Draft Public Service Vehicles (Accessible Information) Regulations 2023

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 General Committees

[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.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank the Minister and the Department for this very important legislation. It is common-sense and compassionate, so it is much needed. I am interested to know about the Minister’s discussions with the industry. As it stands, about 46% of buses have audible and visible information on board. For the 54%, what is the likely timescale for getting this stuff implemented and in action? Will there be a review to make sure that we are holding people’s feet to the flames to get things happening?

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. There are three deadlines in place: any new buses coming online by October 2024 must have the required information, buses built between October 2014 and September 2019 must have it by 1 October 2025, and pre-2014 buses must have it by 1 October 2026. It will be done in stages, but they will be quite quick stages over the next three years.

As I said, on a recent bus journey in County Durham I saw operators starting to retrofit services in anticipation of the deadlines. We expect compliance to be ahead of schedule, but we have important measures in place that can go right the way through to traffic commissioners, who will decide whether people can operate bus services at all if there is non-compliance. Having spoken at length to the Secretary of State, I am hopeful that we will not see non-compliance, however, and I know that the Department is engaged at length on the issue. I do not want to see people losing licences; I want to see people getting on board as quickly as possible.

We remain committed to the simple but powerful idea, set out in the inclusive transport strategy, that disabled people should have the same access to transport as everyone else. The draft regulations will level up local services, particularly outside London, and will encourage more people back on to the buses and support disabled people to travel confidently and independently across the whole of Great Britain. They will also have knock-on consequences for the rest of the population. Hopefully, providing access to extra information at people’s fingertips will encourage more people back on to our bus network. I commend the regulations to the Committee.