Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing the debate. I also pay tribute to her. It was a pleasure to serve under her chairmanship of the Select Committee for this inquiry.

It will not surprise noble Lords to know that, as a member of the committee, I agree with the noble Baroness. Quite simply, more must be done. As she mentioned, legislation to prevent disability discrimination has been on the statute book for more than 20 years. In spite of that, here we are in 2016 and many disabled people continue to be excluded from public buildings, public transport and other services. This is, frankly, unacceptable.

I will centre my contribution on access to transportation. For any person, access to transportation is essential to play a full role in society: to get to work, school or university; to attend community, cultural or sporting events; to attend medical, legal and other appointments; and so on. Yet, the evidence to our committee demonstrated that this was one of the areas in which disabled people face the most challenges—challenges that have significant wider consequences. As the evidence we received from the group Transport for All makes clear:

“The difficulties disabled people face using transport is one of the major factors behind our exclusion from work; from healthcare; from education and from public life in general”.

Unless we take seriously the need to make our transport systems accessible for all, we will never succeed in providing disabled people equal access to many sectors of public life.

I begin by examining the situation of access for disabled people to taxis. As was acknowledged by many who gave evidence to our committee, the door-to-door nature of the service provided by taxis and private hire vehicles makes them particularly attractive to those for whom public transport may not be suitable. The committee heard that two-thirds of wheelchair users say they have been refused a taxi. Others report having been charged extra. Back in 1995 Parliament passed provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act to prohibit both these actions, yet successive Governments have failed to bring those laws into force.

Fifteen years after passing the original laws, Parliament reiterated its commitment to the necessity of legal protections to ensure taxi services are made available for those who use wheelchairs by incorporating them into the Equality Act 2010. Yet, six years later, those provisions are still not in force. I therefore welcome wholeheartedly the Government’s commitment in their response to the committee’s report that they,

“will now proceed to bring the measures into force, aiming for commencement by the end of 2016”.

Today I ask the Minister not only for details of when we can expect the commencement of Sections 165 and 167 of the Equality Act 2010 but for her assurances that the Government will put into place clear guidance and structures to enforce these duties.

I accept that there may have been a need for a transition period to ensure that taxi businesses are able to meet the requirements but 20 years is far too long to wait. I hope the Minister will give the House an assurance today that the commencement timetable will ensure that the duty will be applied as soon as possible. As we said in our report, we do not see that taxi drivers,

“can complain about the burden of converting their taxis to be wheelchair-accessible, since they have known for 20 years that this might happen”.

For too long the interests of taxi businesses have been placed above those of disabled people. This was clearly demonstrated by the fact that the provision allowing for exemption was brought into force almost six years ago without any parallel introduction of the duty itself. This must change. I am hopeful that with the commencement of Section 165, the Government will begin to redress that approach.

Ensuring that taxis are available for wheelchair users requires more than just commencing Section 165. We need local authorities to take a lead in supporting and encouraging taxi drivers to be open and able to carry disabled passengers. Local authorities must use their licensing powers to nudge and, where necessary, require taxi businesses to make their vehicles accessible for disabled people, as well as ensure that drivers receive disability awareness training. We must make vehicle accessibility and disability awareness a part of licensing obligations. The past 20 years have shown that leaving it up to the good will of drivers, or expecting the purchasing power of disabled people to produce accessible taxis for all, simply does not work. I welcome the Government’s promise in their response to our report that they will be producing guidance for local authorities, and considering how licensing regimes should incorporate accessibility criteria. I hope the Minister can give us some good news about that process.

I shall now address some other key concerns relating to transportation which arose in the course of our inquiry. First, there is no doubt that wheelchair accessibility has improved since the first disability discrimination legislation, as evidence to the committee demonstrated. However, far too many buses, trains and stations are still not accessible by wheelchair. We heard the shocking story of Crossrail—it is scarcely believable that it was considered acceptable for a new piece of public transport infrastructure built in the 21st century to have seven stations without step-free access. Much more training, transparency and accountability are required to ensure that all future new-build public transport infrastructure has wheelchair access throughout.

Accessibility is also an issue in many bus stations around the country. That is why the committee has recommended that Network Rail, Transport for London, train operators and bus companies around the country should put more resources into making their stations and vehicles accessible for wheelchair users. There is particular need for improved services in rural areas, where public transport is already much less readily available than in larger towns and cities. Companies should not need the threat of enforcement proceedings before operators comply with existing regulations. The Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 came into force for single-deck buses earlier this year and will do for all double-deck buses by 1 January 2017. It is essential that these regulations are enforced by the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency.

The evidence we received in the inquiry also highlighted that accessibility is not simply a matter of putting rules and infrastructure in place, though those are undoubtedly necessary. Stations and trains are accessible only if that infrastructure is maintained and the necessary equipment and staff are provided. We heard one terrible story of a lady who, despite her best efforts in communicating with the guard on the train, was completely forgotten, so she missed her stop not once but twice, which resulted in her being dumped at a completely different station and having to phone her husband to come and collect her. As the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee told our inquiry:

“Although much of the basic accessibility provision is now in place through the construction requirements for rail and bus ... there is little effort going into making sure that accessibility features are consistently in place and working”.

We need bus and train operators to put sufficient resources into maintaining as well as building this accessibility infrastructure.

Another form of physical infrastructure which is vitally needed is audio-visual annunciators. For passengers who are hearing or visually impaired, the making of announcements via both visual and audio media is essential for them to utilise the bus and rail network. Evidence to our committee highlighted the discrepancy between the regulations for trains, which include requirements for audio-visual information, and for buses, which do not. This lack of regulation seems to have led to a situation where very few bus companies outside London have installed audio-visual annunciators on their buses. The importance of annunciators was shown clearly by information from the organisation Guide Dogs, which showed that seven out of 10 bus passengers with sight loss have been forgotten by a bus driver who was asked to let them know when the bus reached their stop. As Guide Dogs told the committee:

“For a sighted person, missing a stop is an irritating experience; for somebody unable to see, it is distressing, disorientating and sometimes dangerous”.

It is clear that more resources should be devoted to providing annunciators. Particular attention must also be paid to the production of new buses. There are already requirements that no new trains be put into service without having audio-visual information systems and we need the same requirements for buses.

I was disappointed that the Government’s response to our committee’s report rejected our recommendation for the mandatory installation of annunciators in new buses via the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000. The evidence is that without such regulations, the industry will be slow to respond to the needs of visually and hearing-impaired passengers. While I appreciate that the Government are concerned about placing too onerous a burden on bus companies, I do not believe that our committee’s requirements are in fact onerous. We were told by Transport for All that these information systems form only 1% of the cost of a new bus—a minimal cost for such a facility. It would increase the ability and confidence not only of passengers with sight or hearing loss but of those with learning disabilities and any passengers making unfamiliar journeys. I ask the Minister to explain today the Government’s reasoning for determining that a requirement for new buses to be fitted with annunciators would be too burdensome and invite her to commit to reconsidering the committee’s recommendation relating to new buses specifically.

Fitting information systems to buses already in service may be more costly and our committee therefore did not recommend that such action should be mandatory, although we do urge bus companies to put more resources into fitting annunciators to all their vehicles. I also welcome the Government’s support for initiatives to develop lower-cost information systems and new technologies which may make it easier and cheaper to assist disabled passengers overcome these challenges in using buses, especially on older buses which do not have audio-visual annunciators fitted.

Finally, it is essential that staff operating public transport have adequate training on disability equality. There will always be individual staff who fail to act in accordance with the training and guidance they receive, but ensuring widespread, consistent delivery of training of a sufficient standard is an important factor in reducing incidents where staff fail to respond to disabled passengers in an appropriate way. If we are to see the standards of staff behaviour improve across the board then we need to have an agreed level of training for all bus, coach and rail staff. Without it, levels of training, and thus the quality of services, will remain patchy across the country and divergent between different companies. Training for front-line rail staff is already mandatory as a condition of the licensing regime. I fail to understand why a similar requirement cannot be placed on bus operators. I welcome the MacDonald review that the Government have commissioned into delivering disability awareness training in the transport industry and hope that the Government will seriously consider the recommendations of both that review and our committee. Too often we found in the course of our inquiry that, across many sectors, a desire to remove so-called red tape and to avoid burdening business has resulted in a failure to enforce or prioritise disability equality. We must take a longer, harder look at where we set our priorities.

I conclude by again welcoming the Government’s positive response to some of our committee’s recommendations but also by urging a reconsideration of the others I have mentioned.