Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Bill

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Taxi drivers in Stroud sit outside my office, and they are always quick with a wave and a smile. I do not think they realise how much that makes my day.

Taxi drivers across the Stroud district are genuinely valued, needed and relied on by many people. We have to look at the many barriers that cause problems for them and their customers. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when councils think about closing roads and pedestrianising areas, they should think a little more carefully about the customers who need these taxi services? As we have heard, disabled passengers are prevented from travelling or are having to pay increased fares if councils do not think things through.

[Sally-Ann Hart]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. When councils are pedestrianising roads, creating shared spaces or whatever else, we should urge them to ensure measures and safeguards are put in place for taxis and private hire vehicles to access those pedestrianised places so that disabled people are not put at risk.

An inclusive transport network is part of the Government’s broader effort to close the 30% employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people of working age. The Government’s existing inclusive transport strategy highlights the inconsistent application of the Equality Act in the duty placed on taxi and PHV drivers, and the Government’s 2021 national disability strategy commits to introducing legislation to strengthen the law on the carriage of disabled people in taxis and private hire vehicles to ensure both protection from overcharging and the provision of appropriate assistance, regardless of the service they choose to use.

This national disability strategy includes a host of initiatives to provide improvements for disabled passengers, such as an accessibility audit for all railway stations, clearer audible and visual announcements on buses, the introduction of legislation for taxis and private hire vehicles, and £1 million to improve access to seaports. I understand the Government partnered with Scope to develop a charter for disabled passengers that will help boost confidence across our road and rail networks, and to produce a practical guide that pulls together disabled passengers’ rights so they understand how they can get from A to B with the dignity and ease they deserve.

Scope research indicates that passengers often encounter a vast number of documents concerning their rights, and these documents can be unclear. Working on this feedback, the charter will bring together existing information for passengers, focusing it into one coherent and easy-to-use format. Once the disabled passengers’ charter is complete, it will be published online to create an all-inclusive facility for passenger rights and complaints procedures. I presume it will include rights in relation to taxis and private hire vehicles.

Taxis and private hire vehicles, along with public transport, should be accessible for everyone, and the charter will help disabled passengers to better understand their rights and the standards they should expect across the network, and how to hold providers to account when their travel goes wrong.

Section 167 of the Equality Act provides only that local licensing authorities may “maintain a list” of wheelchair-accessible taxis and PHVs. However, only 70% of local licensing authorities have done so. This means that drivers in areas without a list have been able to continue discriminating against disabled passengers even if their vehicle is technically wheelchair accessible. To address this, the Bill will require local licensing authorities to maintain and publish such a list, and proposed new section 167A creates new offences where a private hire vehicle operator fails or refuses to accept a booking from a disabled person because of their disability, or where they charge extra for fulfilling any of the disability-related duties specified in the Equality Act.