Draft Public Service Vehicles (Accessible Information) Regulations 2023

Debate between Richard Holden and Ian Lavery

Thursday 11th May 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Public Service Vehicles (Accessible Information) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. The draft regulations, made under powers conferred by the Equality Act 2010 as amended by the Bus Services Act 2017, will require operators of local bus and coach services in Great Britain to provide audible and visible information on board.

A lack of on-board information on buses and coaches can make it impossible for many disabled people to travel independently, confidently or, indeed, safely. I wonder how many times right hon. and hon. Members have boarded a bus in an unfamiliar area or late at night, unsure how they will recognise their intended location when they reach it. They might ask the driver or other passengers for assistance, but the chances are that they will spend the journey anxious about missing their stop and being stranded in an unfamiliar location. That is probably an occasional experience for many, but for millions of disabled people it can be an everyday reality every time they travel.

Visually impaired passengers may be unable to identify bus stops as they pass them. Autistic people or passengers with cognitive impairments may need help to track their progress along a route. Wheelchair users travelling backwards in a wheelchair space may not even have a clear view of their location. I know that bus drivers up and down the country try their best to provide passengers with the necessary help, but the fact is that remembering to alert a passenger in time to alight may sometimes slip their mind, given the multiple other tasks that they must perform.

A 2014 survey by the charity Guide Dogs UK found that 70% of visually impaired respondents had missed a stop, having asked the driver to let them know when to get off, when the driver simply forgot because of all their other tasks. Disabled people with other impairments will probably relate to that unpleasant experience. Such incidents curtail the independence of disabled people affected and are likely to dissuade many people from boarding a local bus in the first place. Similar anxieties can have an impact on the confidence of women and girls, as well as other people made vulnerable while travelling, who might find themselves in unsafe situations or unsure where to alight, particularly in the evenings. Ultimately, that lack of confidence may prevent people from accessing the education, employment or leisure activities that vital bus services support.

What is the solution? Members who take London buses will know that on-board route and location information is nearly ubiquitous in the capital. In places such as Brighton, Blackpool, Edinburgh and Cardiff, passengers have also benefited from the roll-out of such technology, thanks to the efforts of their local operators; I recently did so myself up in County Durham, on the X15 between Lanchester and Durham.

Despite the benefits for passengers and the good work of some operators, however, the provision of such information remains far too inconsistent across the country. Since 2017, provision in Great Britain has crept up from 36% to 43%. That means that in practice disabled people still cannot board a bus with any certainty that the information that they need to travel with confidence will be provided as standard. With proven, time-tested technology already on the network in some towns and cities, it cannot be right that disabled people in so many communities are still being left behind. It is time for a change.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Guide Dogs UK encourages MPs to put a blindfold on, get on a bus and experience what people with auditory and visual impairments have to experience every time. It really is—I was going to say “eye-opening”—something we should all do to experience what disabled people suffer almost daily. Does the Minister agree that we should encourage MPs to take such journeys to experience what disabled people experience?

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Member for that important point. As I said, many people will have had the experience of missing their bus stop because of a lack of information. I sometimes miss my stop just looking out of the window at the beautiful County Durham countryside. Missing their stop is an everyday occurrence for people who do not have the information to hand, because they are reliant on some senses but not others. The hon. Member makes an important point, as Guide Dogs UK has done with its campaign.

To level up services across the country, the draft regulations will create a new requirement for operators of local services in Great Britain to provide accessible on-board information. They specify that that must include information about the route, the next stop, route termination, diversions and hail-and-ride sections. The regulations are the product of engagement with stakeholders representing disabled people, bus and coach operators and specialists in the provision of information, as well as our statutory advisers, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. They attempt to strike a balance between delivering meaningful benefits for passengers and minimising negative impacts on operators. They are about setting the outcomes that disabled people need, but leaving it to operators to determine how they should be met.

Passengers will be able to expect a minimum standard for on-board information across the country, helping them to travel with confidence. The limited number of technical requirements in the draft regulations, such as the minimum volume level, are intended to support that minimum standard across the board. Meanwhile, operators will be able to choose the technology that suits their business and their vehicles. We have already ruled out the option of forcing passengers to rely on smartphones to access information, as disabled people are much less likely than non-disabled people to own them, according to recent Ofcom research. However, on the wider question of technology, we recognise that one size does not fit all. We are certainly not in the business of telling operators to choose one brand of on-board system over another.

Although I am hopeful that most operators will embrace the new requirements as an opportunity to improve the service available to all passengers, I am conscious that, for some, any additional expense may be concerning. We have therefore designed the policy with the smallest, most marginal operators in mind. In particular, we have allowed more time for operators of older vehicles to comply. We have also exempted most community transport, including all vehicles operated under section 19 permits and all existing vehicles used under a section 22 permit.

Even with the proposed exemptions in place, by October 2026 almost every service that people use on a day-to-day basis will be expected to provide accessible on-board information under the regulations. In fact, with compliance focused initially on new and nearly new vehicles, passengers should begin to see and hear a difference from October next year. To be clear, that difference will be experienced by passengers across England, Scotland and Wales. We listened to stakeholders in all three nations while developing the regulations, and we expect the regulations to support independent, confident travel for disabled passengers and others throughout Great Britain.

To help the industry to understand the new requirements, we will issue guidance under section 181C of the Equality Act 2010. That will include advice about managing potential conflicts between passenger needs, as well as opportunities to go even further in making services accessible.

I will explain the enforcement processes for the draft regulations. We know that operators will want to do the right thing and that they will see the provision of audible and visible information as an integral element of a high-quality and accessible customer experience. If something goes wrong, however, passenger complaints should in the first instance be dealt with by the relevant operator. If they remain unresolved, they can be escalated to Bus Users UK or London TravelWatch for arbitration and potentially referred to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. The DVSA will investigate alleged breaches, referring them to traffic commissioners in appropriate locations across Great Britain.

We want to work with the industry to establish accessible information as a mainstay on our buses. That will help to build the confidence that is so critical to getting people back on to local transport services, which is something that hon. Members have been in touch with me about. They are particularly concerned about concessionary fare users, many of whom will be disabled people who lack the confidence to come back on to the network. We hope that this will be a move in the right direction.

Draft South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (Transfer of Functions) Order 2023

Debate between Richard Holden and Ian Lavery

Thursday 19th January 2023 General Committees

[Mr Holden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. We are not planning any reviews at the moment. The main issue is that the mayoral combined authority has responsibility in this space. The passenger transport executive operates in the same building, as I understand it, but has to publish its own independent set of accounts, so although they work closely together, the dual administrative set-up continues. Merging them into one means little need to look at what extra can be done, as we are mainly removing the extra administrative burdens that exist currently for the PTE body, but which will now be automatically covered by the MCA. I hope that reassures him. In fact, my first decision as a Minister was to pass this draft statutory instrument, so I have spent an inordinate quantity of time looking at it in depth.

The South Yorkshire PTE was established by the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Area Order 1973. It has variously been accountable to the metropolitan county council, the passenger transport authority and the integrated transport authority.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give us a flavour of the different rules, if this legislation is passed, between the SYMCA and the SYPTE?

[Mr Holden]

If the hon. Gentleman is asking about the difference in the rules of the two different bodies, there are no different rules. Basically, the PTE is operating, but in conjunction with and under the mayoral authority. In that scheme, it has to provide a different set of accounts and that sort of thing, but it does not have democratic accountability in the same way as the MCA does—the Mayor is directly elected by the people, rather than being a collection of councillors and other appointed officials. We hope to provide greater democratic accountability. There are no real issues aside from removing some of the dual administrative burden on both bodies, if that makes sense.

The PTE most recently became accountable to the mayoral combined authority in 2014, when the Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority Order 2014 dissolved the integrated transport authority for the area, transferring its functions to the MCA. As well as the PTE responsibility for buses, the South Yorkshire PTE owns the supertram and is responsible for the arrangements for its operation.

South Yorkshire MCA’s 2019 review of bus services in its area, chaired by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), recommended, among other things, that the PTE should cease to exist as a separate organisation and instead become fully part of the combined authority. The review concluded that the separate arm’s length transport authority was no longer the right model. It concluded that a single entity responsible for bus transport strategy and delivery in South Yorkshire would provide a clearer focus on passenger needs, user-centred transport design and delivery and, of course, democratic oversight. As the review notes, this is already the case in some other city regions, such as the West Midlands and West Yorkshire, while other city regions have chosen to retain their PTEs as executive bodies of their combined authorities, such as in Greater Manchester or the Liverpool city region.

The Government recognise that a single entity may better support alignment of transport priorities with economic growth and decarbonisation objectives. However, provided that there are clear lines of accountability and sound governance in place, it is right that the combined authorities themselves determine which arrangements are best for their area. In this case, South Yorkshire has also identified scope for significant efficiency savings, which it is hoping to reinvest in the local bus network, away from administration.

Following the bus review, the then Mayor of South Yorkshire asked the Department for Transport to take the necessary steps to transfer the functions of the PTE to the combined authority. The Secretary of State agreed to do so, and my officials have worked closely with the Mayor’s team to bring forward this order. The order will make the combined authority responsible for planning, delivering and managing public transport services, bringing those functions under a single roof. Though as I said before, my understanding is that they are physically under a single roof now, but now it will be under a combined authority too.

To conclude, this order will make a straightforward and sensible amendment to the administration of local transport services in South Yorkshire at the request of the Mayor. It is important that the Government deliver on devolution by supporting local authorities in providing services in the most efficient way for the people in their area. I commend this statutory instrument to the House.