Disabled People’s Access to Transport

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for me to make a statement to the House to mark the publication of the Transport Committee’s first report of this Parliament. Our report is called “Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to transport”. It brings to a conclusion work done by our predecessor Committee, on which I sat for a while in the previous Parliament, and for which we thank it.

The report first sets out the evidence we receive from disabled people about their experiences of using transport networks in this country. Their experiences will come as no surprise to most hon. Members, whose constituents tell us about rail stations that remain stubbornly inaccessible, taxi services that have refused carriage because of assistance dogs, and being left high and dry at airports or on trains when they have booked passenger assistance that just does not arrive on time. No mode of transport is free from problems, despite most notionally having accessible facilities and policies.

Those failures affect people with all kinds of disabilities and access needs. The needs of wheelchair users and people with sight loss might seem obvious, but the Committee also heard from people with health conditions who need easy access to toilets and from those with autism, who describe how overcrowded or unpredictable transport affects them. Perhaps most shocking of all, 60% of disabled people who responded to our survey said that almost every journey was beset with problems. More than a third said that more than once a week they decided not to make a journey because they knew it would be too complicated, too unsafe or that things were likely to go wrong. That is simply an unacceptable infringement of people’s human rights to go to work, to access education, health care and family, to participate in society and just to have fun. Transport is not an end in itself. It is supposed to be an enabler. But far too often it is disabling people. Around one in seven in the UK population have a disability. One respondent to our survey told us:

“There’s an assumption that disabled people’s time is less valuable—that it’s okay to make us wait for a rail worker to turn up with a ramp. I’ve been late to important meetings because of this, and it makes me feel like a second class citizen…I barely go to see my mum or friends at home because the transport is so bad for wheelchair users I don’t know how I’d do it. It’s affected my friendships, relationships and working life, and it's embarrassing. I just want to be able to use public transport like everyone else.”

In theory, we have laws to promote accessibility and equality, but they are clearly not working. There is a raft of equality legislation and specific regulations about transport that, if implemented consistently, ought to guarantee access and freedom from discrimination. From the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty to the minutiae of vehicle regulations, we have the framework. On policy, in 2018 the Government adopted an inclusive transport strategy that aimed to achieve:

“equal access for disabled people using the transport system, with assistance if physical infrastructure remains a barrier, by 2030”.

Ministers in the previous Government told the Committee they thought progress towards that goal was on track. The reality seems to be completely at odds with the rights and with policy aspirations.

Our report aims to set out why that is and what should be done about it. We set out examples of accessibility being deprioritised, often because it is seen as too impractical or costly to achieve it. Plans for implementing step-free access on the rail network, for example, have been beset by halting progress, and many of us are still awaiting an update on the Access for All step-free projects at our local stations. We argue that a certain level of failure seems to be deemed acceptable by transport providers, such as when providing Passenger Assist services. We describe how accessibility is not taken into account early enough in the process of policy development, such as when proposals to close railway ticket offices wholesale made it to consultation. The public said no, but they should not have had to. We discuss the vital role of sufficient staff who are well trained in how to support travel needs of people with different needs.

A change of mindset throughout the system, from the top down, is needed urgently. Failures should be vanishingly rare, not commonplace. Access to transport must be recognised as a human right, not as a matter of customer service. Concrete plans and real resources need to be put behind a new inclusive transport strategy, one that sets out a realistic pathway to achieving that goal of equal access.

The routine, everyday nature of access failures stood out in our inquiry, but it is punishingly hard to hold anyone to account for failures. Seeking redress, or even just reporting them to the responsible body, is a huge, exhausting and often thankless burden. In theory, individuals can take legal action under the Equality Act, but it is costly, risky and time-consuming, so few cases are brought. Even when cases are successful, lasting systemic change does not happen. More of the heavy lifting needs to be done by regulators and enforcement bodies. They currently often have neither the mandate nor the resources to involve themselves at a low enough threshold. Only long-standing, organisation-wide failures tend to be pursued, and only then when informal measures have been exhausted.

As a result, while individual disabled people often lose count of the number of occasions on which they have been failed, regulators can generally count on the fingers of one or two hands the number of formal enforcement actions that have been taken. We must bring that into balance. There have to be consequences for failure. That is why our report asks Ministers to move towards a more robust active enforcement regime. We invite Government to consider whether a single body, with expertise in and responsibility for accessibility across transport modes, would be a more effective model. We recommend a unified service to receive and triage accessibility complaints, to ensure they reach the relevant operator or authority, to follow them up if not resolved and ensure that systemic issues are identified.

We also ask for a review of the legal framework to replace the patchwork that has grown up ad hoc over time. Users find it difficult to know what they are entitled to, operators find it difficult to know what they have to provide, and changes in technology and travel trends leave gaps in the law. In our report we invite the Government to consider whether a framework based on more explicit standards would be more effective, and that the framework’s design and outcome must include disabled people at every stage.

To conclude, I thank not only our predecessor Committee for taking the evidence on which this report is based, and the Committee staff who worked so hard on the inquiry and the report, but, more important, those who gave evidence, especially about their own experiences of travelling as a disabled person and their expert analysis of what is going wrong. I particularly thank Claire Lindsey, and Alan Benson, a champion for disabled people’s rights on transport who sadly passed away last year. Alan and Claire took me through London at the start of the inquiry and opened my eyes to the issues that affect people with autism, and those with restricted mobility, when travelling.

The words of disabled people, quoted throughout our report, are a call to action that we expect the Government to heed. Our Committee will hold the Government to account for doing so, and for bringing reality in line with rights. I commend our report to the House, and we look forward to receiving a considered response from the Government in due course.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for the report, which is most welcome. I will read it with interest. She referenced the Access for All programme, which hit the buffers during the previous Parliament with fewer than half the promised projects coming to fruition. She said much about what went wrong. How confident is she that we can avoid such problems happening in future?

[Ruth Cadbury]

The report has 29 recommendations, but the last one is the most important: an overarching body with responsibility for standards enforcement across transport modes, which would replace the hotchpotch of laws, policies and processes that disabled people must navigate with a more effective approach to asserting the rights of disabled travellers.

[Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for such a brilliant report. I welcome the commitment to an accessible road map as part of Labour’s transformational Great British Railways reform. What positive role does my hon. Friend see this road map playing in improving accessible travel across the country?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I agree that the formation of Great British Railways provides an opportunity to bring together all the players in passenger rail, many of which have different standards, different policies and different training regimes. With a single commanding body, I think we have a real chance of bringing those processes together. However, that does not stop rail operators carrying out their responsibilities day to day. It is not just about policies, but about how it works every day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. We have several minutes only, so questions and answers must be short.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I compliment the Transport Committee and its Chair on this report, which, from what I have read so far, is absolutely excellent. I have two very short points for the hon. Lady. In London, ticket offices were closed by Transport for London some time ago. Does the report include anything about the possibility of reopening those ticket offices or having better information available for people, particularly those with sight or hearing difficulties, going to stations? Secondly, there are still a large number of underground stations with no lift access whatsoever. What evidence has she had that Transport for London will bring forward a programme to make all underground stations fully accessible for everyone?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Under our proposal, TfL would need to be part of that new process. Take the example of Vienna’s 100-year-old U-Bahn system, where there is a programme to make every station accessible within 30 years. London is bigger, and it is a bigger challenge, but it is not impossible.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Transport Committee member Laurence Turner.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose determination as Chair has meant that this important report from the previous Committee has seen the light of day. Does she agree that the reasonable adjustments framework under the Equality Act is the right one, and that the problem is the lack of implementation and awareness? If we had clearer statutory guidance, as exists in some areas, disabled passengers and other transport users would face fewer barriers.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank my hon. Friend for the support he gave me in drafting the final parts of the report. He is absolutely right. Disabled people and operators currently use a system that is a hotchpotch of sometimes conflicting and very complex bits of legislation, some of which was brought over from EU law and some from the Equality Act. When that is addressed, it will be much clearer to bring forward more specific regulations.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I thank the Committee Chair for bringing forward this report. Access to transport relates not just to disabled people, but to parents with pushchairs, people with luggage and so on—it benefits us all. I am often contacted by constituents about the condition of lifts at Sutton station. A focus on accessibility—with investment not only in improving step-free access, but in maintaining it—is an opportunity provided by the reforms to transport under Great British Railways. Does she agree that the Government should focus not only on the roll-out of additional step-free access, but on better maintenance and better programmes to ensure that the existing facilities remain accessible for as long as possible?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. In addition, thanks to digital technology, we now have real-time knowledge of when a lift is working or not.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Transport Committee member Alex Mayer.

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)]

Our report highlights that the understanding of disabilities has changed since many of the relevant laws and regulations were put in place. This issue is about not only ramps for wheelchairs, for example, but conditions such as neurodiversity. Does my hon. Friend agree that making transport more accessible for those with hidden disabilities is important, not least because, for economic growth, we must use the talents of all?

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, Claire opened my eyes to her needs, with things like having to find an access information point outside the station where she can summon Passenger Assist so that she does not have to go through the confusion, noise and crowds of a station, as well as the design of the walls in tube stations, which impact her ability to move through a station. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: hidden disabilities are as important as those we can see with a wheelchair or a white stick.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

Londoners often complain about their train service, but actually it is pretty good, with the overground, the underground and Network Rail. However, it is barred to many disabled travellers—taking an example at random, Kew Bridge and Gunnersbury stations, which serve my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Select Committee Chair, need step-free access. What can we do to change feasibility studies into actuality in such places?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for raising the issue of the two stations where both of our constituents need step-free access. I have not yet had an answer from the Rail Minister on the Access for All programme for those two stations, but I will keep chasing.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my colleagues on the Transport Committee for their work on this important report. I have been campaigning to make Atherstone station in my constituency more accessible, and I will be using this report to help achieve that goal. The previous Government recklessly overpromised on Access for All, misleading disabled passengers who have been left stranded for too long. Does my hon. Friend agree that disabled people have been let down over the past decade, and that this Government are right to tackle the situation now and improve services for the future?

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the criticisms of the existing Access for All programme is the expense of the projects that have been delivered. Having a road map of the station upgrades to provide certainty and consistency for contractors would speed up the delivery and reduce the cost of delivering lifts in the stations where they are so badly needed.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the Chair for this excellent report and for shining the light on such an important issue. I can think of numerous times when I have been on a bus and have had to be very curt with the driver to argue on behalf of a disabled person in a wheelchair who wants to use the space, after the driver has blatantly told them to wait for the next bus. That sort of thing is unacceptable. Does she agree that we need to look at the enforcement of the equality legislation as it stands and at better training and awareness so that disabled people in wheelchairs can use public transport?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who chairs of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. As I said, the culture change goes from the top to the frontline, and staff need both to be trained and to have the confidence that they will be supported if they do assert the rights of disabled people.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

As the parent of a wheelchair user with a severe sight impairment, I see many of the issues the report highlights on a daily basis. The report highlights the issues with aviation and the difficulties the Civil Aviation Authority has faced in enforcing regulations on behalf of wheelchair users and people with a severe sight impairment. Will my hon. Friend join me in asking the Government to fully consider the recommendations of the aviation accessibility task and finish group when it reports in the summer, along with the principles of my Aviation (Accessibility) Bill, to finally make changes for disabled people on airlines?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I was happy to be a co-sponsor of my hon. Friend’s Bill on aviation accessibility. I fear that one of our findings was that the CAA puts too much emphasis on what it calls “reputational enforcement”, rather than proper enforcement. The relevant Minister in the previous Parliament said that the CAA needs additional powers, and I hope this Government will support those words.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and her Committee for a fantastic report. Will she join me in congratulating disability rights activists such as my former constituent, Sam Jennings, who I know is thrilled by the report, which I hope my hon. Friend would be happy to hear? It is important that we congratulate these activists, who have been looking for a report like this for a long time. Sam certainly opened my eyes to a number of different issues. If the Government accept these recommendations, which they should, it will be due to their fantastic activism.

[Ruth Cadbury]

People such as Sam are amazing activists. As I have said, they were major contributors to our inquiry, but they also need to be major contributors to the solutions.

Royal Assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty has signified his Royal Assent to the following Act: Finance Act 2025.