Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Bill

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Jeremy Wright

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I begin by thanking all Members—some of whom, I am pleased to say, are present this morning—who have been involved in the development of the Bill during its earlier stages. I am also delighted to see in the Chamber both Front Benchers—the Minister and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), who speaks for the official Opposition—who have been involved throughout. I appreciate that some who are present this morning have not followed the Bill throughout in detail, so it might be helpful if I explain what it is intended to achieve.

It is no easy task to create legislation that is intended for millions of people. The Equality Act 2010 made very significant progress in very many areas, but it was not perfect, and I do not suppose that anybody involved in its drafting or implementation would claim as much. We as legislators should always be prepared to look again at our work and consider whether it can be improved on. At present, the taxi and private hire vehicle sections of that Act do not work well enough for all the 13.7 million disabled people in Great Britain.

The fundamental intention of the Bill is to ensure the protections envisaged in that Act work effectively and comprehensively when a disabled person uses a taxi or a private hire vehicle, so that any disabled person has reasonable rights and protections enabling them to book, access and travel in a taxi or private hire vehicle at no additional charge.

As it stands, only wheelchair and assistance dog users have specific rights and protections under the Equality Act in relation to taxis and private hire vehicles. The existing Equality Act taxi and private hire vehicle measures do not, for example, provide clearly expressed rights for a wheelchair user intending to transfer from their wheelchair into the passenger seat of a non-designated taxi or private hire vehicle. They do not provide a visually impaired person with a right to guaranteed assistance to find and locate a booked private hire vehicle. Indeed, current measures fail to sufficiently protect disabled people who do not use wheelchairs or assistance dogs from discriminatory treatment at all.

Currently, section 165 of the Equality Act places duties on drivers to carry a wheelchair user

“in safety and reasonable comfort”;

to carry their wheelchair if they sit in the passenger seat; to provide reasonable mobility assistance; and, of course, to not charge extra for doing all of that. However, in order for those duties to apply, the vehicle must be on a local licensing authority’s designated list of wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and crucially, there is no requirement to maintain such a list; it is a local licensing authority’s choice. As such, if a wheelchair user intends to use two wheelchair-accessible taxis on the same day in different locations, and the first is on a local licensing authority’s list but the second is not, that wheelchair user will have specific rights and protections in their first journey but will not in their second, even if the vehicles and journeys are identical in all other respects. This Bill would rectify that by amending section 167 of the Equality Act to require that all local licensing authorities maintain and publish a list of wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making an important addition to the safeguards in this area. Would he note, though, that back in 2018, Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq made 34 recommendations on the wider set of issues, of which this was one? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is time for the Government to bring forward a more comprehensive package of measures to deal with the taxi and private hire trade?

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has shadow ministerial experience in this area. He is right: there is more to be done in relation to the taxis and private hire vehicles that we all use, not just those of us with disabilities. However, the Government have already taken steps in this area. I hope and expect that the Government will support this Bill, and I think there is more to come. I hope, for example, that my hon. Friend the Minister will say something about the training that taxi and private hire vehicle drivers ought to receive in order to ensure they have basic disability awareness that will help to reinforce some of the duties that this Bill seeks to set out. I do not think the hon. Gentleman should take our advocacy for this Bill as an indication that we believe this is all that needs to be done. Clearly, more does need to be done.

As I have already said, the duties in section 165 of the Equality Act only apply if a passenger is a wheelchair user and is accessing a designated wheelchair-accessible taxi or private hire vehicle. Those are two specific criteria that exclude many. This Bill would level the playing field for disabled people by creating new duties at section 164A for drivers to carry and reasonably assist any disabled person without charging extra. It would also place duties on drivers to carry a disabled person’s wheelchair and mobility aids and provide reasonable assistance. Those duties would therefore apply to a wheelchair user who intends to transfer to a passenger seat of a non-wheelchair-accessible vehicle and, beyond that, to any disabled person who is not a wheelchair user who wishes to access any taxi or private hire vehicle.

The objectives of this Bill would, of course, be diminished if a disabled person were prevented in practice from accessing the vehicle because they could not easily find it when it arrived. Therefore, the Bill would create new duties at section 165A for drivers to assist a disabled person to find and identify a hired vehicle. That would apply to any taxi or private hire vehicle and to any disabled person, provided that the driver is aware that the person requires assistance to identify or find the vehicle.

This Bill would also create new duties for private hire vehicle operators at proposed new section 167A of the Equality Act 2010 by creating offences for refusing or failing to accept a booking from a disabled person.