Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very strange Bill; it is a Bill in search of a purpose, which proposes and transfers substantial powers to a regulatory body but which gives us no road map for how those powers are going to be used. In the debates we have had so far and in the amendments we are looking at this afternoon, it is inevitable that there will be amendments to try to give the Bill a purpose, to limit the use of the powers, because their use has not been explained, and to get some better regulation directly into the Bill, given the absence of any suggestion for improvements in the legislation that we have before us. That includes some very good proposals that we will come to later to improve the lot of disabled travellers, for example. I can understand why people want to get something worth while into the Bill, which is otherwise this rather strange transfer of powers, in order to be able to trust this independent body. We know that there is no urgency about this because we know from the impact assessment that there will not be any costs or benefits for the foreseeable future, and that the CAA will be given about a year after the successful passage of the Bill, if it goes through, to contemplate and review.

I support my noble friend because he is trying to give the Bill an overriding purpose, which should be entirely at one with the manifesto, the plans and the stated intentions of both the outgoing and the incoming Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think we all agree, across parties, that it would be good if our economy grew faster than it has been growing since the great crash of 2008-09. Surely we can all see that this requires a sector-by-sector response, as well as changes in general economic policy that are not the subject of this debate.

My noble friend is right to try to make growth and competitiveness the twin aims. I suspect that the Minister is very sympathetic, but he will need to get colleagues and others to co-operate in speeding up work to try to ensure that the aviation sector—which is normally a fast-growing, modernising, important sector, particularly in an island country that needs good transport links—is one of the attractive means of increasing our activity and our growth, creating more and better-paid jobs.

This legislation covers issues that could make a very material contribution to that faster growth. It covers the question of airport slots. Will there be more of them, and is there a policy to try to create more capacity? What is the Government’s view on airport expansion? Will there be more expansion of smaller and regional airports to take some of the strain off the main centre in London? What is the plan for London, and when will we have the very large number of slots expanded? It is clearly under great pressure of demand.

Regulations on charging are mentioned but not detailed in this legislation. We have already heard from my noble friend about the possible tax charges on certain types of business premise, but we really need to hear from the Government what the charging policy is going to be for scarce airport space, particularly in London, where we are becoming uncompetitive against Schiphol, Paris, Frankfurt and some of the other continental airports that are our natural competitors. If you become not very price competitive, you start to lose the interlining and air-switching business, which can be handled by a big intersection airport such as Amsterdam just as well as it can be handled by Heathrow. We need a bit more guidance on how these regulations might develop and be included.

I urge the Minister to take off one or two of the veils and give us some idea of how these policies on improved regulation for the cost of use of airports, the amount of airport space, the allocation of slots and the general conduct of air traffic in our country might be deployed. I find it odd that, two years into a Government with a very strong majority and a strong mandate for quite a limited manifesto, they do not seem to have those burning desires, for example, to get our aviation sector really growing quickly. They are not answering the questions about these very basic things. How much airport space? How do you allocate the slots? What is the pricing? How much support do you give to the industry? What will the regulatory impact be on that industry? We all want safety regulation and good regulation so that the customer gets a decent deal, but we do not want so much regulation that it throttles the industry here and an extremely mobile and fast-moving industry can shift its assets the following day to another hub airport somewhere else, taking a lot of the business away.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for Amendment 1, but I express concern that it and Amendment 3 are in conflict in their proposed new subsections (1)(c) and (1B)(c). The reason for that was amply explained by the noble Lord, Lord Redwood. He started by saying that this Bill is one in search of a purpose, but went on to say that we are going to improve the lot of disabled people, among other things. I am very grateful that he said that, because proposed new subsection (1B)(c) in Amendment 3 asks the Secretary of State to make it an absolute priority to consider the impact of the regulations on

“the burdens imposed on air transport service providers and airport operators in complying with the regulations”.

Part of the journey of disabled people in buying a ticket, going through various airports and actually flying is that most of the providers would say that all provision for disabled people is a burden. They try to minimise everything they can. Does the Minister agree with me on that? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also might like to address that when he comments at the end.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I turn to the first group of amendments, Amendments 1 and 3 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I thank both Front Benches for having met us over the past few days in the run-up to Report. All the insight, information and conversations have been very much appreciated. I admire the attempt of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to insert an overarching economic growth purpose into the heart of the Bill, which I see as a valiant attempt. I hope that he will in turn look kindly on some of my valiant attempts in further groups.

As he rightly says, the Government should be stretching every sinew to pursue growth, as we did in the wake of the economic crash of 2008 and the extremely difficult days of the coalition Government. I had the enormous privilege of being what one might describe as an unelected bureaucrat, sitting in Cabinet meetings and watching those proceedings. Not a week went by when economic growth was not discussed, and that was a good thing.

Technically, unless I have misread it or misunderstood it in Committee, this is primarily a safety and consumer protection framework, with slots and modernisation as part of it. In mandating that the Secretary of State have regard to promoting economic growth when regulating passenger rights under Clause 1, I worry about subordinating the safety and dignity of the travelling public to the commercial margins of what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, described in Committee as a low-margin industry. It is vital to reflect through this Bill, as we talked about in Committee, the low margins of ordinary passengers who must jump through hoop after hoop to get what is by rights their compensation and, in turn, bear the financial consequence and burden. That is what worries me.

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[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 6, I declare my interest as chief operating officer of Natasha’s Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, for adding their names to the amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his support on this issue.

As we discussed in Committee, there are far too many barriers to air travel for people with medical conditions, non-visible disabilities and allergy—in particular, food allergy. Amendment 6 asks the Government to recognise this and to ensure that these passengers are covered by the Bill so that they can travel more safely, more easily and with greater confidence. The Government have rightly said that aviation must be accessible to all passengers, and all noble Lords will welcome that.

However important statements of intent are, it is action that matters. Although it is not perfect, that is why I support government Amendment 19, as it should put in place the building blocks for action by the Government that should lead to action by the aviation industry. In supporting it, I want to press my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on four areas. The first is the timeframe for the consultation. I strongly support Amendment 20 from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which would remove what I might call the “We are able to drag our feet” caveat—my words, not the noble Baroness’s. The consultation in Amendment 19 does not have to start for a year and could last for years. The caveat risks giving the impression that the Government intend the consultation to take a long time. I am sure that is not the intention. Therefore, can my noble friend Lord Hendy indicate how long the Government expect the consultation to take and commit to a meeting two months after Royal Assent so that officials can update all interested noble Lords on their plans?

Secondly, and I am sure other noble Lords will echo this, can my noble friend outline how the consultation sits alongside the excellent work of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson? That group met for many months and brought together people with disabilities and medical conditions, including allergy, consumer representatives and the airline industry. Its final report made 19 practical recommendations. The implementation of those recommendations must continue at pace. Many do not require legislation. They require clear guidance, effective policy and willingness from the airline industry to deliver that change. To that end, will my noble friend Lord Hendy arrange a meeting for noble Lords with the co-chairs of the Aviation Accessibility Implementation Group to discuss what can be done now, without waiting for legislation, to improve air travel, especially for passengers with allergy?

Thirdly, from recent conversations with officials and other legal professionals, it is clear that the interaction between the Equality Act and aviation-specific regulation is complex. Regulation 1107 covers disability assistance in air travel, while the Equality Act may apply to allergy and other medical conditions that fall outside that regulation. For example, an airline’s allergy policy could potentially amount to indirect disability discrimination or a failure to make reasonable adjustments if it places passengers with allergy at a particular disadvantage without objective justification. The legal position for passengers and airlines needs clarification. I ask my noble friend Lord Hendy to seek that clarification from the relevant Ministers on how the Equality Act applies to air passengers with allergy and other medical conditions. If there are gaps between the two legal frameworks and legislation is needed to provide greater clarity or protection, can my noble friend confirm that this will fall within the scope of the consultation under Amendment 19?

Finally, I thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for writing to the FSA to clarify the application of Natasha’s law to airlines. When a response is received, whatever the answer, further discussion will be inevitable. If the food labelling rules do not apply, we need to understand why and whether there is a gap to close. Again, I hope that will be part of the consultation under Amendment 19. However, my hope is that they apply, and therefore we need to understand how the FSA, the CAA, passengers and allergy charities can help ensure the rules are properly applied. I therefore hope that my noble friend will be willing to convene a meeting with interested noble Lords, the FSA and other relevant organisations on Natasha’s law and airlines.

Amendment 6 is about ensuring that passengers with medical conditions, including allergy, are not invisible within the aviation accessibility framework. I welcome the progress we have made, both inside and outside the Chamber, and the government amendments in this group. I look forward to my noble friend Lord Hendy’s assurances on the four points I have raised.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Deputy Speaker for pointing out that Amendment 25 appears in both this group and the next. I plan to speak to it in the next group. I had hoped that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, might have spoken to his Amendment 18 and to his Amendment 19, to which I have tabled amendments in the next group, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, also has amendments. Since that has not happened, I will speak to my amendments to his amendments in this group, although I may also briefly cross-reference them in the next group. But it would be unfortunate if they were debated completely separately.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, for her contribution, and I absolutely support everything that she said. I have seen the consequences at a Lib Dem party conference event where there had been some nuts, not at that event but in the same room at a previous event, and a person reacted very badly. Clearly, Natasha’s law must be implemented and, if the current regulations do not do that, there must be further regulations to make sure that that happens.

I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 22, which seeks to ensure that a disabled or elderly person who travels with a carer is not separated from their carer while they are receiving assistance at the airport. I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Grender on the importance of how we treat carers more generally.

Since Committee, this issue was brought home to me particularly a fortnight ago in Heathrow terminal 2, where a very elderly couple were waiting. She was in a wheelchair; he was not. They were both concerned about their journey. They were told by the assistance person, in somewhat terse terms, that the assistance person could not take both of them through together, and so the husband had to go back and make his own way through security on his own. He was not even given the usual option of following behind. His wife looked very distressed by this, and he had to reassure her that he would see her in a few minutes. Such behaviour by the assistance staff was uncalled for. The staff member did not even ask whether the husband was able to go through security on his own; nor did she ask whether the wife was okay with that. Had one of them had memory loss—and I suspect that one of them had—this would have been really distressing and difficult. The staff member saw only a wheelchair and an excess person trying to streamline their journey. That is why Amendment 22 is important.

I noticed something else in the “cripple ghetto” in Heathrow terminal 2—I steal the term used by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, but anyone who goes to the assistance area, which I think is a temporary area, knows exactly what it is like. To talk to people waiting there, people have to talk round corners, which is not very clever. More importantly, there is not one space for a wheelchair; I thought that I had found one, and sat there, and then watched as wheelchairs without people in them were wheeled past me and over my toes on one occasion. It was actually the route for other wheelchairs, not mine.

All of this fits very much with my noble friend Lady Grender’s concerns, in Amendments 8, 10 and 11, about people with care-giving duties being provided a remedy for a particular journey through an airport. As I have said, assistance staff should not make assumptions about the non-physically disabled person travelling as a carer.

The Minister’s Amendments 18 and 19 set out the arrangements for a consultation on the protections that should be in place for people with disabilities, reduced mobility and nut allergies, and who should be doing what. Again, I am very grateful for his response on this between Committee and Report. However, as he knows, I have some very specific concerns about the wording, which I raise in Amendments 20 and 23, which seek to amend his Amendment 19, and Amendment 25, which seeks to amend his Amendment 24.

Amendment 20 proposes to leave out the words in brackets at the end of subsection (1) of the new clause inserted by Amendment 19, which state

“(but the Secretary of State need not complete the process within that period)”.

I think that is a real threat that the whole process might be thrown into the long grass, and I hope that the Minister can reassure me that that is not the case.

Amendment 23 seeks to amend subsection (4)(c) of the new clause to be inserted by Amendment 19, by leaving out the word “or”, which appears at the end of line 26, and replacing it with “and”. Retaining “or” would mean that a Secretary of State could choose either not to consult groups representing disabled passengers or not to consult the individual passengers themselves. It may be that consultation needs to cover the lived experience of individuals as well as hearing from the strengths that are available from disability groups. It would be a shame if that were really “or”; let us hope that “and” is possible.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendments 5 and 9 in this group, I thank the other noble Lords who have signed them. I intend to be brief because there has been some crossover with the last groups. I thank the Minister for his time and availability. He has managed to assuage some of my concerns. My amendments in this group are around appropriate training on how to assist disabled people, the storage and handling of mobility equipment, data gathering and complaints.

To refer back to the previous group, while there may be rules and procedures in place, disabled people still experience way too many difficulties trying to get on or off an aeroplane. It is also too difficult to complain. Quite often, passengers are passed around: when they buy a ticket, they think the contract is with the airline, but when things go wrong it can be a combination of the airline, the airport and the crew that does the handling. If there is one thing I hope for from this, it is for disabled people to stop being patronised when they fly. That would be a big step forward.

It was helpful to listen to the Minister on government Amendment 19 and the consultation. The reality is that disabled people have quite a high expectation, but we have to be realistic. Some of the things that we really need—appropriate compensation if mobility equipment is destroyed or goes missing or is not tied down in planes—relies on international jurisdictions. I ask the Minister to keep that level of pressure up. We could do better—throughout the whole world, actually—in how disabled people are treated. Complaints should not be so complicated, and it should not take so long or be so difficult to get compensation or to get equipment repaired.

From personal experience, I would say that Schiphol and London City are the best airports in the world—other people may have a different experience of that. The voice of disabled people is important and we should be learning from the best, so I will be watching the consultation closely. The industry can and should do better. I look forward to listening to the Minister’s comments on the government amendments in this group. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and his officials, who have met with us to discuss issues relating to standards to provide assistance to disabled people throughout their journey and why this desperately needs to be remedied formally. I signed Amendment 5, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, which specifies a minimum standard for training and service delivery.

I have spoken at length, not just in Committee and at Second Reading but on other Bills and in other debates, about the different approaches taken to the batteries in a wheelchair when you get to check-in. That is one of the areas on which there really needs to be training. When check-in staff do not understand the difference between lithium batteries, which you can and must carry on yourself, and acid batteries—I have two bus batteries on my chair—then you have got a problem, because you cannot have a sensible conversation. That sort of training is vital. Part of the problem is that the moment you start to very politely question the person who is asking, you are deemed to be a trouble-maker and everything goes downhill from there.

It is part of most disabled travellers’ experience to be told repeatedly that they are wrong. I have absolutely found this, even when I was last at Heathrow, a fortnight ago. Staff just knew better until I produced the IATA regulations and showed them chapter and verse on batteries, at which point they had the grace to apologise— but sometimes, they have not done so. I may be very odd, but I always have a copy of the IATA regulations with me.

Amendment 5 would ensure transparency in service delivery, through

“the collection and publication of data regarding … damage”

done to

“mobility aids … and medical and life-sustaining equipment”.

I pick up on the point I made in Committee, when I laid amendments to formalise an informal arrangement for the UK Government’s role in ICAO, which was mentioned in the previous group. It is absolutely vital that the Montreal agreement is reviewed and that the responsibility for regulations is removed from IATA. I find it mind-numbingly astonishing that the trade association for the aircraft carriers is also responsible for the regulations. In no other area would we allow that to happen. ICAO has a key role. I am sorry that it has felt that it did not need to push to act as anything more than a support group for disgruntled people. It needs to go further. It is vital that the Montreal agreement is reviewed and that responsibility for regulations is taken away from IATA.

Finally, Amendment 25 seeks to amend the Minister’s Amendment 24 in this group on matters to which the Secretary of State must have regard. Lines 5 and 6 of the Minister’s amendment refer to

“the desirability of strengthening the rights of persons who purchase or use air transport services”.

We had this debate before, but I know that the Minister will respond to this amendment. I am really concerned; the word “desirability” is or should be redundant. At worst, it weakens the position of disabled passengers, because it sets disabled rights in the wider context of everyone who purchases or uses transport services. As I said earlier, that is dangerous, and I hope the Minister will really try to remedy this. I am worried that it will create a worse problem than we have now—and what we have now is not good enough.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendments 5 and 9, to which I was delighted to add my name.

In truth, we live in an era of rapidly advancing technology, when other industries are bending over backwards to ensure their staff are trained to deliver a high level of quality service with an attitude of respect, and when digital means of communication are being used in abundance to ensure that customers have information that is clear and easily accessible. It is shocking to me that an amendment like this is necessary to ensure that the aviation industry steps up and does what should be standard practice to support disabled people—but it is necessary. The reality is that services for, and the treatment of, disabled people in the aviation industry are woefully inadequate—and they do not have to be. We know the issues and we know what needs to change. We now need to find the legislative framework to deliver that change. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

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[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I support the comments made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness about the rigorous way that any airline in this industry monitors the air supply in their aircraft. But we need to give some context on this subject. A number of years ago, there were some instances with the BAe 146 aircraft type. This was well known in the industry, and there appeared to be health issues among pilots who flew on that aircraft for a period of time.

I am former crew, and spent 25 years on aircraft—some of them a lot older than the aircraft these days and less sophisticated, I suspect—but I am not dismissive of the fact that this subject has to be taken seriously, and neither is the aerospace sector. I worked closely with the aerospace sector: I was head of European affairs for the aerospace and defence industries for four years when I was in Brussels, and I had obviously been with British Airways for many years before that, and had dealt with all these issues as an MEP. I take it seriously. However, we must not worry passengers, predominantly, or make crew worried about going to work. The maintenance standards obligations for the airlines are sophisticated, and they have legal requirements to follow them. The timing for aircraft servicing is extremely rigorous and, if an airline was not doing that job, I assure you that it would not have certification for very long.

Although I agree and take on board that this is a serious issue, it needs to be considered in a proportionate way. People will be watching this on BBC Parliament or parliamentlive.tv—if they are not doing something that is more interesting fare—and we do not want to frighten the life out of people who are going on holiday or doing business. There is a gentle conversation to be had about this, notwithstanding the authorities’ responsibility to ensure that flying is safe and that the environment that the crew and cabin crew work in, and for passengers, is as safe as can be.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, this group addresses the most profound structural shift in this Bill: the delegation of aviation rule-making to the Civil Aviation Authority. We are pleased to see that Amendment 62 now carries the Minister’s name, alongside that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. This is a vital victory for parliamentary scrutiny. The amendment mandates the affirmative procedure for regulations, specifying the limits of the CAA’s new rule-making powers, ensuring that this House retains its right to debate and approve the scope of what is delegated.

We similarly welcome government Amendment 58, which requires ministerial directions to the CAA to be laid before Parliament. For too long, the single guiding mind of the aviation sector has operated one step removed from democratic oversight. However, we must go further to prevent the creation of an all-powerful and potentially unaccountable regulator. We support the spirit of Amendment 57 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would remove the CAA veto over the Secretary of State’s statement of priorities. It is a constitutional nonsense to suggest that a Minister must secure the agreement of the body they are intended to oversee before setting their strategic objectives.

We support government Amendment 56, which correctly identifies that the Secretary of State must retain responsibilities for matters of public interest, including environmental protection and the needs of disabled passengers.

Regarding technical safety, we offer our strong support for Amendments 34 and 37, from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The monitoring of aircraft cabin air for carbon monoxide and other toxins is not a luxury; it is a fundamental safety requirement. If we are to grant the CAA more agile powers to update safety rules, those powers must be used to address the very real concerns of flight crew and passengers regarding air quality.

Similarly, Amendment 66, from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, regarding the enforcement of flight time limitations, is essential to ensure that operational efficiency never comes at the cost of pilot fatigue or of public safety.

Let us all ensure that, as we delegate these powers, we do not defang the regulator or emasculate Parliament. We must fill this skeletal Bill with the furniture of transparent reporting and mandatory safety reviews. I urge the House to support these measures to ensure that the UK remains a safety-led aviation hub that respects both the expertise of the regulator and the sovereignty of this House.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised important points that can only arouse the sympathy and interest of all Members of your Lordships’ House. Cabin air quality is crucial to safety. Without committing myself to the wording of either amendment, I do not think that this subject can be allowed to rest today. The Government will have to commit to come back to it in a credible and convincing way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is correct in saying that this group is largely about administrative matters related to Clause 8. Although we have tended to focus so far, quite properly, on the consumer protection parts of the Bill, in Clauses 1 and 2, we are now coming to that part of the Bill where the Civil Aviation Authority is authorised to make rules. These rules were previously made either by statutory instrument or by means of European Union legislation. The complaint from the Department for Transport is that it does not have enough time to do the statutory instruments and that it is all too much, so could we not, by statute, give the power to the Civil Aviation Authority to make these rules for it. I am not making that up. That is actually the complaint that has been made: that there are too many statutory instruments, so the department wants to give them to the unelected bureaucrats, regulators and so on—especially as it is not receiving new regulations from the European Union any more, which would be a different matter.

Many of the amendments in this group are about that administrative process and trying to reverse some of the original draft of the Bill, giving these powers without any accountability to the Civil Aviation Authority. I thank the Minister for his letter on this and for engaging in the concerns that were raised in Committee on this point. I also welcome the fact that the Government have tabled amendments to give effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In Committee we were clear that the Bill should set out the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rule-making, and government Amendment 56 now seeks to do that.

Government Amendment 58 addresses an important scrutiny point by requiring directions for the CAA to be laid before Parliament. I am also grateful to the Minister for adding his name to my Amendment 62, which ensures that the Secretary of State’s power to define exceptions to the CAA’s rule-making powers is subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.

I turn to Amendments 59 and 60. If the CAA is to make detailed aviation rules directly, industry must be able to find, understand and rely on the rules in force. The Bill says that the CAA may publish its rules. It really is not good enough to say that it may publish its rules; these amendments simply say that it must. It will not have to publish them in hard copy—they can be published on the internet—but even if the rulebook is very thick, which the noble Lord told us in Committee was the case, it must be possible to publish it and keep it up to date. Otherwise, how can anybody be sure that they are actually keeping the rules?

There is part of Clause 8 that really upsets me, and I am quite upset about it because I think it is a constitutional outrage. It was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and it is on page 12, where new Section 61F is being added to the existing legislation, the Civil Aviation Act 1982. It says, in relation to these new rule-making powers:

“The Secretary of State must issue a document that … sets out the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives … and … deals with matters relating to the exercise of the functions”.


That is good; I am all in favour of it. The document, by the way, is going to contain guidance. It says quite clearly, in subsection (2), that it will contain guidance on consultation, for example, and

“guidance about how the CAA should interpret and apply the environmental principles”,

and so forth. I imagine that is statutory guidance. But it then goes on to say:

“The Secretary of State … may not issue the document without the agreement of the CAA to the contents of the document”.


I think this is absolutely unprecedented. In Committee, the Minister said it was a new way of working; it certainly is. He said it was more like a contract. I think this is very misleading.

It is perfectly possible for the department, or the Secretary of State, to enter into contractual-type arrangements with the Civil Aviation Authority. I have no objection if they do that. Contractual types of arrangements exist in various parts of public life. It might contain key performance indicators. It might contain all sorts of things; I am not going to attempt to enumerate them. It would say, “This is your task, this is what we expect from you, this is what you are going to do in exchange for the funding” and so on. That is a contract—I understand that—and it is not precluded by this. But overarching all that, there must be a power, always, for an accountable Minister to issue guidance to an arm’s-length body or executive agency, to issue binding statutory guidance, without having to seek its agreement to the contents of the guidance first. Otherwise, where does ministerial accountability come in?

Railways Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, even if I think that processes have been somewhat neglected in the privatisation of recent years, often to the detriment of passengers. I want to echo the thanks that have been made to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, as he leaves this House. His distinguished experience has been of great value to the House over the years and I wish him well.

I thank the Minister and his officials for a meeting with disabled Peers prior to this Second Reading. For those of us who were involved in the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act, the paving bill for this one, which was in your Lordships’ house 18 months ago, this is a welcome day. Along with other noble Lords, my focus is to ensure that the strong promises from the Minister and the Labour Government to improve rail services for disabled passengers and others who need assistance become a reality. The Minister knows that we will hold him and his Government to account to ensure that the improvements that I know he wants actually happen. We need to ensure that the warm words spoken here turn into reality for every disabled person’s journey.

Clause 3 is vital to ensure that Great British Railways runs passenger services effectively for all passengers. For passengers who require assistance, whether with infrastructure or practical arrangements, far too often the service is not good, creating barriers for those who just want to get on a train to go from A to B.

I will start with infrastructure. In 2024, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, DPTAC, commissioned a survey with Omio which found that UK stations were the worst in Europe, having alarming accessibility inadequacies. A couple of years earlier, in 2021, the Department for Transport commissioned AtkinsRéalis to assess every station in the UK for accessibility. I note that it had completed over 1,000 by 2022, but I cannot find an overall publication of the findings, nor any further report on stations now fully accessible after improvements have been made. Can the Minister say whether such a report on the overall condition has been published and whether there will be updating as stations are improved?

It is not just older stations. In 2023, Thanet Parkway opened in Kent for the first time. The website Every Last Station quoted LordOrk, a disability campaigner, who said:

“Regrettably, NR have again cut costs by treating PRM”—


passengers with reduced mobility—

“compliance as a target rather than a minimum standard. Disappointingly disabled people have been treated as an afterthought at this new station and will suffer the consequences. For example, it is outrageous a new station has no accessible or changing places toilets, no EV chargers in the blue badge bays, platforms are narrow so wheelchair users and scooter users have reduced turning circles for boarding and their legal right to TUAG”,

or turn up and go,

“has been eroded at this unstaffed station”.

This Government have started to improve matters. I see it at my local station, Watford Junction, with BSL-interpreted videos alongside some key station announcements, for example, but these are now urgent everywhere and must be part of any new station. Can the Minister say that this Bill will ensure that, from now on, no new station will be built without lifts, level boarding and fully accessible features for those with mobility, visual and hearing impairments? I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about solutions for level boarding.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to the assistance app and I echo every single one of her points. I say the assistance app, but the reality is that a number of operating companies still run their own apps which do not always have access to book, say, wheelchair spaces on another line. That is my experience on a regular journey I do leaving Watford Junction on the west coast line to travel to York via King’s Cross. I have to use the LNER app or phone number, because, if I do not, no wheelchair space will be reserved for me on that leg of the journey. It was good to hear the Minister talk about just one app that will cover buying tickets and assistance. That was promised years ago but never appeared.

Can I check that passengers with a range of disabilities will be involved in the development of that app? Booking a wheelchair space on an app is useless unless the train staff ensure that the space is free of large suitcases. It is not too bad when you get on at King’s Cross, because wheelchairs are usually first on, but, at a station further up the line, assistance staff with the ramp often have to leave swiftly, leaving a wheelchair passenger to have to shout down the carriage to ask for cases to be moved. It is funny how deaf people get when that happens.

I turn now to a key element of support for all passengers, but essential for those with reduced mobility, and that is staff on a train and at the station. I will now do anything I can to avoid travelling on Southeastern trains because there are no staff, and most stations do not have staff either. This means that your journey time is in the lap of the gods. The journey time from Charing Cross to Lewisham could easily be doubled because there is nobody at Lewisham to provide help with a ramp. I have to get off at Hither Green and wait for staff at Hither Green to be free to take me on to the next convenient train for Lewisham. It is even longer in reverse, when you have to phone to ask Lewisham to find someone to get on a train from Hither Green to come and collect you.

Staff are needed on stations to help with ramps and to guide passengers who may not know how to get off the platform safely. They are needed, just as train staff are, for protecting and guiding all passengers, whether because of an emergency, as in the recent crash near Bedford, or, as I have seen, a crime with a dangerous weapon. I have also witnessed the enormous bravery of staff jumping down off the platform to rescue a passenger who jumped off a platform in great distress. That staff member did not think of his safety, only of the passenger. This bravery is extraordinary, but those stations and trains without staff can put passengers at risk.

I echo the frustration of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, with failed lifts. For six months at my local station, trains had to be brought into a different platform whenever there was a wheelchair on board because two lifts were out. That affected the elderly too, but they were not in a position to ask for a train to be rerouted. What was the problem? It was exactly the same as the current lift problem in the House of Lords: the lift companies do not keep spare parts at the factory in Italy and they have to be made each time. I find it extraordinary that Network Rail, which holds the contract for all station lifts, cannot insist on a better service. Under the old system, passengers had no voice on this. Will this change under GBR? I can tell you that six months without a platform lift affects everyone’s journey and morale.

Finally, a while ago, when my train from Edinburgh came into King’s Cross two hours late after midnight on a Sunday, the train staff dashed off to hand out taxi vouchers at the exit gates to all passengers, not realising that no assistance staff were left on duty. I and another wheelchair user realised, when everything went quiet, what had happened: we could not get off. The assistance phone line at the station was not answered, nor was the station general number. What would noble Lords do in this situation? It clearly was not a 999 matter; the 111 line was not staffed that late and the other passenger was getting very anxious. Was it scary? It certainly was not much fun—but not unusual for wheelchair passengers when they get left on trains.

So I tweeted. The disabled community is always helpful with suggestions, but one person went even further. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, saw my tweet and passed it on to the chief executive at LNER at about 1 am—of course, she had his number. It was helpful that he knew how to find someone to come to our rescue. However, if the noble Baroness had not been so well connected, I think my fellow traveller and I would have greeted the early shift of cleaners—thank you, Lady Grey-Thompson. To the Minister, I say: the aspirations of GBR should mean that this sort of problem of abandoning disabled passengers is a thing of the past. That would be a good yardstick of accessibility.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed the two amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, in this group. As she said, they are pertinent to the next group, when we get into the detail. I just wanted to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, that going from “may” to “must” is extremely important. We all know that when Ministers have the option of doing “may”, it never, ever gets to the top of the urgent “must” list.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly comment on some of the issues raised. We have to separate out the former regulation 261 on passenger rights for delays and cancellations from the very important report on the former regulation 1107, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has spent a great deal of time working on with passengers with reduced mobility. I certainly echo the points that she has raised.

Without going into detail on the late regulations 261 or 1107, one of the biggest problems is not that we need more regulations on passenger rights but that we need to enforce the regulations that are already in place. These are robust. I was involved in their conception in the European Parliament and they have been revised over the years. We need to be very careful that however they are amended in this Committee does not then cause some sort of conflict. We must have treatment of passengers abroad that would echo the treatment they would have in the UK. We cannot impose differences in regulation on third countries, so we have to persuade, through the international bodies, that we need a certain level of treatment for all passengers. As I said, on the old regulation 261, from a competition point of view, we need to ensure that a balance is struck, notwithstanding what the airlines are culpable for in terms of paying, so that the business runs accordingly and passengers are compensated appropriately.

I will comment briefly on my noble friend Lord Young’s comment on the delays caused through NATS and other providers. We looked at this some years ago when I was in the European Parliament. With the exception of force majeure—people recognise force majeure, where something happens and the airline or air traffic services have no control whatever, and they are pretty magnanimous about it—I wholly agree with my noble friend. It was something we tried to push. What we found, unfortunately, was that air traffic services and providers not just in the UK but across the EU were very reluctant to look at the third party where there was a responsibility for compensation to be paid back to the airlines where it had not been their fault. It is worth pursuing. It is a tough way forward; nevertheless, it is worth looking at.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is a great expert in these fields, with her medical background. If I recall, the initial problem with passenger air quality arose some years ago with the BAe 146 aircraft. The effects on the pilots went on for years. For reassurance—I declare an interest, having spent four years as the head of European affairs for the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe—looking all these years on, the safety of and the quality of air in the aircraft that we produce today is really quite different from some of the older aircraft. Fortunately, as former crew on a lot of the older aircraft, I survived 25 years of air quality that was perhaps not great. It needs to be kept in perspective. It should be monitored, of course, but we should reassure the public that, when they fly on these aircraft these days, they are safe and extremely well maintained.

My final point concerns onboard facilities if people fall ill. Believe me, people like me have called for a doctor onboard in the past. It was not much fun when someone was lying on the floor and I, a mere first-aider, was trying to deal with them and keep them alive. It was not ideal. It is very difficult to see how you could rearrange the entire aircraft. Fortunately, a critical situation does not happen very often, but it is up to the airlines to ensure that the crew and everyone onboard are trained sufficiently, that they have the facilities, in terms of medical kits and everything else, and that, if something is extremely serious, the pilot and the captain have the ability to divert to another airfield to ensure that the passenger is looked after as quickly as possible. Those are my points.

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, the CAA has to have real enforcement power. We need to be at the stage of imposing substantial and specific financial penalties in the cases of repeated and systematic accessibility failures. There also needs to be a disability impact assessment before the CAA publishes a notice of its intention to implement a new regulation. There are so many things that we can do in this space. Accessibility should not be a favour granted to us. It should not be something we have to beg for; it is a fundamental right. It is now time to restore the confidence and dignity that disabled passengers deserve when travelling. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not apologising, when I intervened on the last group, for missing Second Reading. I am very grateful for the Minister’s comments on my return after some ill health.

There are 36 amendments in this group. The vast majority relate to disability and accessibility, but there are some other key ones as well. It would be important not to lose sight of those, and I know that other speakers will cover them. I have supported Amendments 3, 6, 10, 15 and 19 from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, by signing them. They tackle the issues that the UK Government and the Civil Aviation Authority can make happen. I also commend her and her aviation accessibility group on their report last year and eminently sensible recommendations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and I have both been in your Lordships’ House for over 15 years and we have repeatedly raised the issues faced by wheelchair passengers specifically, but passengers with other disabilities as well. I started using a chair when I arrived in your Lordships’ House, and I went to see the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and asked whether she could give me some advice on what to do, because I had some international conferences to go to. Unlike her and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I did not have experience of this. She said, “Expect either damage or nonsense on every flight. Plan for it. Learn about what duties the airlines have, and have your evidence with you”. She was right. The expectation of the vast majority of people who are disabled is that air travel going to be difficult—and it usually is, even for those of us that now do it a lot. On every flight, I now have to carry photographs of my battery. I print out the International Air Transport Association—IATA—regulations relating to my wheelchair and battery, as well as the IATA regulations for cargo, which many airlines muddle at the airport, quoting the wrong ones back at you. I will say more on IATA later.

My Amendment 21 proposes regulations to provide an appropriate enhanced level of compensation for a disabled passenger when they have been left stranded without assistance or refused boarding because of an accessibility issue and how that claim can be made. I also read Samanta Bullock’s piece on LinkedIn and, although it is shocking, it is particularly shocking in that most people do not understand that the captain of the plane is the person who makes these decisions—including on batteries, by the way. The captain is able to decide, with no evidence whatever and no form of appeal, whether the passenger can continue. That is outrageous.

I remember flying to Stockholm for a conference about four years ago. I had a lithium chair that I was going to use for travel then, although I cannot use it now—taking lithium on aeroplanes is such a flipping nightmare. I used the same carrier coming back, and the pilot said that he was not prepared to accept lithium batteries on his plane—full stop. I got away with it only because I could show him my boarding card from the previous flight three days before and could say, “Your company has flown me here. Please fly me back”.

The consequences for disabled passengers—in Samanta’s case, she was bumped off a flight—are always much greater. It is not just being refused the flight; in a wheelchair, at short notice, you might need to find an accessible hotel room or accessible taxis, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to. All of those not only cost much more than the standard but are as rare as hens’ teeth.

My Amendment 29 proposes that the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority have a duty to ensure accessible air travel services and airport infrastructure systems, and ensure that disabled passengers and people with reduced mobility get support. It is not dissimilar to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; it is just slightly more detailed. Following the famous disability mantra of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton—which she was speaking about decades before she joined your Lordships’ House—there should be nothing about us without us. So my amendment states that both the Secretary of State and the CAA must consult with disabled people and organisations, enforce minimum accessibility standards and—to complete the communications loop—publish annual reports.

My Amendment 37 proposes wheelchair passports for air travel. Over the past few years, the Department for Transport has discussed creating wheelchair passports, which would smooth the journey, with one brief check at check-in to ensure that both the wheelchair and, if relevant, the battery and the passport match. Once you have that passport, the details can be in the airport system and airline system for ever. However, the amendment also makes clear that the Secretary of State has to work with IATA—and, I hope, other nations supporting IATA—to make this happen, because it will never happen if only the UK does it.

I support Amendment 7 of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley; the amendment on air quality of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay; and many of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I think we are all trying to do the same job—I will come to that. There is overlap between my amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. The Government have to work to get to the heart of much of the problem. However, my amendments go further. Neither the UK Government nor the CAA have the power to change these problems across the world because the regulatory body for aviation travel is IATA. It uses the Montreal Convention of 1999, and yet it is also a trade body. Therefore, it is very difficult to make any change or progress when its stakeholders are the airlines that are not providing the service to disabled people.

However, since I laid my amendments, I was asked if I meant to put down the International Civil Aviation Organization rather than IATA. I did not, but it was a very helpful suggestion, because the International Civil Aviation Organization’s description of itself says that it is

“a United Nations agency which helps 193 countries to cooperate together and share their skies to their mutual benefit. Since it was established in 1944, ICAO’s support and coordination has helped countries to diplomatically and technically realize a uniquely rapid and dependable network of global air mobility”.

Therein lies the problem. There are no teeth anywhere. It cannot create regulations. It cannot instruct or penalise aviation companies. It can only diplomatically support its 193 member countries in co-operating with each other. Further, those 193 countries cannot regulate matters that happen in the air or in another country. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to the problem: if they do so, it is valid in the UK only. I must say, I have hit a problem. On one flight I took, I was told, “Well, it didn’t happen with us. It was taken out of the aircraft and went elsewhere. It’s nothing to do with us”. In consumer terms, that makes it very difficult ever to get any satisfaction. We need these countries to start to come together, perhaps through the ICAO, to influence IATA to be much more active on its own regulations.

Self-driving Vehicles: Disabled Passengers

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what provision there will be for disabled passengers in the pilots for self-driving vehicles announced on 10 June.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State must, by law, consider whether and to what extent granting a permit for an automated passenger service is likely to help improve understanding of how these services should best be designed for and provided to disabled and older passengers. Accessibility considerations will be set out in non-statutory guidance, and related permit conditions can be enforced through the permitting process. It would be counterproductive to specify detailed requirements in regulation for innovative new services.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but the key problem with the Government’s announcement is that the consultation is happening at exactly the same time as the specification and the manufacture of the driverless vehicles that are due to be launched early next year. This is literally a once-in-an-era moment: new driverless vehicles hitting our roads. The Government need to ensure that taxis and bus-like taxis will have accessibility designed into them. Otherwise, it will be like everything else for disabled people: reasonable adjustments after the event that are expensive for the manufacturer and never perfect for the user. Can the Minister say whether the contract with Wayve and Oxa will ensure that ramps, audio and visual announcements are designed in right from the start?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness knows that we consider the implications of transport for people with disabilities extraordinarily seriously. Whatever individual providers have said—and some of them have said something following the recent announcement by the Secretary of State—it will still be up to the Secretary of State to grant permission, under the conditions I described. For taxis and private hire vehicles, they will need local authority consent and, of course, that will all be subject to the public sector equality duty.

I think the noble Baroness is assuming that all these services will be provided by newly designed vehicles, when in fact the likelihood is that, in the very short term, they will be the same sort of vehicles used for taxi and PHV services. In the medium term, clearly there will be new designs, and there are already some that are suitable for wheelchairs and people with disabilities. We have to acknowledge that automated vehicles are part of an exciting future, but they have to be implemented safely, and she is right that they have to be implemented to benefit all parts of the community.

E-scooters: Insurance

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, I refer the noble Lord to my answer to a very similar question he asked me on 1 April. I said to him then that I did not much care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing, and that remains the case today.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we currently have a perfect storm with e-scooters. There has already been reference to the fact that there is no need to register them, it is illegal to use them on public roads and pavements, and there is no registration when you buy the e-scooter either. Would the first step for this not be to ensure that, when somebody buys an e-scooter —because you are supposed to have a driver’s licence, provisional or full—they have to give their driving licence details, which would then be logged with that particular e-scooter?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I very much respect the noble Baroness’s view about the safety of these things, particularly from the point of view of anybody with a mobility difficulty or disability. But this is only one of the things that needs to be contemplated carefully in introducing legislation, simply because the legislation has to work in practice. We are learning some things from the controlled trials that the department has sponsored—the noble Baroness will know that the e-scooters concerned are identifiable in a way that those purchased from retailers are not. We also have to be realistic about what we can expect retailers to do in these circumstances. We are, as I said, deeply considering this. I know it is an issue of great concern to this House; it is the subject on which I have answered questions most frequently since I came here. We are working hard at it, but it is a difficult area and the rules we put in place have to have some chance of being enforced in a way that controls behaviour.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Baroness Brinton]

61: After Clause 30, insert the following new Clause—
“Compliance with the Equality Act 2010(1) The Transport Act 2000 is amended as follows.(2) In section 108 (local transport plans), after subsection 1(b), insert—“(c) ensure bus services which are subject to the provisions of the Bus Services (No.2) Act 2025 do not discriminate against disabled persons as defined by section 15 of the Equality Act 2010.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment links the Equality and Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) provisions in Section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 to local transport authorities and local PSV bus services under both the Transport Act 2000 and this bill. It also clarifies that any bus operating under the provisions of this Bill must comply with the PSED.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful for what the Minister said the other day at the Dispatch Box about Amendment 61. I was not terribly happy with his response, but I will not test the opinion of the House.

Amendment 61 not moved.

E-scooters: Trials

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really good point. That is one of the subjects which the Employment Rights Bill seeks to remedy. I do not think that we cannot do it directly through road traffic regulation, although when there are rules for these things, it will be incumbent on the employers of the people who ride them to comply with the rules as well as the people who ride them.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very glad that the Minister raised the issue of poor parking of hire e-scooters and e-bikes. At Aldwych Kingsway, it is now almost impossible to get access to the bus stop, not just if you are in a wheelchair or with a guide dog but for a passenger as well, because there are sometimes as many as 100 of those vehicles parked around them. What powers do the police have to corral—perhaps that is the wrong word—these bikes and scooters and make sure that access to buses continues?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an excellent point. I strongly sympathise, as she knows, with the difficulties that people with any sort of disability have boarding and alighting buses and using pavements. The intention is that local authorities correctly control hire schemes so that the people who run them are obliged to make sure that the bicycles or scooters they hire are properly parked, collected and moved on.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group fall into three parts. Amendment 1 stands on its own and Amendments 2 to 8 work together to a single effect and will be dealt with as such. Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks clarification. All I will say on it is that I look forward to hearing both what she has to say and what the Minister has to say in reply. I will attempt to be brief, given the hour and the amount of business that we have to get through.

Amendments 2 to 8 give me an opportunity to thank a group of people who have been largely ignored in debates on this Bill: the private companies, entrepreneurs, capitalists and workers—the people who invest their money in providing a service for this country and who are being simply rubbed out as businesses by this Government and will become merely servants of the state, not entrepreneurs or businessmen, as the Minister was when he ran a private bus company. They are not to have those opportunities but simply to be wiped out. The work they do should be acknowledged because they have worked diligently for us over the years.

We are told that what we will get in its place is something better, run by the Government, and we are pointed to places such as London for examples. In London, when the subsidies run out—there are hundreds of millions of pounds of subsidies to operate the buses—we see routes sometimes being cut altogether or having a cut in their frequency. This group of amendments would allow private bus companies to continue to operate without seeking a special permit so as to meet demand. I do not intend to press this group of amendments to a Division. I am sure that the Minister will explain that it is all going to be sunny and wonderful under the state-managed regime, but it is not. We know that from our experience of when the subsidies run out.

In that connection—the notion that it is all going to be better because the Government, or, in this case, local transport authorities, will run the buses—I turn to Amendment 1. There is nothing in the Bill, nor have the Government even made the case, as to why it is going to be better, what the purpose of this Bill is, what it sets out to achieve and what the prime focus is. We know that the unions want to see this happen. We know that many, often Labour-run, local authorities want to see this happen, but they should not be the heart and the driver of the way we manage our public transport services. The heart and the driver should be the passengers, in this case bus passengers. Amendment 1 gives us a purpose to the Bill and puts bus passengers at the heart of it.

I am grateful, incidentally, for an earlier amendment, now withdrawn, from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which reminded me that accessibility needed to be included alongside performance and quality of service with regard to bus passengers. That has improved the amendment and gives us what we see today. I strongly believe that this Bill needs such a purpose. The Secretary of State needs to be required to put the passenger at the heart of the Bill. There is no sign that that is the intention at the moment. There are only promises and pledges, but nothing in writing. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for recent meetings with him and his officials. I have tabled Amendment 61 in this group and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his kind comments about my previous amendment—I thought his revised one looked a little familiar.

Amendment 61 is not only about disabled access to buses, which is why I wanted to debate it right at the start of Report. Rather, it would confirm the importance of the Equality Act 2010 in relation to bus operators, local transport authorities and, of course, passengers. The Equality Act 2010 sets out, in Section 149, the public sector equality duty of public bodies delivering services to people. Anyone under it must have due regard to the need, and take steps to advance, equality of opportunity, not only for disabled passengers.

In this Bill, it is the local transport authorities which are under the PSED directly and plan, implement and monitor bus services in their area, as outlined in Section 108 of the Transport Act 2000. LTAs’ responsibilities are not limited to contracting for certain franchised bus services but include the responsibility for planning services for all their passengers, including the non-franchised. That does not mean that LTAs run the free market commercial bus routes, but they must ensure that everyone in their area has usable bus services.

In Committee, the Minister said that the regulation for public sector vehicles—PSVs—includes the duty to make reasonable adjustments. However, in practice, it is often a “best efforts” provision, leaving many disabled passengers frustrated when they cannot access a bus service. The actual compulsory provision includes wheelchair spaces, announcements and visual displays on the next stop, et cetera, and is way stronger than just reasonable adjustments.

I have continued to meet some pushback in meetings with government officials outside your Lordships’ House on the formal powers that all PSVs have to comply with. There seems to be something of a mindset that the commercial bus services are not included, but it is clear that they are covered by the Equality Act, which does not say that the definition is about commissioned or franchised services; it is any bus service that qualifies as a PSV, and its work must be monitored under another part of the Equality Act—the PSED—by the local transport authority, which will assess whether bus services in its area are meeting the needs of the people.

I have checked the case of FirstGroup Plc v Doug Paulley. The Supreme Court’s judgment, delivered in January 2017, sets out in paragraphs 11 and 12 the position that the bus operator had

“failed to comply with its duties under the Equality Act”

and confirmed that it was a public service vehicle under the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee’s report, Access Denied: Rights Versus Reality in Disabled People’s Access to Transport, published last week, explains in paragraphs 10 to 17 the entirety of the law, including how the Equality Act—and within that, the PSED and the PSV section—and the PSV regulations I mentioned all fit together, as well as retained Regulation (EU) No. 181/2011.

The key to all this is the Equality Act, and my amendment simply restates that, as barrister Catherine Casserley said in evidence to the Commons Transport Select Committee, rights to accessible transport

“should be enforced in the same way as any health and safety requirement. As part of any operation, any business has to comply with a range of obligations. These should be no different”.

The Select Committee concluded that, despite the legal framework, much needs to happen to improve compliance and practice on a daily basis. Disabled passengers agree. We need to remind bus operators and LTAs that the Equality Act duties are at the heart of provision for truly accessible bus services. It needs to be in the Bill.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I have spoken in the House before about the need to increase bus speeds. In discussion, the Minister has come forward with a method of bringing some discipline to local authorities with bad congestion problems that make the running of a proper bus service almost impossible—I note Oxford, Cambridge and London as among those places where this is the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn to a series of four government amendments which place requirements on franchising authorities relating to accessibility. The first of these amendments, Amendment 11, requires that where an authority gives notice of its intent to make a franchising scheme and begins a consultation, the people and organisations with which it must consult includes disabled people and organisations that represent them.

The remaining three amendments require that, when a franchising scheme is varied, local transport authorities must consult with disabled people or with organisations representing them. The only difference between them is the type of franchising scheme they relate to. Amendment 62 applies the consultation requirement where schemes are varied to add to the existing area that they cover; Amendment 63 applies it to variations affecting the extent of the franchising scheme but not resulting in the addition of new areas; and Amendment 64 applies it to all other forms of variation. For all three categories of franchising scheme variation, the Bill already proposes that organisations representing passengers must be consulted, as the authority sees fit, but Amendment 11 requires specifically that disabled people and organisations representing them be included.

Together, these measures will help to ensure that the voice of disabled people is heard by local transport authorities when franchising schemes are varied, with the aim of ensuring that plans take proper account of the needs of those people. With that in mind, I hope that noble Lords will support this amendment, as well as the wider package of accessibility amendments that I have tabled in my name. Once again, I thank your Lordships for making the interventions that have helped shape the Government’s approach.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his Amendments 11, 62, 63 and 64, all of which add to the Bill a duty to consult local disabled people and disabled people’s organisations. Will that cover not just the geographic area of the local transport authority but the range of disabilities? In particular, will it ensure that a range of local disabled people’s organisations are consulted. There is a real frustration when, for example, only one particular disabled organisation is talked to.

On my train this morning, I talked to a woman with vision impairment who said that she has real frustrations in this regard. She is on the co-production committee in Hertfordshire, and she said that too often, one organisation for disabled people is gone to, and it is assumed that it understands all the different needs of, say, blind people, deaf people, people in wheelchairs, people with autism—I could go on. I would be grateful for an answer to that question, but on balance I am grateful that these measures are here. They are helpful, but they are not what I was seeking in my earlier amendment, which I shall not go over again.

Amendment 18 covers enhanced partnership schemes requirements enabling travel by persons with disabilities. I note that new subsections (1) and (2), relating to the enhanced partnership schemes, use the word “may”, not “must”. If an enhanced partnership does not specify, for example, how safe a bus stop area is, or that bus stop areas must be safe, will it still have that responsibility, given that Section 174(1)(a) of the Equality Act states:

“The Secretary of State may make regulations … for securing that it is possible for disabled persons … to get on to and off regulated public service vehicles in safety and without unreasonable difficulty”?


It says, “may make regulations”, but the point is that there is a duty to ensure that disabled people can get on and off buses easily. If one of the enhanced partnerships decided not to check in a rural area, for example, whether there was street lighting or a pavement wide enough for a wheelchair to 2get off, would that be regarded as acceptable by the Government? There is no compulsion on the enhanced partnership to consult on that.

Amendment 19 says that local transport authorities in England must make a bus network accessibility plan. We on these Benches think that is helpful. It is a shame, though, that there is no common framework. It also means that the background behind a plan, who they consulted and what the details were, can continue to remain private.

My Amendment 37 is slightly different, in that it proposes an annual report with a common framework, according to which all LTAs would have to compile that report, using certain types of data and looking at certain types of accessibility issues. I said in Committee and I say again now that sometimes, there is nothing like an authority being required to consult, create and publish a plan with its results every year, in order to make the change we were talking about in group 1. We have heard from the House of Commons Transport Select Committee that there is much to do in practice, not just on buses themselves but on LTAs enforcing proper accessibility. I wonder whether the Minister could comment on that.

On balance, I am grateful for these amendments, but they are not the legislative sureties that I was looking for in the earlier group.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is very important and improves the legislation. I am pleased to read the many amendments from the Government, picking up the issues that many of us raised in Committee, for which I am grateful. But far more consultation and engagement with disabled persons and representative organisations is essential as franchising and enhanced partnerships are adopted by local authorities, and as routes are amended or changed and a new way of working settles down.

I am also pleased to see government Amendment 19, which ensures that local transport authorities in England make a bus network accessibility plan. That responds in part to the points raised by my noble friend Lady Brinton in Committee. However, as my noble friend has set out in Amendment 37, we need to take that further; it is essential that we get changes across the bus sector. We hope that the Government respond positively to that amendment.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Moylan. I will speak to Amendments 35 to 39, 43, 45A and 79A, in my name. I thank the noble Lords who have countersigned my amendments. I also support all the amendments in the name of my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and have signed them to that effect, but will leave their introduction to her in due course.

Amendments 35 to 39 are on floating bus stops. It seems only right and proper to start by answering the question, “What are floating bus stops?” In essence, where a blind person, wheelchair user or, in fact, anybody has to cross a cycle lane that is part of the pavement to get to the bus, or has to cross part of the carriageway to get to an island representing a bus stop some way into that carriageway, those are floating bus stops. In reality, they are dangerous and discriminatory—a disaster for inclusion and accessibility, not just for blind people, wheelchair users and disabled people but for all users: parents with toddlers in pushchairs and prams, older people and younger people. In fact, anyone who crosses a live cycle lane takes their life in their hands, with not just pedal cycles but e-bikes and delivery bikes going in both directions, often at speeds of 20 mph and above.

So-called floating bus stops were born to fail, built to fail and bound to fail. Why? Tragically, they are predicated on a simplistic solution to a relatively complex issue. They fail on “inclusive by design”, on “nothing about us, without us” and on any concept of accessibility for all road users.

My amendments suggest that the Bill include the concept of inclusive by design. Without it, how can we have anything in this country that is worthy of the title “public transport”? If we continue to have floating bus stops, we will have transport for some of the people some of the time, which is transport for some of the people none of the time. That cannot be the society, communities and transport system we want in 21st-century Britain.

Similarly, there is an even more unfortunate concept at the heart of so-called floating bus stops. It is the sense that, because of this planning folly of a change, a piece of the public realm that was previously accessible and could be used independently, not just by disabled people but by all people, is no longer accessible and can no longer be used independently and safely.

I suggest in further amendments that we should look at issues of accessibility, wayfinding, advice and audio and visual signals around bus stops. I suggest that the guidance principles set out currently at Clause 22 need significant strengthening to the extent that there need to be cardinal principles in the Bill, not least that the bus must be able to pull up to the kerb—not the kerb at the side of a cycle lane but the kerb of the pavement—and that users need to be able to access the bus from, and alight it to, the pavement without having to cross any cycle lane.

I suggest that we need to have proper, meaningful and ongoing consultation around these so-called floating bus stops. Will the Minister say what happened to the consultation around LTN 1/20? How can we have these pieces of public realm imposed on us without effective, meaningful consultation, not least with DPTAC, organisations of and for disabled people, disabled people and all citizens who rightly have an interest in this matter?

In Amendment 45A, I suggest that on the passage of the Bill we have a moratorium on all new so-called floating bus stops and a review and a refit programme of all existing unsafe, non-inclusive sites. We need a retrofit within a year of the passage of the Bill because floating bus stops are not fit for purpose, not fit for inclusive by design and not fit to be part of a public transport system.

Finally, in Amendment 79A, I suggest that all buses up and down the country have meaningful audiovisual announcements on board within 12 months of the passage of the Bill. Yes, this is a question of accessibility and, yes, this is a question of inclusion, but more than that the great concept underpinning all this is that when you make a change that, on the face of it, is seemingly presented as just for disabled people, everyone benefits. From tourists to people new to an area, audiovisual announcements benefit everyone. I very much look forward to this debate and to the Minister’s response in due course.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to have members of the National Federation of the Blind of the UK with us today. I am going to speak to my amendments in this group, Amendments 40, 56 and 57, and I will take them in reverse order because it means that we are dealing with the overarching issues and coming down to more detailed points.

First, I thank the Minister for meeting me and discussing the amendments that I submitted for Committee last week and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his two amendments. The only comment I would make on Amendment 11 is that I think it would work only if many of the other amendments about data are also accepted, because the one thing we know we do not have is data about bus services. On the amendment on cost-effective alternatives and ensuring demand-led bus services, many disabled passengers would say that some of the demand-led services available with rail replacement leave a lot to be desired. I have suddenly discovered that there is a rail replacement at 7 pm on a Saturday evening and that there is no wheelchair taxi available within 100 miles to get me somewhere, so I have had to stay the night. The problem about a community having a franchising authority using only demand-led responses, important as they are, is that most disabled people just want to use the ordinary bus service like everybody else.

It is therefore a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and to support his amendments, which set out a number of mechanisms to ensure that disabled passengers, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, and those of us using wheelchairs, are able to use bus services safely. All my amendments in this group are to try to clarify and strengthen the right of disabled passengers to be able to access and use bus services, which is not, I am afraid, clear in law.

I start with the last of these, Amendment 57, because, as I said, it represents an overarching change to the Bill. I start by saying that I am very grateful to the Minister for the amendment that the Government laid for the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, stating in the Bill that railway services must observe the public sector equality duty, or PSED, under the Equality Act 2010. My Amendment 57 in this group states:

“In Schedule 19 to the Equality Act 2010 (authorities subject to public sector equality duty), at the appropriate place under the heading ‘Transport’, insert … ‘A bus company providing services for the carriage of passengers by bus under a public service contract awarded under relevant provisions of the Transport Act 1985 or subsequent legislation’”.

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The department funds the Bus Centre of Excellence, which organises events, fosters networks, provides training and hosts a dedicated website containing a repository of resources for bus practitioners. The website already features a social value toolkit focusing on equality and buses, links to the department’s REAL disability awareness training package and a webinar on bus and infrastructure safety, among other resources. I respectfully suggest that using the expertise and connections of the Bus Centre of Excellence to disseminate knowledge and awareness is likely to be more effective than creating new processes or obligations.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

To correct the record, Amendment 41 was in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, not in my name.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am so sorry to both noble Baronesses. That is my error.

Amendment 42 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, seeks to protect access to local transport services by requiring the statutory guidance to recommend the use of demand-responsive transport, or DRT, where other options are not viable. As I said on the previous day in Committee, DRT has the potential to improve the local transport offer. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, that demand-responsive transport is not mutually exclusive from accessibility. Accessibility must be part of that offer, where it is part of the local transport offer. I agree that authorities should consider a range of transport options when reviewing the future of services, but I am not convinced that the stopping places statutory guidance is the right place for this recommendation.

Clause 22 is principally about ensuring that stopping places provide a safe and accessible environment. There may well be times when it is appropriate to consider the role of DRT when planning such work; however, it is more appropriate when considering service provision generally, which is beyond the scope of the statutory guidance about stopping places. I reassure noble Lords that the Government have a strong interest in DRT for areas without regular fixed-route connections, many of which—though not all—might be rural. The department is currently undertaking a monitoring and evaluation exercise on the DRT rural mobility fund pilots and will produce best practice guidance to support local transport authorities interested in setting up DRT services in their areas.

Amendment 56 seeks to require relevant authorities to publish a report on the accessibility standards of bus services within their boundaries, including an assessment of how satisfactory they consider them to be. I fully support the spirit of this amendment, which is designed to incentivise local authorities to take responsibility for driving up accessibility standards in their areas. It is precisely because of the need for greater focus and consistency in the provision of safe and accessible infrastructure that the Government are requiring authorities to have regard to the statutory guidance on safety and accessibility at stopping places.

However, throughout the process of developing Clause 22, the Government have been clear that the clause and subsequent guidance need to consider a variety of factors. That is why the requirement has been designed to be both proportionate and flexible. In contrast, this amendment as drafted would place an unreasonably high reporting burden on local authorities. It would also introduce significant duplication, with authorities with overlapping jurisdictions required to report on the same matters. For instance, both Eastbourne Borough Council and East Sussex County Council would be required to report independently on the accessibility of bus services in Eastbourne.

Achieving compliance could entail a lot of work with little benefit for authorities, which would be asked to report on services for which they are not responsible. For instance, a district council with no responsibility for bus services would still be required to report on the accessibility of services in its area. While I recognise the accountability and positive change that noble Lords seek to encourage, I am not convinced that this is a sufficiently proportionate way to achieve it. As I have indicated, I will think about it further and talk to noble Lords to identify how we can help authorities take decisions on local transport provision with a sufficient understanding of the impact of services on disabled people.

Amendment 57 seeks to bring bus operators explicitly within the remit of the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010. The amendment proposes to achieve this by adding bus operators providing services to the list of public authorities in Schedule 19. Local transport authorities are already subject to the public sector equality duty as listed public authorities in Schedule 19, and this would include franchising authorities. The duty must also be met by an entity that exercises a public function, even if it is not explicitly listed in Schedule 19. This would include any bus company that exercises such functions, such as a local authority bus company.

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The provision of accessible information grants has also helped the smallest operators to install and use necessary equipment. Those regulations, which are already in place, should soon result in a national bus network that allows anybody to board with certainty that they are heading the right way. I therefore suggest that the noble Lord’s amendment is not required and invite him to withdraw it.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I would like to ask a brief question about the Minister’s Amendments 44 and 45. They refer to automated vehicles. Those of us who worked on the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 will remember that Section 83 disapplies taxis, private hire vehicles and buses in their entirety because of the issues about driver versus non-driver vehicles. I am not asking the Minister for a reply now, but could he write to me in light of Section 83 and say how that would sit with this Bill?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention, and I will certainly write to her on that basis.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I want start by echoing the many tributes to our friend and colleague Baroness Randerson, who died so suddenly last weekend. She and I came into your Lordships’ House at the same time, but we had known each other through Liberal and Liberal Democrat politics and gatherings for many years before that. Her commitment to her roles as a Minister in the Welsh Assembly/Senedd, then as a Minister in the coalition Government and, more recently, as a transport spokeswoman for the party was always evident. Her research was broad and deep, her contacts enviable and her knowledge of her topics revelatory. She combined all that with a delightful, practical way that always made working with her a pleasure, whichever side of the House you came from. She is already sorely missed. I want to send love and support to her family and many friends.

It was typical of Jenny that she was working last week, having various conversations with those of us on these Benches speaking today. Thus we are, despite our grief, well prepared because of her as our team leader. It is a pleasure to echo my noble friend Lady Pidgeon’s opening comments—of which I think she would have approved—that, while there is much to commend in the Bill, there are matters that we want to question the Minister about, and we may want to lay some probing amendments in Committee to enable us to have a fuller debate.

I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and thank those who sent us briefings, including the Library. I also thank the Minister for meeting some of us to discuss the Bill.

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. He raised the question of what a bus is. I notice that he omitted rural postbuses. I used to love my Highlands postbuses; they were not very frequent, but at least you knew when they would come past in the most rural communities. I have seen some of them in France, too. I want also to raise the issue of guided buses. I was on Cambridgeshire County Council when the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway was planned, and some—ahem—years on, it is successful, using part of a disused rail line. It is always full, with people using it as a fast way to commute into Cambridge because the busy roads around it are quite difficult.

My noble friend Lady Pinnock reminded us of the history of deregulation of the bus services. What is happening here is also a delayering of the complexities, which is helpful.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, and others talked about the problems of rural bus services. The rural model is absolutely not the same as the urban. If the Minister takes one thing away from this Second Reading debate, it should be that, because so many noble Lords raised it. Can he say how the Government plan to deal with that problem? The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was right to focus on universal Oyster-type cards. As they are becoming rather old hat these days, I wonder whether new technologies might be a route to doing that. They might also be able to help with concessionary cards, which tend to be quite limited in areas for very particular specialist local types.

It was good to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, of the Green manifesto commitment to bus services. I hope that she is encouraged that, from all parts of this House, we have all aspired to much of what her party’s manifesto said.

On Clause 9, can the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that an “approved person”—which will replace the word “auditor” in the Transport Act 2000—has the right qualifications and membership of a regulatory body, if appropriate. We are talking about public money here—I think that the Minister talked about large grants going to either local government or via other routes. The “auditor” had a well-known and understood qualification and level of skill, so will there be any other deregulatory actions that will result in unintended consequences? He knows this, because I raised it with him when we met, but one of the unintended consequences of deregulating and changing the qualifications relating to fire protection inspections was that fire doors failed during the Grenfell Tower fire—and many others—because the standards had gone with the deregulation. This is not a safety issue, but, where public money is being spent, it is very important that the Government and the public can be assured that it is good value for money.

Can the Minister confirm that Clause 11—the amending of the Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023, SI 2023/1369—complies in its entirety with the Procurement Act 2023? Clause 11 simplifies the direct award of bus contracts to incumbent operators. I understand that this is only a temporary arrangement, but it could last up to five years, and that is a long time to have something that may not comply. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on that.

My noble friends Lady Pidgeon and Lady Pinnock raised the important issue of how real devolution is to local areas. The latter asked a very key question about the ambition of government. Is it universal across the country? If so, will enhanced resources come with enhanced partnership plans? I suspect that this is one of the areas that we may return to during the passage of the Bill. Powers with no funding are not real powers, and they will fail. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, is also right that a multiyear funding settlement is absolutely essential. Local government has been asking for that from Governments of many political colours for many years.

Noble Lords mentioned the increase of the fare from £2 to £3, and affordable fares are certainly vital. Travelling in Vilnius recently, it cost me less than €1 for 60 minutes on the bus system. You can get 24 hours for €3.50, and for 240 hours it was €12. Technology tells when you check in and check out, so it is not an elapsed time; it is the actual time that you are travelling, and it stops calculating it when you stop travelling. Why does that work in Vilnius? The roads are empty, because the buses are so cheap and so reliable that everyone relies on them. I do not think that the UK bus market is anything like that now, but would it not be good if we could aspire to that?

Clause 19 adds provisions to the Statistics of Trade Act 1947. From these Benches, we welcome the publication of bus statistics to mirror those used in the rail sector. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, asked whether that would include safety information. That is an excellent idea, because it is amazing how behaviour changes when data is collected. I suspect that driver training, by being refreshed, would improve, too. I also want to know whether assistance data—easily obtainable these days because of the assistance apps that rail staff now use—can provide a lot of that data, including the mode of assistance required.

I am so delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, wants Clause 22, on floating islands and bus stops, to be strengthened. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, omitted to mention that there are also problems for disabled people in his list of the problems with traffic islands between cycle lanes and the main highway. One joy I have on an island that I get off at regularly is that there is some random street furniture. If the bus driver does not line up exactly, when I am on a steep ramp coming off a bus, I cannot stop at the bottom. So I have to try to whizz round to the side of the street furniture to avoid crashing into it. Frankly, much more worrying are those islands where, if you keep whizzing, you can go straight into the cycle lane, which is a danger to you as well as to cyclists. A moratorium would be good until we can work out what should happen.

Clause 22, on guidance for the safety of bus stopping places, is not strong enough. In subsections (1), (2) and (3), the word “may” is used. A Secretary of State may choose not to do it, and the guidance appears not to be statutory, so bus franchisees could choose to ignore it. Can the Minister explain why “may” is used here, and why the Government would not want the safety of disabled people to be stronger?

The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, raised the important point about accessibility at bus stops. While they are not as dangerous as islands, it is very frustrating being unable to use a bus shelter because there is not enough space on the pavement for a wheelchair to get into the bus shelter. As my noble friend Lady Harris said, children with special educational needs and disabilities are being affected in North Yorkshire. The statistics she cited were shocking. In addition to the question she asked the Minister, I ask: will he agree to meet his education counterpart? It seems that what she described is an absolute breach of the Children and Families Act arrangements for making statements for children with special educational needs. It was always intended that those travelling to and from special schools and special provision would not have to pay for it, because it is often so far away.

Clauses 24 and 25 cover the rights of bus and coach drivers, but only in the context of ensuring that staff are trained. Clause 24 deals with anti-social behaviour. I was somewhat surprised at the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, deeming it unnecessary, along with other oversight mechanisms, saying that he would come back to this and that it would be good to have a debate in Committee about this. Disability awareness is not the same as the rights of disabled people under the Equality Act 2010. That is clear from this Bill and from the Supreme Court judgment in 2016, brought and won by the wonderful disability campaigner Doug Paulley, where the vehicle to ensure accessibility—I do not mean vehicle in the sense of with wheels; I mean the legislative vehicle—for disabled people was enacted through bus driver regulations. They are not the same thing. The entire power rests with the bus driver, and I am afraid some of them treat disabled people raising issues as anti-social behaviour—I have had it in the last couple of weeks—because anti-social behaviour is part of the same regulation, and therefore I suspect it is part of the same training as driver training.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, referred to audio on buses. We need to remember that it is not yet universal, even in London. There is one bus route I use regularly, where I have to sit in a wheelchair space in reverse and there is no audio. It is potluck if you get off in time. Can the Minister say why the Government have not chosen to follow their own example in the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill that your Lordships’ House debated in the autumn? I hope that they are prepared to consider that the Equality Act 2010 is added specifically.

In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was right in saying that we need a revolution in bus services in rural areas and towns. It is important that we address accessibility and rights—including, by the way, the drivers’ rights, which other people have spoken about. We need to make sure that the new franchise systems are value for money, truly accountable and truly devolved. From these Benches, we are looking forward to the next stages of the Bill and to the Minister’s response.