable to do so. Interpretive guidance is available on the regulation from the European Commission.
We want all disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility to experience as pleasant a flight as possible. To achieve that, we must always be alert to upcoming issues and try to identify them quickly. We must certainly persuade and cajole the industry to follow our guidance, and we must enforce that when necessary. All those involved in transporting disabled passengers should be sensitive and aware. I appreciate that that may not always be the case. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that he was disgusted by the attitude of some airlines. I hope that that is not a general experience, but I accept that there may sometimes be insensitivity that could be improved on.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough referred to training and process, and there has been a great deal of work on that in other transport modes such as rail and buses. The airlines may be marginally lagging behind on that front. All customer-facing staff should be well trained, and use kindness and common sense. We must be aware of when dignity might be compromised, and minimise that as far as possible. We must also be realistic and pragmatic about the limitations and difficulties facing airlines that may not apply to other forms of transport.
Airlines can refuse a booking only if accepting it would break safety rules or the size of the plane or its doors makes boarding or carriage physically impossible. Paragraph 1(a) of article 4 of the regulation authorises air carriers to derogate from the principle of non-discrimination and to refuse to accept a reservation from or to embark a person with reduced mobility, or require that person to be accompanied by another person to meet applicable safety requirements. That is a sensitive point for some, but whether we like it or not—I do not—there may be tension between disability rights and safety requirements, and we must accept that. Our efforts must be to try to minimise that as far as possible. The CAA has the task of enforcing the regulation and works hard to ensure that airlines deliver both safety and individuals’ right to travel as freely as possible.
Various tensions must be managed. Electric mobility devices can catch fire on board. In an emergency, it must be possible to evacuate an aircraft quickly. Personal wheelchairs would not be crash resistant to sit in during flight, so they cannot be used at present. There may be steps that could be taken to secure them adequately, but that has not yet been achieved. That is why we must consider a combination of pragmatism affecting disability rights and safety requirements.
There are physical limitations of aircraft type, and it has been noted that aircraft are purchased and constructed to last a long time. Some of the requirements that we want on an aircraft now may not have been thought of when it was built. There have been problems with rail vehicles, and that is the case even more with planes. The regulation provides a specific derogation and allows a carrier, its agent or a tour operator not to accept a reservation from a disabled person if that would not comply with the nature of the plane.
The CAA is the UK’s aviation regulator for all European Union aviation consumer protection law and the enforcer of EU regulation 1107/2006. This summer, the CAA took over responsibility for handling disabled passenger complaints and offers advice about all issues concerning disability travel. The aviation health unit at the CAA gives advice to GPs and to members of the public who may have questions about whether they are fit to fly.
The CAA is continuing to develop its capacity to help and to support passengers. It is actively engaged with airlines and airports in seeking to improve service levels and is conducting its own inquiries into those areas where further improvements are needed. It has set up a new consumer advisory panel to act as a critical friend of the regulator as it moves forward to putting the consumer at the heart of its regulatory efforts.
Hon. Members may know that the CAA announced in April that the chair of the new panel will be Keith Richards, and he is now in post. Mr Richards—he is not the Rolling Stone—has considerable experience of disabled air passenger issues, having been chair of the aviation working group at the disabled persons transport advisory committee for many years, as well as being a former head of consumer affairs at the Association of British Travel Agents. In the autumn, the full panel of nine members was appointed, and the new body has already held its first meeting.
The hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) asked about DPTAC. There has been consultation about its future, and we have now received the responses, which are being analysed in the Department. We will make a statement in due course. No decisions have been made at this point, other than to have consultation, which I think has been completed.
The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who is no longer in her place, asked whether the CAA should be required to produce an annual report. The proposed powers in the Civil Aviation Bill will enable it to facilitate comparisons across airlines. It will have a clear role in sharing and encouraging best practice. It has plans in place to share complaint data with disability groups to facilitate development of best practice. What we are doing in the Bill will be useful in taking forward the steps that right hon. and hon. Members rightly want.
I draw attention to the new CAA functions on information about aviation services in clauses 83 to 93 of the Bill. New publication powers are also crucial in putting the environmental concerns of passengers and the public at the forefront of the CAA’s core business. Without the provisions in the Bill, the CAA can publish guidance and advice only about its or the Secretary of State’s functions. Some operators may already publish data on their services, but many use varying and incompatible measures. Others choose to do less. The Bill, which is being debated in the other place today, will for the first time give the CAA a duty to publish performance and environmental data that are transparent, objective and consistent. That will allow consumers easily to compare operators and to fill gaps when the industry has not provided information. That is a useful tool to drive up performance.
A number of issues were raised that I will try to address. Some hon. Members asked about passengers’ dignity. We accept absolutely that that is important. On the matter raised by the hon. Member for Strangford, we are not aware of regular requirements for strip searches being a problem. If such a search is necessary, it should certainly be done discreetly in a private area. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about a particular airport or airline, he is welcome to let us know and we will pass it on to the CAA to take forward. We would not want that to become a problem unnecessarily.
The hon. Member for Bolton South East asked whether passengers could be met at car parks. Pre-notification is the key, as always, but passengers should be able to be met and supported as needed. Pre-notification makes that possible, but again if right hon. and hon. Members believe that good practice is not being followed, they should let the Department or the CAA know and we will pursue individual matters as they are brought to our attention.
The hon. Member for Strangford also said that airlines could do some simple things if they had a bit of compassion. I hope that they do not lack compassion—I am sure that most do not—but I agree entirely that some simple steps could be taken to improve matters. Often, they can be done by changing a process, which may not even be costly. If he has suggestions, I am happy to pass them on.
The Department is certainly open to that and to making suggestions to the industry when they are brought to our attention. Indeed, some of the best comments have come from organisations such as Trailblazers, and I was pleased with its useful report. Frankly, some of the statistics that it referred to are rather disturbing, and the industry needs to respond sensibly to those. I know that the CAA has that in its sights and will look at what might be done, within its powers, to take that matter forward. For example, there is no reason or excuse for the number of wheelchairs apparently being damaged in transit, as hon. Members mentioned. The fact that British airlines have a better record on compensating passengers is a good point, but it is no substitute for wheelchairs being damaged in the first place. Steps can be taken, and ICAO technical instructions relate to wheelchairs and to medical and health equipment being carried. There is, of course, a remedy for wheelchairs being damaged, but as I said, that is not a substitute for them being carried properly in the first place.
I agree that airlines and airports need to do more to try and avoid unnecessary obstacles to seamless travel for individual passengers, in so far as that can be achieved. It is not good enough if people have to wait four hours for a wheelchair to be moved 25 yards, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) pointed out in a very passionate and useful contribution. I take his point that there is a need to look at the definition of accessible, so that people can understand what it means. That is an important point.
On what the Government is doing generally, I add that we are in the process of producing a transport accessibility strategy, which will cover all modes of transport. It will build on the work of successive previous Governments—both the Government that introduced the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the previous Government, which did good work in this area. As hon. Members have said, this is not a party issue. All Members feel strongly about it, and we want to get the best results that we can. The strategy will appear in the not-too-distant future.
I am sorry, by the way, that my hon. Friend is leaving the Select Committee on Transport. Is that right?
Norman Baker
That is a great pity, because my hon. Friend’s contributions to that Committee have been very useful. I have no idea whose decision that was—if it was the Whips’, I think that it is the wrong one—but I thank him for his work.
An issue was raised about an aircraft on which an accessible toilet was down a spiral staircase. I should put it on record that although there is a toilet down the spiral staircase, there is another, more accessible toilet on that type of plane. It is some distance away at the other end of the cabin, but it is actually on the same flight level—to put the record straight on that point.
The hon. Member for Wigan asked about accessibility of public transport generally, and I hope that I have dealt with that matter. If she has particular issues about rail or bus travel, she can draw them to my attention, but we are making progress. We have kept the targets for replacing vehicles on the railways and buses, to make sure they are fully accessible. Those targets have not been changed and we are making good progress towards achieving them. We have also put further moneys into the Access for All programme—£100 million for the next control period for the railways—to ensure that further improvements are made to the railway station infrastructure in this country, so that fewer people encounter problems getting through stations, which I am afraid can be an issue.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who said that in his view, what benefits the disabled traveller benefits all travellers. That is exactly the right analysis, whether it applies to information on buses and trains or to physical access. Until I became a father and had to cart a buggy up and down stairs, I had never realised how many stairs there were at underground stations, nor had I realised how inaccessible some of them are. If we are able-bodied, we do not necessarily understand or appreciate the difficulties that some of our fellow citizens face. Putting the disabled person centre stage, as far as we can, is a sensible strategy to take forward, and I hope that we will do that in our general accessibility strategy.
I hope that I have answered most of the points that hon. Members have made in today’s debate, and I thank them again for their comments. I hope that it is clear from what I have said that no one is complacent, that the UK is fully engaged with these issues and that the CAA is doing an increasingly effective job in developing its consumer support function. There is, of course, always more that can be done. Pre-notification of requirements is key. Airlines need to know what disabled customers’ needs are, so that they can prepare for them, but having been notified of them, we would expect airlines to deliver on those requirements as far as possible. The CAA and ABTA have done good work in highlighting that need. It is much better to have pre-notification than to leave matters to best endeavours on the day.
I am pleased that the CAA is taking forward work in a number of other areas. For example, it has helped in the introduction of the Medical Engineering Resource Unit TravelChair, which is a specialist seat for disabled children that fits into a normal aircraft, and in discussing the introduction of a British Standards Institution standard for air travel for wheelchair users. Those are important extra steps towards making the air journeys of disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility more pleasant.
I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale again for securing the debate, as well as all Members who have contributed today.
Annette Brooke (in the Chair)
Thank you, Minister, and all Members for an excellent debate.