Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Bill

Debate between Gareth Davies and Chris Loder

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Loder]

As in most cases, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

I have been actively pursuing this matter at Dorchester West station. Dorchester is the county town of Dorset. Dorchester West is now fully accessible, as a result of one of my many campaigns. However, it has taken far too long. Dorchester South, the county town station from which trains go to London, is not fully accessible. If a taxi for a disabled person pulls up at that station and the train is arriving from London Waterloo, the disabled passenger cannot access the taxi. Yeovil Junction, which is not in my constituency but serves the vast majority of the rural north of it, is not staffed all the time. A disabled person who gets off a train and cannot manage the steps will be stranded. That is unacceptable, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give due consideration to it—along with many other issues that I must share with her and her colleagues in this context.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has great expertise and experience in this field, so I hope he will forgive me if I ask him to acknowledge, at least, that the Government are making investments in our railway network and stations to improve accessibility through the Access for All programme, which will result in £350 million of investment between 2019 and 2024. Perhaps his constituency has not yet benefited from that investment, but he should certainly seek it.

[Chris Loder]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind intervention. I entirely agree with him: I think that the Government’s work in this field is excellent. Regrettably, however, it is not excellent in West Dorset yet. When a county town station is not fully accessible and the second town of Somerset, on the border, is served by a station at which someone who is disabled and arrives after 8 pm will be stranded, that is completely unacceptable. However, I wholly support what the Government are doing through Access for All, and would warmly welcome more of that investment in West Dorset to address this issue.

[Chris Loder]

I would welcome investment in the tactile paving that my hon. Friend will be receiving at Darlington. I understand that it is part of a £100 million scheme to develop the whole station. That is major investment for a wonderful part of the world, but West Dorset is equally wonderful, and I cannot remember the last time we saw major investment in one of our railway stations in rural Dorset. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to make this point. Access for disabled people who need to travel in taxis to and from trains, especially in the absence of rural bus services, is incredibly important, and we often do not pay attention to it.

You may be interested to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in three areas in rural Dorset one has to put one’s hand out for the train driver to stop. Those train stations have only steps, and they are completely inaccessible to disabled people arriving by car. I hope the DFT and my hon. Friend the Minister will pursue a wider piece of work to develop connectivity for disabled people who travel by car and taxi to get on a train.

[Gareth Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does he take comfort from the fact that Great British Railways will have a statutory duty to make train stations more accessible? And will he support Grantham’s bid to host the headquarters of Great British Railways?

[Chris Loder]

I am open to being lobbied to support bids. I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me for not declaring at this moment which bid I will support. We need to be careful not to stray from the point.

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the future of GBR. He asks whether I take comfort from the fact that GBR will also have the ability to make progress. Yes, I do take comfort, but I do not take comfort from having to wait for it. There is no reason to wait for this to happen to address the very difficult disabled access issues we have today. Many of us, particularly in rural areas, have already had to wait for decades and we should not continually have to wait. I welcome the GBR initiative, which will do great things for the railways of this country. I warmly commend my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues for their work.

I am conscious that we are straying into trains and railways. I am delighted to take interventions and questions from my hon. Friends, but I am conscious that I am not at the Dispatch Box. I hope they will bear that in mind.

The absence of rural bus services means that disabled people are much more dependent on taxis. We have to bear in mind the cost to disabled people. It is sad that disabled people, particularly in rural areas, have to pay more to be connected and to go to places because of the nature of their disability. That is something we should note. I am delighted that the Bill looks to address many of those matters.