Disabled People (Access to Transport)

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I am glad to have the opportunity to take part in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and other hon. Members who have spoken in this debate on the powerful points they have made in support of the case for better access to transport for disabled people.

First, I take up the point made by my hon. Friends about the need for more and better audiovisual announcements on buses. I fully support the Committee’s recommendation that the Department for Transport should require all new buses to have audiovisual systems and for that to be phased in over no longer than 10 years—hopefully, quicker than that. Of course, that issue applies not just to England, but throughout Great Britain and perhaps Northern Ireland. It is certainly relevant to my constituency, and I hope that the Government will reconsider their refusal to make the provision mandatory.

The argument that there is no business case for the mandatory introduction of audiovisual systems—that a mandatory rule would place new financial obligations on operators in a difficult economic climate—is one that I do not think we can accept. First, no one can say that a transitional period of perhaps up to 10 years just for new buses will in any sense place excessive burdens on operators, unless the Government think that there will be a bad economic climate for the next 10 years; that is another issue.

Phasing such a system in will surely not be impossible for the vast majority of operators. We do not accept that buses can go around without having destination boards or numbers; it should be as automatic that new buses should have audiovisual information in them. I do not see that there is a case against that.

As many hon. Members have said, the provision of audiovisual information benefits not just passengers with visual or hearing impairments; the public as a whole benefit from such provision. We see that in London when we travel on buses. I represent another city that has many tourists. We can see how it benefits tourists, and others who are not used to the city, to have that information available. It is obvious to me that that should be mandatory. Another reason why it is important is that otherwise we will be penalising the operators that are prepared to put the facility in place.

I am fortunate, in that Edinburgh has Britain’s largest municipally owned bus company, Lothian Buses, which, like many operators in London, is increasingly providing audiovisual announcements on buses. On five routes, they are provided as a matter of course, and they will be added to other routes in the summer.

I am glad to say that the new Edinburgh tram system will be fully operational within a few months, and audiovisual information will be provided on the new trams as well. That decision has been taken by Lothian Buses itself. The company has not been made to do that by the Government and nor has it had any assistance—from the Scottish Government, in this case—in providing that help. It has made the facility available because, as a publicly owned operator, it has a commitment to providing as accessible a transport system as possible.

Indeed, Lothian Buses won an award from the Scottish Accessible Transport Alliance a couple of years ago for its work in this area. Of course, it is common sense to provide all passengers with the facility. There should be no difficulty in the Government making it mandatory for all new buses over a period.

My second point is about provision on buses for people with disabilities and particularly those who require wheelchair access. As we know, the regulations provide that all bus and coach operators will have to make their vehicles, both new and old, accessible to disabled people over a transitional period, but in practice that is taken up much more actively by some operators than others. I am glad to say that again, in Edinburgh, Lothian Buses has a good record in this respect: 100% of Lothian buses are now wheelchair-accessible and that will also be the case for the trams in the future. Again, that has been done without any assistance from any governmental source.

However, as we have heard, the situation is not as good in every part of the UK. I certainly support the recommendation in the Select Committee report that the Department for Transport should introduce financial incentives for bus operators to replace older non-accessible buses, particularly where no alternative bus route is available. We all know of cases in which a route is meant to be accessible, but then suddenly the bus operator, for some operational reason, puts on a service that is not accessible. That means that a person who wants to get on the bus with a wheelchair may have to wait half an hour or two hours or not be able to travel at all in a rural area, because the so-called accessible service has not been provided.

That takes me to my third and last point. Much more work must be done to create a seamless journey for all passengers, but particularly for people who have disabilities and especially, in this context, those who require access for wheelchairs, although not only them. For example, a passenger travelling in my constituency on one of the new No. 10 buses, with full wheelchair access, to Edinburgh’s Waverley station can look at the mobile app that has already been developed by Lothian Buses; it provides information on many of the issues on which the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) was looking for assistance on behalf of people with disabilities and travellers more generally.

The passenger gets to Princes street in the centre of Edinburgh, gets into the new lifts, which take them down to the platform, and gets on to a train with a wheelchair-accessible place run by East Coast Trains. They go to London, use the lifts at the new King’s Cross station and get on a wheelchair-accessible bus to wherever they are going in London in due course. Then, at the end of their journey, they find that they cannot get off a bus or they have difficulty because they cannot get to the kerb, as someone has parked in the way.

Alternatively, the passenger gets off the bus without difficulty but then has difficulty getting across the road at a pedestrian crossing because of the limited time allowed for pedestrians to cross. As hon. Members, we all know the Streets Ahead Campaign, which began recently and which, among other things, wants to extend the amount of time allowed for pedestrians and others to get across pedestrian crossings.

We must have an integrated approach, a seamless approach, to travel planning. That means, in particular, much better integration of the needs of disabled people into planning at an early stage, tackling issues such as street clutter, thoughtless parking and broken kerbs, which are, in their own way, just as important to providing accessibility to transport for people with disabilities, because that is all part of the whole travel experience. I therefore strongly support the Select Committee’s recommendation on the need for co-ordination in this area.

I would like to conclude by recognising that the Government did think again on the abolition of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. I was one of the hon. Members who raised that issue with the Minister’s predecessor and I am glad to say that the Government reconsidered the proposal to abolish the DPTAC. The issue was raised with me by campaigners in my constituency. As someone who is always ready to criticise the Government when they do the wrong thing, I am also prepared to recognise when they have done the right thing.

I am glad that the Government have listened to disabled passengers’ organisations and other groups that wanted the DPTAC to be retained. I hope that they will now take the next step forward, which is to listen to the views expressed by disabled persons organisations and transport organisations generally and to make the changes that will improve the transport experience for passengers with disabilities in the way that the Select Committee has recommended.

I urge the Minister in particular to change the Government’s stance on audiovisual announcements on buses. That is an easy thing to do. The necessary legislative changes could be made quickly and would make such a difference to so many passengers—those with disabilities and others—throughout our country. I urge the Government to think again on that point in particular.

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[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Let me begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and her Committee for a striking, effective and comprehensive report. I cannot do full justice to the report in the time available, but I would like to comment on some of the pressing issues that the Committee has highlighted. I commend the excellent contributions that have been made across the Chamber, particularly by my parliamentary colleagues including my distinguished predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick).

More than one in five people with a disability have experienced difficulties using transport, according to research by the Department for Work and Pensions. In rail alone, the number of journeys made by disabled people is estimated to have increased by 58% over the past five years. The Labour party is proud of its work in government on accessibility issues, which included updating the Disability Discrimination Act in 2005 and working on rail, aviation and access to taxis and minicabs in the Equality Act 2010.

Nothing stands still, however, and it should not do so under this Government. The Transport Committee’s report is comprehensive, with 107 written submissions and 34 witnesses interviewed. Difficulties using transport affect about a fifth of the population. My disappointment at the Government’s response, which is shared by several hon. Members present, is that they have not engaged adequately with many of the Committee’s key recommendations. The tone of much of the response drifts between complacency, defensiveness and world-weariness about the whole issue. We accept that the problem presents complex challenges, but surely it also provides opportunities to increase disabled people’s ability fully to participate in society and in the economy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) ably pointed out.

The Department for Transport had to be taken to task by the Transport Committee for the lack of information it provided on the accessibility action plan. The Department finally released the report on progress on Christmas eve, but if it thought it was playing Santa to disabled people, it was deluding itself. In the same way, the Department gave a dismissive response to the perfectly sensible suggestion for a cross-government working group on accessibility—a response that might be characterised as “carry on silo-ing.” I hope the Minister does not share that world view, as I am sure he does not.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, the Chair of the Transport Committee, has stressed—as have so many other hon. Members—the importance of phasing in universal audiovisual systems over the next 10 years. The response so far, as we have heard, has been to encourage bus operators to adopt such systems voluntarily, and to say that the business case has not been made. Disabled bus users make it clear that such systems are key as they make journeys, and the statistics from Guide Dogs have already been quoted. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) described, from a sighted person’s perspective, his own experience of how hugely dangerous it can be for a blind person to be left stranded in an unfamiliar area.

It is fine to encourage voluntary take-up—as the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), did—but has it been successful? Guide Dogs suggests that only one operator has responded on the issue. However, operators that have installed the system say it has proved to be good value for money. A representative from Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company said:

“AV systems punch above their weight due to how valuable they are for the blind and partially-sighted.”

Will the Minister or his officials tell us which operators are resisting the Transport Committee’s modest proposal? If operators have not yet put forward a business case that the Department considers reasonable, can it not do more to seek one out and to recognise the full social benefits that such systems offer? The Department has said that it does not have a method for assessing the full quantitative benefits of access to transport, such as social inclusion and links to skills and jobs. Is it not about time that the Department developed one or worked with similar economic models that have been produced elsewhere? Departments have to produce an equality impact assessment for each piece of legislation, and the Department for Transport should use such a mechanism when it looks at issues such as this.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

On the business case, is it not remarkable that in two UK cities with among the highest levels of bus use, London and Edinburgh, operators have chosen to install AV systems as far as possible? The operators are realising the benefits from doing so voluntarily, so why do the Government not make that mandatory throughout the country?

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend makes a good suggestion. Notwithstanding the difference between major cities and the rest of the country, I might suggest that the Department for Transport should get off its bottom and look at what is being done in London and Edinburgh. Perhaps they might discover a mechanism for producing a business case. The cost, as we know, is around £2,500 for a double-decker bus, compared with £190,000 for the whole process.

Do the Minister and the Department recognise that although many services are delivered locally, his Department can play an essential role in bringing together local stakeholders and encouraging dynamic partnerships? In my constituency, I have been privileged to be president for the past 17 years of Rideability, a disability organisation that provides on-call access to people with disabilities. The organisation has recently entered into an agreement with my local council that allows it to secure its future while retaining its input to an expansion of the scheme. That shows what can be done through intelligent co-operation between local government, consumer groups and the third sector. Surely the Minister’s Department should be incentivising the formation of such groups.

The Committee also said that the exemption to EU law, which the Government brought in, that prevents bus and coach operators from being required to train their staff in disability support should end. My hon. Friends have asked the Minister whether he would review the exemption in March 2014, and I echo that question. What evidence do we have to show that the current approach is working? Replies to the parliamentary questions I have tabled claim that, currently, 75% of drivers have had basic training. Progress on that will not be reviewed until March 2014. The Government need to be far more proactive in targeting 100% rates of training and retraining, and should work closely with sector skills councils such as People 1st, which has done good work in this area, to develop the best strategies for doing so.

The Committee also mentioned financial incentives. The Government response was that they would probably contravene EU state aid law—my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool will be only too familiar with how that catch-all argument has been used with procurement issues. What discussion has the Minister’s Department had with Government lawyers, or preferably an independent legal adviser, to confirm that such incentives would not be possible under EU law? Just because not all disabled people require a wheelchair-accessible vehicle, why will the Government not consider incentives to make more available for those who do? Why not listen to the calls from Leonard Cheshire to ensure more regular checks on accessibility equipment, so that disabled-access bus routes are not left without an appropriate vehicle?

The Committee also talked about journey planning. As Leonard Cheshire commented, the Government should not be complacent or self-congratulatory about what has been achieved so far. The Committee suggested that the Government should consult disability organisations over decisions about what stations should be prioritised for improvements. The Government said that third parties would only recommend their local stations and such consultation would not add value to the process. I dispute that, as I think most MPs would. It is a very Eeyore-ish attitude. I talked to my local bus users group, working with Blackpool Transport in Blackpool, where we have retained our municipal status for both the bus services and the trams. The group works on a range of issues, including disability and accessibility.

The expertise of such organisations is vital, as access to stations is a key issue. The progress being made is important, but is it not awful, in the 21st century, that the majority of rail services and stations have yet to achieve step-free access via lifts and ramps? I am thinking of examples in my neck of the woods of older Victorian stations, such as Preston. For disabled people, getting into and across the station is a bit of a lottery—the Blackpool Gazette reported a disturbing case last year of a lady from Blackpool who tried to do it.

Whizz-Kidz has been mentioned. I have been proud to work with it in the past as an ambassador. It has achieved good things, helping two young people in my constituency and providing life-changing equipment worth more than £1 million. Should the Government and the Department for Transport not seek to engage more broadly with such national bodies, as policy is developed and accessibility criteria are set? Should they not recognise the expertise and objectivity that charities that serve people with disabilities can contribute to the process?

It was a huge privilege to host the Paralympics in this country in 2012. It did the country’s reputation, and its reputation for addressing issues for people with disabilities, an enormous amount of good. One of the many benefits that the games brought was that they shone a light on some barriers that disabled people still face when using public transport. The games sparked a renewed attempt to make transport accessible for all.

I emphasise what colleagues have said. The Minister is a reasonable man. I know that, as a regional MP, he will not simply take a London-centric view. Is it not sad, however, that the Government response to the report offers thin gruel for those striving for these golden ideals? We risk squandering the potential and optimism of that summer and making little of our Paralympic legacy. We were capable then of putting the wonderful success of our Paralympic athletes on stamps, which went out across the UK. Surely we should now make more effort for the people themselves, so that the Paralympic athletes and all those with disabilities can do likewise.

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[Mr Goodwill]

I hope that what I said did not close the door on doing something. The points that the hon. Gentleman makes are absolutely valid, and we will be able to make the position much clearer by the spring of this year.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I fully endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has just said about taking the opportunity now to ensure that access is provided at all the stations on Crossrail.

A related point is that if Crossrail is approaching this work on the basis of meeting its legal requirements, I must say that we often find situations where accessibility at some stations requires someone in a wheelchair to use four, five or six different lifts to get from one point to another within the same station. Obviously, I accept that there are difficulties in terms of what can be done in many stations. Nevertheless, I hope that every effort can be made to ensure that, where accessibility is provided, it is provided in a way that is as convenient as possible and not in a way that forces passengers in wheelchairs to go on a magical mystery tour to get from one part of a station to another.

[Mr Goodwill]

Absolutely—I could not agree more. Sadly, one of the problems that we face is that we are dealing, of course, with upgrading some Victorian infrastructure that was not built with disabled people in mind at the time.

I am sorry that members of the Select Committee were not entirely satisfied with the response to the Committee’s recommendation that the Government should require bus operators to introduce audiovisual systems across the bus network. We recognise that many people find audio and visual announcements useful for travelling, and we understand the social benefits of having such systems on buses—in fact, they are useful for all bus users—but we are aware that this technology comes at a considerable cost. Our findings show that installing audiovisual technology on all new buses could cost between £5.75 million and £9.7 million per year. These figures are based on projections that between 2,500 and 2,800 new buses could be registered each year through to 2015.