Hedge End Train Station: Accessibility

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) on giving colleagues across the House the opportunity to discuss the important subject of accessibility to the railway network, in particular in his constituency at Hedge End station. I thank him for the very positive engagement that we have had on this matter. I promise him that his polite and persistent manner will achieve a lot for his constituents in this place. The way in which he goes about his business is completely professional and does him great credit.

I recognise how important it is for my hon. Friend’s constituents to have access to the railway to get to and from work, to see family and friends, and to go about their lives. I know from the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) how important it is for their constituents, too. I should also acknowledge my hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) and for High Peak (Robert Largan), who care passionately about accessibility on the railway and are here to listen to the debate, and my opposite number, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who assiduously attends these debates and who I know is passionate about this area too.

Delivering a transport system that is truly accessible to all is of great importance to the Government. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh has seen the Department for Transport’s inclusive transport strategy, published in 2018, and recognises it as evidence of the Government’s commitment to taking action to safeguard and promote the rights of all disabled passengers. We do not deny that our strategy is ambitious, but we are determined to deliver it. By 2030, we want disabled people to have the same access to transport as everyone else. If physical infrastructure remains a barrier, assistance will play a role in guaranteeing those rights.

An accessible transport network is central to the Government’s wider ambition to build a society that works for all. Regardless of the nature of a person’s disability, they should have the same access to transport and the same opportunity to travel as everyone else, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North said. This is an important measure for reducing social isolation and creating opportunities for people to play a more active role in society. We know, for example, that disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people. The simple ability to travel from A to B should not be a barrier to someone becoming employed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh knows, many of our stations are Victorian and their infrastructure is not fit for today. The 19th-century stations were not built with the needs of 21st-century passengers in mind, which has left us with a huge task of opening up the rail network to disabled passengers. Although 75% of journeys are through step-free stations, only about a fifth of stations, 20%, have proper step-free access into the station and to and between each platform.

Clearly, there is a lot more to be done. Accessible stations make a huge difference to people’s journey experience, not only for those with reduced mobility but for those carrying heavy luggage, those pushing pushchairs with children and a whole host of other people. That is why we have continued the Access for All programme. The inclusive transport strategy included a commitment to extend the programme across control period 6 in rail, between 2019 and 2024—we love to work in five-year periods—with an additional £300 million of funding from the public purse. My hon. Friend might also be aware that in March the Chancellor included an extra £50 million in the Budget for that programme.

[Caroline Nokes]

As Chair of the Select Committee on Women and Equalities, I can tell the Minister that the issue of disabled people and transport is a subject dear to the Committee’s heart. Can he give us some indication of the sums that the Chancellor has extended to the network to improve accessibility at stations and how many that might help?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will come on to that later in my speech and, like my right hon. Friend, I am very passionate about this area. I have done a huge amount, I would like to think, to help people with learning disabilities, and I was the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on learning disability in this place before I was fortunate enough to become a Minister.

I know we need to do a great deal more, but I guess I can say to my right hon. Friend that this new funding builds on the previous success. It was launched as a 10-year programme in 2006. So far, it has installed accessible step-free routes at more than 200 stations, and some 1,500 stations have benefited from smaller-scale access improvements.

The new funding allows design work to restart on all the projects deferred by the 2016 Hendy review into Network Rail delivery and allows even more stations to be included in the programme. We asked the industry to nominate stations for the new funding, and we received more than 300 nominations, most of which came through the train operating companies, often in partnership with local authorities, Members of Parliament or local councillors who were championing them.

Nominated stations were then selected based on criteria, which included—this is quite an important inclusion—annual footfall and the incidence of disability in the area. We also took into account other local factors, such as proximity to a hospital or the availability of third-party funding for the project and, indeed, ensured a fair geographic spread of the projects across the country.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh will know, Hedge End was nominated for Access for All funding, but was not successful this time round. That was largely because of its low footfall compared with other stations nominated by South Western Railway. I understand his disappointment that Hedge End was not selected. All inaccessible stations deserve funding, but as he would understand, we receive many more nominations for the programme than we are able to support at this time. Stations are selected for funding through a prioritisation and assessment process. It was difficult to justify Hedge End’s inclusion at this time ahead of other busier stations that had a higher priority for the reasons I have just given and as suggested by the industry.

[Paul Holmes]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, and I am grateful for his comments, but will he just clarify something for me and my constituents? He says that Hedge End was unsuccessful in bidding for funding last time, which I completely accept—his communication with me was perfectly courteous on that—but will future funding bids take into account the historic increase in footfall in stations, which Hedge End will have over the next five years, but also has had over the past five years?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Yes. Footfall is a very important factor in the criteria that we take into account. Should further funding become available, or if there are significant underspends elsewhere in the existing delivery programme, I will look to select further stations. I cannot guarantee that that will happen, and I cannot yet guarantee that Hedge End will be among them, because unfortunately it is far from unique, but it will be given due consideration along with the other unsuccessful stations, and I can tell my hon. Friend that I will bear in mind this debate at that time, along with all the very valid arguments he has made this evening.

I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to improving access across the rail network, and we will seek further opportunities and funding to make further improvements. We are also pressing the industry to comply with its legal obligations to ensure that work at stations meets current accessibility standards and for the Office of Rail and Road to enforce the standards effectively. That applies not only to the flagship projects, such as Crossrail or the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street—all of which are delivering significant accessibility improvements—but also as part of the business-as-usual work of the renewals programme, such as making sure that any replacement bridges have lifts or ramps.

It is also important that the industry meets its obligations to anyone who needs assistance, whether or not they have booked ahead of time. Every passenger should get the best possible help to use the trains, particularly at stations that do not have accessibility features. Each operator is required to have an accessible travel policy in place as part of its licence to operate services. The policy sets out the services that disabled passengers can expect and what to do if things go wrong. It commits the operator to meeting its legal obligations by making reasonable adjustments to its services to allow disabled people to use them, for example by providing an accessible taxi free of charge to anyone unable to access a particular station.

The Office of Rail and Road recently consulted on revised accessible travel policy guidance, which included new proposals that will strengthen the provisions put in place to ensure that disabled people can use the rail network. I have encouraged the ORR to take enforcement action against train and station operators who are found not to be meeting their accessibility obligations.

Every disabled passenger should be confident that the assistance they have booked will be provided. The Department has worked with the Rail Delivery Group to create the new passenger assistance application, which will make it easier for disabled passengers to book assistance. We encourage the ORR to be as ambitious as possible with regard to the proposals to reduce the minimum notice period for booking assistance, and to set the shortest minimum period that operational constraints allow, based on its knowledge of and input of its routes.

I know that there is more we can do to make the rail network more accessible. Therefore, we will be introducing a new set of accessibility requirements. Those include the introduction and delivery of enhanced disability awareness training to all train operating company staff, regardless of their role or seniority, and mandating all train operators running new franchises, or these new emergency recovery measures agreements, to write annually to the Secretary of State for Transport and me, as the transport accessibility Minister, outlining all activity that has been conducted to improve accessibility for rail passengers, including what they have done beyond the obligations in their franchise agreements and future rail contracts. We have actively supported the establishment by the industry of an independent rail ombudsman with powers to deal with unresolved passenger complaints. However, as I say, there is a lot more to be done in this area, and not all of it involves more cash.

I hope that I have been able to demonstrate that the Government are committed to improving access at stations for disabled passengers, through both specific projects such as Access for All and improvements delivered as part of our wider commitment to improving the rail network. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and all colleagues for their contributions to the debate. I appreciate the frustration of passengers who do not have access to stations in their area, but I hope that my hon. Friend has been reassured that the Government remain committed to investment that will provide and improve services in this area. We want all people to continue to benefit from the record levels of funding, including Access for All investment, that we are putting into the rail network at this point in time, and I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed for raising this issue in the manner in which he did.

Question put and agreed to.