Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Brinton

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’”.