Public Transport: Accessibility

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Borwick

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right: there are far too many varieties of train on the national network. While it has been possible to build and operate trains with level access to at least normal height platforms, that has not been and still is not a consistent feature of recent train orders. One of the reasons for a long-term rolling stock and infrastructure strategy is to embed level boarding in all future train orders. However, the noble Baroness also knows that these things last for a very long time and sadly, some of the vehicles that have been bought will last for the next 30 years. It is quite difficult to fix that, but she is right that it does need to be fixed.

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the owner of a wheelchair-accessible taxi. What is the Minister’s ambitious timetable to finish the work to make all public transport wheelchair accessible?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I rather thought that the noble Lord would ask me that question, since I only met him at 11.30 am this morning to discuss the same issue. His determination to make taxis fully accessible is admirable. However, since taxis are intrinsically part of a service of both taxi and private hire vehicles, and 87% of the total provision of private hire vehicles is not taxis, the Government are determined to embrace his determination with our own determination to make the whole provision suitable throughout England for wheelchair users and people with all disabilities. We will have more to say on Report of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill in this House shortly, when we deal with the amendments the noble Lord has tabled.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill and Lord Borwick

Committee stage
Thursday 5th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I can absolutely confirm to the noble Baroness that I will do exactly that. It is a very important subject.

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

On taxi accessibility, is the Minister arguing that the local requirements of disabled people might be different in one area from those in another? Surely, that is completely wrong, because the whole purpose of this is to organise transport—that a disabled person in London should be able to travel to Penzance and know that in Penzance there are the same standards of accessibility. It is in the nature of travel that people change their location; therefore, they surely need to have the same standards. It is the job of the Government, as was put in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, that they set the regulations that can be met by as many disabled people as possible. That I would approve of, but saying that we cannot do anything just in case there is a difference in the local arrangement seems to me more in the nature of an excuse than a plan for the future.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am certainly not arguing that the needs of disabled people are different in different areas, but—and some noble Lords have heard this in the course of meetings that we have already had on this Bill—I am expressing that there are extraordinarily different sets of local circumstances across the country and that what the park of vehicles in local areas consists of is very different in different places, and serves quite different purposes.