Public Transport: Accessibility

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The oldest railway in the world still needs better accessibility at many stations, between platforms and trains, and in information and customer service. We have committed to more Access for All schemes at stations following the recent spending review and intend to set out clearer criteria for future such schemes, which we would expect to fund in future spending reviews and with third-party contributions. The long-term rolling stock and infrastructure strategy will embrace easier access on to and within trains. The results of all this will produce a clearer future pipeline for the supply chain.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the work he has done on accessibility; he has real experience and commitment. To that end, does he consider so-called floating bus stops to be inclusive by design and accessible for all? That is but one example; whether it is trains, taxis, buses, streets or stations, there are common issues of exclusion and inaccessibility. Does he agree that, tragically, the truth is that in the UK we do not currently have public transport—we have transport for some of the public, some of the time?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I absolutely respect the noble Lord’s determination in the matter of people with any disability accessing public transport. A lot has been done on the accessibility of the bus service, and the noble Lord knows that during the passage of the Bus Services Act, we agreed to cease those particularly difficult propositions whereby you alighted from a bus or got on to a bus directly from a cycle path, which do not work and clearly are not sustainable. On floating bus stops, the noble Lord knows that we paused them and that we have published a better definition of a floating bus stop, which is still a bus stop. The Government intend to proceed with a balance of interests of both cyclists’ and bus users’ safety, which includes disabled people.