Disabled Access (Train Stations)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes two important points. The first is about the inconsistency between operators, which is something that we have experienced very personally in Penrith. The apparently winning bidder for the west coast franchise committed to install a lift at Penrith station. When that franchise collapsed, having got a written commitment from the chief executive of that group, we ended up going back to Virgin and no such commitment is emerging. Virgin says that it has no interest in the work because it has only four or five years to run on its franchise. That has been a great disappointment for us and illustrates my hon. Friend’s point.

The second, bigger point, and the more important one, is that disabled access at the train station—in other words lifts—is only the beginning and not the end of the conversation. There are any number of other things to be considered. Some of them are to do with changes in technology available to disabled people, the increasing use of mobility scooters and the importance of being able to get them on and off trains and the height of the platforms—in many cases, the platforms are built at the wrong height for people to be able to get off the train. Those may be expensive interventions but they certainly need to be part of our objectives.

Another objective is access to disabled lavatories on board trains. Recently, one of my constituents was seated in the wrong carriage and was unable to access the disabled lavatory. No one was able to assist them to get from one carriage to another, and the result was really distressing.

To conclude, this is a matter of which Britain should be proud. All Back Benchers and all parties—all the way from Northern Ireland, through the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives—have done an extraordinary amount to show what Britain means in terms of disabled rights and disabled access. This is also a Government who are proud of their infrastructure investments and their contribution to employment through infrastructure, particularly through railways. We must put those two things together. If we can do that, we can look forward to a day when all hon. Members will be able to access the wonderful conditions that are now available at Winchester station. All Members who have gathered today to talk about the problems of access in their own constituencies will be able to get to where we would like to be at Penrith, which is a world in which the millions of people using trains, including the 7.5 million tourists who go to the Lake district every year, will step off that train on to Penrith station and see a brand-new lift, and they will see it not just as an article of public convenience but a symbol of British civilisation.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We are now, metaphorically speaking, going to struggle with our suitcase over the footbridge from the hon. Gentleman’s remarks to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

I am grateful for that intervention. My hon. Friend’s constituents will doubtless be aware of his involvement in pushing for that particular improvement.

To build on the success of the Access for All programme, last year’s high-level output statement included £100 million to extend the programme until 2019, despite the difficult economic circumstances. We have asked the rail industry to nominate stations for inclusion in the extended programme, using the criteria to which I referred, and hopefully taking on board the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border made about remote rural stations. We also want the industry to take account of factors such as improving inter-urban journeys and the availability of third-party match funding, which can be used to weight business cases for individual station projects. The views of local authorities are also important when considering these matters, so they will be taken into account.

We want to tie in access improvements with other projects to help to deliver efficiency savings by combining costs, including project management costs. For example, last November I opened a joint national stations improvement programme and Access for All project—two different funding streams—at Horsham station, which was worth more than £4 million of Government and local authority funding. This excellent project shows exactly what can be achieved when different stakeholders co-ordinate their plans to deliver a better experience for passengers. I would welcome more examples of such co-ordination in the future.

I would expect a number of stations that were close to being included in the current Access for All programme to be nominated again this time around. They include Penrith, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, where Network Rail has already been looking at options for providing step-free access. I know that the station is one of the few on the west coast main line without a proper accessible route, and that it is an important interchange with National Express coaches and bus services to other parts of the Lake district. All those factors will make Penrith a strong candidate for inclusion in the Access for All programme, although I obviously cannot guarantee that it will be included. Although Network Rail is busy considering the matter, I would expect Virgin, the train company involved, to be frankly a little more sympathetic than appears to have been the case to date. I expect the industry to complete the nomination process by the end of this year, which would enable us to be in a position to announce the successful stations by April 2014, the beginning of the next rail control period.

It is important to remember that improved access can often be achieved using relatively small amounts of funding, combined with innovative thinking by the industry, so the Access for All programme includes an annual small schemes fund of around £7 million a year. That money is allocated between the train operating companies, based on the number of stations they manage and how busy those stations are. Since 2006, more than £100 million of investment, including contributions from the train operators themselves and from local authorities, has seen projects delivered at more than 1,100 stations, which is almost half the total number of stations in this country.

A variety of projects have been supported, including: better provision of accessible toilets; customer information systems, which have now been installed at more than 80% of our national stations; blue badge parking spaces; and features such as induction loops at ticket offices to help those with hearing impairments. The work has removed barriers to travel for many disabled people, and these are real examples of projects that are delivered at a relatively low cost, but have high value.

In 2011, we released £37.5 million of Access for All mid-tier funding to help projects needing up to £1 million of Government support. A total of 42 projects were successful, ranging from the provision of step-free access—via lifts—at stations such as Alton, which serves Treloar college for physically disabled students, to a Changing Places disabled toilet at Paddington and easier access platform humps to reduce the stepping distance between the platform and train at several stations throughout the country. The first phase of those projects is now finishing, and the remainder of the projects are due to be completed by the end of this financial year.

I do not want to give the impression that that is all we are doing to improve access at stations, however. Access for All is over and above work delivered as part of other major investment programmes or work undertaken directly by train operators, which are each required to invest an average of £250,000 a year on improving stations under their minor works programmes as part of the franchise requirements. I understand that that money is now almost exclusively spent on access improvements. We heard mention of High Speed 2, and I want to make it clear that all new stations on the HS2 route or anywhere else—we are busy opening new stations under the new stations fund and the local sustainable transport fund—will be fully accessible.

We are determined to ensure that all rail vehicles are fully accessible, because there is no point in having accessible stations if people cannot get on the train. The latest figures show that more than 7,600 rail vehicles have been built or refurbished to modern access standards, which is 45% of all rail vehicles, including half of all trains—that is the difference between carriages and trains. More than 500 older rail vehicles have been fully refurbished to modern access standards, and contracts have been placed for work on hundreds more. Meanwhile, my officials, with assistance from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, continue to provide compliance guidance to the rail industry ahead of the 2020 deadline for all rail vehicles to be accessible. It is a firm commitment of the Government that all rail vehicles will be accessible by 2020, and we are determined to make sure that that is kept to. By the way, there are similar commitments on buses, which are equally important, if not more so, for people in rural areas, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border will no doubt accept.

In summary, I hope that I have been able to demonstrate that the Government is committed—note to Hansard: the Government “is” committed, not “are” committed—to improving access at stations for disabled passengers through specific projects such as Access for All, as well as under improvements delivered as part of our wider commitment to improving the rail network.

I am grateful to hon. Members who contributed to the debate. The evidence of the turnout of Members demonstrates the importance that parliamentarians attach to this issue, and that is matched by the importance that we in the Department for Transport attach to it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) on securing the debate.

Question put and agreed to.