Public Service Vehicles (Accessible Information) Regulations 2023

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Grand Committee

These are positive regulations. They will make a difference to disabled people and to all people. Does my noble friend agree that all bus companies should be encouraged to get on side with the RNIB’s charter, which simply says “Stop for me. Speak to me”? In so many ways that sums up the right way to start any bus journey. “Stop for me. Speak to me”, and then the potential of the bus can truly be realised. These regulations could be a key part of inclusive buses connecting people and places, unleashing potential, and being part of the next chapter of positive bus travel for all members of our community.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing the beginning of my noble friend the Minister’s journey as she introduced her remarks. I very much welcome the regulations before us, which build on the PSV regulations 2000 and use modern technology to bring in improvements for those with a sight or hearing impairment. I particularly commend the department on its very thorough analysis on pages 4 to 42, looking at all the various options. I only wish that every government policy was subjected to the very thorough analysis that the Department for Transport has subjected this proposal to.

Building on what my noble friend Lord Borwick said, I do not propose to chastise the department quite so violently as he did, but page 4 in the department’s defence refers to the high volume of consultation responses and the technical subject matter as reasons for the delay—but there were only 101 responses, apart from the supportive campaign by Guide Dogs, which produced 229. Like my noble friend Lord Borwick, I wonder whether the technical matters needed to preoccupy the department for quite so long. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could address that.

The document refers to the risk of what is called network contraction due to the cost of implementation impacting on smaller bus operators and thereby services being withdrawn. It goes on to say that the accessible information grant of £3.5 million rising to £4.5 million might mitigate this. Is the grant meant to cover all the installation costs for smaller bus operators or will they have to fund part of it themselves? If it funded all the costs, the network contraction issue would not arise, but it is not quite clear from the document whether the grant will cover all the cost or only part of it.

My noble friend the Minister said that the instrument is technology neutral. It is not quite clear from reading it whether the bus driver simply announcing the next stop would qualify. The regulations state:

“Passengers must be given the following information … at each stopping place on the route”.


It is not clear whether if the driver just announces that over the intercom it would qualify or whether there has to be some technology-based system to make sure that, as my noble friend Lord Holmes said, the driver does not just forget to announce it. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could clear that up.

I have two final points. First, on enforcement, how would we know whether bus operators have done what they are meant to do? Will the department rely on feedback from customers? Will the traffic commissioners be proactive in going out and making sure that the bus routes in their area have the necessary kit?

Secondly, the regulations will provide information while you are on the bus, but in London at any rate, at many bus stops there is a visible sign telling you when the next bus is going to arrive. That is quite useful and I wonder whether the department has any plans to roll out that information at bus stops, which would again encourage use and build up confidence in the system. At the moment, some bus stops in London have this but not all of them. Does my noble friend the Minister have any strategy for improving the information available at the bus stop, as well as that provided on the bus? Having said that, I very much welcome this as an important step forward and I endorse what my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Holmes said in welcoming these regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I am extraordinarily grateful for all the comments from my noble friends and all other noble Lords. They mostly welcome this SI because there is nothing in it that cannot be welcomed. I also welcome the enormous experience of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and his description of the time when he was working at TfL and the Tube. I agree with him; it is about culture, and one of our challenges is to inculcate that culture onto the buses. I do not know how many bus operators there are—the number 140 is in my head but I cannot remember—but it is a lot. Some operators are extremely small with fewer than 20 vehicles. This is about making sure that we bring everyone along with us, although I have to say that I expect some of the big operators in the larger metropolitan areas to be very much on the front foot with this. I expect that disability campaigners and representative groups will be on their cases— I hope that they are—to get dates for implementation from those companies that, frankly, have the wherewithal to do so quickly and set an example that others might follow.

I turn to some of the comments from my noble friends. The first was from my noble friend Lord Borwick. He was duffing me up a little. The “violent chastisement” of my noble friend Lord Borwick were the words of my noble friend Lord Young. I should like to say in mitigation that I was the Buses Minister for a vast period when we as the Government were considering this SI. I was pushing for improvements and to move things faster. It was disappointing every time when, as a Minister, I had to decide whether to reprioritise and re-timeline various things.

Covid has faded into the rear-view mirror, but it is extraordinary to me how, for more than two years of my life, it was all-consuming. For that time, as Buses Minister, saving the bus at all was my absolute priority, and it was a priority for the sector. I think there were two issues why the delay due to Covid happened. First, there was reprioritisation within my department as we were coming out of Covid—and we could potentially see the endgame—and we tried to get the national bus strategy out there to help in that recovery and to provide that strategic framework that we needed. Secondly, there was the ability of the operators to be able to give headspace to the very technical and detailed arrangements that they needed to consider to make these regulations right. Frankly, they were more concerned about keeping the buses on the road, keeping the drivers trained and recruiting drivers—all of the challenges that have either happened during Covid or subsequently.

While it is always regrettable when one has to deprioritise anything because there are other more pressing issues, having a stable bus network was the right priority at the time. I wish that we had been able to do everything at once but sometimes in Government, one just cannot. When it comes to these regulations and the technicality around them, it is because buses are not standard, and they can come from all sorts of manufacturers in various parts of the world. Therefore, there had to be a reassurance that whatever we put in the regulations worked on the buses that were available. Of course, the older buses are not particularly standard at all—some of them have very random seat configurations —and they often operate on the rural routes, the less profitable routes, or sometimes the supported routes by local transport authorities. They are the ones with the greatest vulnerabilities—so it is about getting that balance right between implementing those very important changes while making sure that we maintain all the benefits of buses which all noble Lords have already discussed today.

This was particularly reflected in the comments by my noble friend Lord Holmes in the way that buses can be the most inclusive form of transport and they are the best-loved form of public transport in our country. I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes for his positive remarks; he has been an assiduous campaigner in this area for many years. I completely agree that these benefits are for all people. There cannot be a noble Lord in this room who has not forgotten to get off the bus at some point or another. Our reflections in our analysis show that we do believe this will encourage more people on to buses—not just those with disabilities, but other people too as they feel reassured about the information provided on their journey. This is part of the mitigation for the cost of putting it in place in the first place.

My noble friend Lord Holmes also mentioned Northern Ireland. The matter of equalities is devolved to Northern Ireland. However, Translink, the bus operator there, has got audio-visual equipment widely deployed on its buses. I would encourage anybody to go to Northern Ireland, because it is a fantastic place for a holiday. Extra information can be added, but that is up to the discretion of operators. As I said previously, we expect some sort of increase in patronage as a result of this. It is difficult, obviously, to put a firm figure on it, but we do think it will be a positive outcome.

On floating bus stops, the Department for Transport is undertaking some research to ensure that they do the job they are intended to and can be operated safely. My noble friend Lord Holmes also mentioned bringing forward the review of the regulations. It is our intention to review them after five years, but noble Lords will be able to see our progress due to the annual bus statistics. This is a key document issued by the department, which collates all sorts of interesting information about buses, whether they are zero emission et cetera. One of the stats that we will put in that will be the extent to which this is being rolled out. I think that will enable the Government to think about whether it is going quickly enough.

My noble friend Lord Young mentioned support for smaller bus services. It is envisaged that the roughly £4.5 million will cover all the costs of implementation for those operators with fewer than 20 vehicles, which is incredibly welcome. He asked whether the bus driver could just shout, but visual information needs to be provided as well and the two often go hand in hand, so I do not think it would fulfil the requirements in the regulations for the bus driver just to shout.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am looking at Regulation 13, which is entitled “Requirements regarding audio information”. There is a lot about the volume, but it does not say that the information must come from a machine; it seems that it could come from the driver. I do not see where Regulation 13 excludes the driver providing the information.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

This might be one of those grey areas. My officials say that it is right that the driver could provide the information, but there is a minimum and a maximum volume for that information. I suppose that the driver could provide it, but I do not think this would be widespread across the bus industry, given that much of the technology links audio and visual together and the computers behind it project that information at the same time.

Information at bus stops is a key part of the national bus strategy. It is not the responsibility of the operators; they provide the information that is used for those real-time scoreboards at bus stops, but bus stops are operated by local transport authorities, as I am sure my noble friend knows. The BODS is the DfT’s means of collating as much real-time information as is available and making it available to local transport authorities, which can then put it into bus stops. Some of the BSIP funding we issued to successful local transport authorities recently will go into boosting the information at bus stops. I agree that it is very helpful to know when your bus will arrive.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned contrast. There will be further information on that; we have discussed it with campaigners and representative groups in this area. It will be in the guidance, which will come out this summer. There will be training for drivers; it will not be centralised as such, but the operators will be encouraged to make use of the REAL training syllabus and can sign up to the inclusive transport leaders scheme to make sure that staff have the knowledge and skills to support all disabled passengers.

The regulations apply to a service and not a vehicle. Therefore, if a vehicle is being used in different services—it might sometimes be running a scheduled service and sometimes be doing something else—it would still have to provide the information set out in the regulations.

I shall finish on enforcement, as I am conscious that I have spoken a fair amount. There are two main ways of enforcement. First, the Government will be able to check progress via the annual bus statistics, which come from industry, so we can chivvy people along as such. However, if elements go wrong for a certain customer or there is persistent non-compliance on a particular route or vehicle or by a particular operator, we would expect that passenger to escalate a concern to Bus Users UK outside London and to London TravelWatch inside London. That is the standard method; in my experience, passengers are very good at escalating concerns, particularly as this is such an important issue. We expect that bus operators will want to make their passengers aware of when they have fitted this technology in their area.