Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-54)
1 DECEMBER 2004
CHARLOTTE ATKINS
MP AND MISS
ANN FRYE
OBE
Q40 Miss McIntosh: I have a barrow crossing
at Thirsk. It is manned between 10.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. It is
a low speed line, but there is a problem, Minister. The problem
is—I do not know if it is health and safety—that someone
has to ring ahead if you are disabled or if you are a passenger
with heavy luggage and ask the operating company members of staff
to come along and physically unlock the gate. Between 10.00 and
6.00 it is not a problem, but after six o'clock. Would you not
classify that as continuing on-going discrimination against disabled
people because many of them presumably will be travelling for
legitimate purposes, may be coming back from work or from holiday
after six o'clock?
Charlotte Atkins: What you are
saying is that it can be done but it has to be prior notice.
Q41 Miss McIntosh: It has to be prior
notice and, obviously, it is holding back a member of staff to
what is, after six o'clock, acceptably a less busy time. To be
fair, I think the train operating companies are being reasonable,
but obviously for disabled people and those with heavy luggage
it is causing a problem?
Charlotte Atkins: Clearly they
are being reasonable and I have to say that it is unfortunate
very often that disabled people do have to plan ahead. I know
that some people object to that, but in our research when we were
looking at people who hold the Disabled Persons' Rail Card they
were, in fact, saying that they did not see this as being a problem.
I am not talking, of course, about your barrow crossing, but in
general terms this issue of notifying the authorities 24 hours
before travelling. Of course, nowadays many of the train operating
companies have various concessionary travel arrangements, and
these often have to be claimed by booking in advance, so I think
increasingly a lot of us book in advance when we are on public
transport.
Q42 Miss McIntosh: It would appear there
is a certain, if you like, equality of approach between the railways
and airlines in that regard?
Charlotte Atkins: Absolutely.
Q43 Mr Donohoe: What is your department
doing in terms of what some describe as a blatant misuse of disabled
passes on cars, the parking of cars?
Charlotte Atkins: There are something
like 2.3 million users of the Blue Badge, I understand, and, needless
to say, there is some abuse. I do not know how extensive that
abuse is, but what I do know is it is a scheme which is highly
valued by the people who use it. We have had a few problems, I
know, with the display of the badge and there have been some unfortunate
situations where people have been fined, but that is why we have
a badge which is very clear which also can extend to other countries
as well under reciprocal arrangements. We do our best to ensure
that this is not abused.
Q44 Mr Donohoe: Can I to move on to something
else, the underground in terms of the Disability Discrimination
Act.
Charlotte Atkins: I am sorry,
about what?
Q45 Mr Donohoe: The underground, the
London Underground?
Charlotte Atkins: The underground,
as I think Scope probably indicated today, is not fully accessible.
Indeed, when I accompanied my own constituent down from Stoke-on-Trent
to Euston we had to use a taxi to get to the House of Commons
and to the Department of Transport; so it is not accessible, but,
of course, as with other train services, it will have to be accessible
in the future.
Q46 Mr Donohoe: Why do you not ring-fence
the monies that you are making as an advance to these companies?
Why do you not ring-fence disability and say that that is what
the money must be spent on? Why do you not do that?
Charlotte Atkins: Certainly when
we have new services like the Jubilee Line coming on stream, they
do have to be accessible. What we have got to do is strike a balance
between making everything accessible straightaway and the costs
of doing that. That is why we came up with the 2020 end date rather
than earlier dates, which many organisations, quite rightly, would
have preferred.
Q47 Chairman: What is happening, of course,
is that when the Government runs away from its leadership role
it is the courts that take these decisions, and they do not wait
until 2012: somebody brings a case to a court and a decision is
taken. For example, how do you justify your conclusion when you
say in the consultation paper, "Removal of Part 3 exemption
from providers of transport services will not present a significant
additional burden?"
Charlotte Atkins: I think because
most service providers have moved in that direction.
Q48 Chairman: But the cost to service
providers, just rail services, training in disability awareness—we
have just heard about this—recurring costs: £6.7 million
per annum, full staffing of unstaffed and partly staffed stations:
substantial. I could go on and on. Taxi and private hire, vehicle
hire, the one-off cost to the rail industry of providing full
staffing not quantified by you and the annual estimated cost of
£45-£135 million. Is that not significant?
Charlotte Atkins: Of course it
is significant, but it is a matter of whether it is reasonable
or not, and we think it is.
Q49 Chairman: You actually said—these
are your words from this covering letter, not mine—"They
will not present a significant additional burden." If I were
being unkind, which, of course, I never am, I would suggest that
one reason why we have this tremendously elongated timetable is
that you know these are very considerable burdens and you are
not either giving leadership of the sort that would force some
of these companies to respond nor seriously discussing with them
what it is going to cost?
Charlotte Atkins: The reason we
chose, for instance, the 2020 end date as opposed to 2017, was
because our information was that it would double the cost to go
for 2017.
Q50 Chairman: Double the cost?
Charlotte Atkins: Yes.
Q51 Chairman: So you have got very clear
assessments, but you did not think to make them public?
Miss Frye: I think we have made
those costs public. It is simply a question of looking at how
many trains would need to be scrapped before the normal end of
their working life, and those figures are available.
Q52 Chairman: I think, frankly, Minister,
if I may just ask you one final thing, this Bill has been awaited
for a very long time. It is going to bring with it very material
changes within the structure of government. What have you personally
as the Minister told your colleagues about the responsibilities
of a group of organisations like Roscos, who own the rolling-stock?
What have you said about their responsibility for making sure
that their vehicles are accessible, what have you said about your
views of how you can bring about the changes we are talking about
and what effort is the Government making to shorten this incredibly
long timetable?
Charlotte Atkins: We have obviously
come up with the end date, but that does not mean that we do not
do anything in between times. As you rightly pointed out, training
is a very important part, very often, because, as we get the new
rolling stock, as we get the new buses, we certainly have got
far more accessible vehicles. We have something like 3,800 accessible
rail vehicles and another 700 coming on in the next year or so;
so we are making progress in that sense, but we also want to make
sure that when those vehicles are being refurbished that they
are then—
Q53 Chairman: Do you say to the other
half of your Department, "We need to have some way of controlling
the level of provision of the bus companies both in proper staff
training and in accessible vehicles"?
Charlotte Atkins: Indeed I was
talking to representative from Cheshire County Council earlier
on today about those very issues.
Q54 Chairman: The one thing that is quite
interesting about Cheshire is that in this sense it is almost
unique. The work of Cheshire County Council, both in the provision
of buses and the provision of school buses, is way ahead of a
lot of other people. Can you assure us that you are going to say
to the bus companies, "Enough of your broken down old buses;
enough of the fact that you are still driving museum pieces. We
want properly trained staff, we want properly trained drivers",
which would be quite nice, "and we want some responses"?
Charlotte Atkins: The problem
that we get is that in London, of course, 90% of buses are accessible.
It will be 100% by next year. In some urban areas it is 80%. Overall
something like 38% of buses are accessible, but you and I, Mrs
Dunwoody, have the problem that we are living in counties like
Cheshire and Staffordshire where often we do not get the most
up to date buses. This is a real problem and it is a problem that
I am taking up with bus companies via the Bus Forum but also,
of course, just like you do, as a constituency MP.
Chairman: Thank you for coming. We will
have a long list of things to say to you in the future, and, with
any luck, I will be dead before the deadline is reached!
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