Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-86)
1 DECEMBER 2004
MR WILLIAM
BEE, MR
NEIL BETTERIDGE,
PROFESSOR PETER
BARKER OBE, MRS
ANN BATES
AND MR
DAVID CONGDON
Q80 Mr Stringer: You have heard what
the Minister said about the voluntary approach to accessibility
in the aviation and ferry sectors. What is your response to the
Minister?
Mr Betteridge: Having set a time
frame and a process, having commissioned the research, one can
understand that there is a desire to see what the research tells
us. The point you raised about the clear anecdotal evidence of
regular difficulties experienced by disabled people in both aviation
and shipping is something which anecdotally DPTAC hears all the
time. There is a sense that we would not want to start from here.
These are issues which we would have hoped would have been addressed
at the latest when the Disability Discrimination Act was first
introduced in 1995. I think at this point, having waited this
long, all of us want to make the best possible decisions from
here. We did hear that the research was expected to be analysed
and hopefully acted upon next year, and DPTAC's position is, please
let that be as soon as possible next year, and as soon as we have
clear evidence, let us use it and act from there.
Mr Bee: The campaigners for the
Disability Discrimination Act from the late 1970s were reassured
that voluntary codes would suffice. Fifteen years later, in 1995,
the government was forced to legislate because there are always
rogue operators who will not follow voluntary codes. We believe
with regard to air and maritime services that the government is
simply repeating the same mistake, and that whilst they may have
to go through the formalities of completing this evaluation, we
are confident it will demonstrate that there will always be rogue
operators and that there is no alternative to effective legislation.
Q81 Mr Stringer: Has the situation got
a lot worse with the advent of low-cost aviation carriers? In
terms of priorities between aviation and shipping, is aviation
a bigger problem and therefore a greater priority?
Mr Betteridge: The no frills airlines
clearly provide opportunities for people who may not otherwise
have afforded to travel by air to do so. Disabled people as a
group are on the whole a low-income group, and in the context
of an ageing population too, more people with impairments and
mobility problems are travelling by air. It is understandable
that we are seeing some of those problems now writ large. There
are very clear points of tension between operators who want to
remove what they call frills and those support mechanisms that
disabled people need to be confident are in place in order for
them to make the journey. So as operators seek to work with lower
and lower costs to the public, I think some of the compromises
being made actually undermine disabled people's rights, and that
is probably truer in aviation than in shipping, but it would apply
in both sectors.
Q82 Mr Stringer: How much of a problem
is it that disabled people are not allowed to travel in groups
through the Channel Tunnel?
Mr Betteridge: I do not think
we have evidence, but we can certainly look into this and send
a note. The broader issue goes back to groups of disabled people
who may want to exercise what you would hope would be a civil
right to travel with whom they wanted when they wanted. We have
referred to groups of deaf people being denied access on certain
flights in the previous evidence session, and this touches on
the issue of spontaneity and freedom, but also raises issues of
wider government policies which may be in danger of being undermined
by these restrictions. So, for example, whether we look at promoting
independence in old age, sustainable communities and home zones,
and especially perhaps the welfare to work agenda, we need to
realise that if a disabled person is not free to travel when they
want without necessarily having to book, then the pressure on
disabled people to work if they possibly can is seriously undermined.
I imagine everybody in this room at some point for reasons related
to their work has had to make a journey they could not have planned
in advance, and yet the pressure on disabled people to work and
to be socially included is enormous. This is in danger of being
at best a difficult point of tension and at worst actually hypocrisy.
Q83 Chairman: Mr Congdon, I wanted to
come to you. By all means comment on that, but I was going to
ask you do you think there is enough being done to help make transport
accessible to people with learning disabilities?
Mr Congdon: Can I deal with a
follow-up to the other question, and then deal with accessibility
for people with learning disabilities? The point about bringing
planes and ships fully in is a very strong one. We had a case
that has been reported last year involving some students from
one of our colleges, 13 people with mild learning disability,
five carers with them, five helpers with them, got out of the
country OK, but could not get back easily, had difficulties coming
back from Geneva. Eventually it was resolved, but all those things
put barriers in your path. It is hard enough to organise these
trips anyway, without adding those sorts of uncertainty, and we
would strongly support . . .
Q84 Chairman: What was the principal
objection then, Mr Congdon?
Mr Congdon: They had a policy
that you had to have a higher ratio of carers, even though this
group of people did not really need much in the way of care.
Those sorts of misunderstandings and inconveniences can occur.
Bringing in compulsory powers would start to get rid of that,
and that, I think, is important. In terms of the accessibility
of people with a learning disability, I mentioned earlier things
like information and signage. I think perhaps the most important
thing over and above that is, frankly, the attitude of staff.
That boils down to good-quality disability awareness training
of staff. It is true to say that there has been retraining of
quite a few staff, although it is patchy, but one of the things
that tends to get missed out, inevitably, because it is a very
broad issue covering disability, is it tends to focus on the more
obvious issues of physical access and disability and does not
focus on not just learning disability but, I would say, all hidden
disabilities. In other words, if someone gets on a bus, in particular,
and they do not obviously have a disability, they are not in a
wheelchair or obviously blind or what-have-you, and they appear
to be a bit slow to deal with the money or whatever, and ask a
question the driver does not understand, they can be treated very
badly. They then become very frightened of using those buses and
start not to use them. Our message is we need to get very clearly
into the training packages for drivers a good understanding of
the needs of people with a learning disability and hidden disabilities,
but even more important than that is that you can do the training,
but if it is not embedded in the culture, if senior management
do not regard it as important and do all sorts of mystery shopping
to test out whether people are getting a bad deal or not, it will
not happen. The reason for doing it is it is good, quality customer
care. If you look after those customers with disabilities, learning
disabilities and other disabilities, then you are going to get
it right for other people. The message to the industry would be
embrace it, welcome it and you will do more business, whereas
at the moment it all appears to be a little bit grudging and low
priority. It has got to be a much, much higher priority.
Q85 Chairman: So you do not think the
training is of a very good standard. Is that right?
Mr Congdon: It is not broad enough.
To give you an example, I think it is fair to say, and I would
want to acknowledge this, the Department of Transport have produced
a very good DVD and video which is designed to get a stronger
message across to drivers, etc We have had some useful discussions
where we are saying actually, we need to add something to this
to focus a bit more on those hidden disabilities. Then you have
the practical logistics of getting it out to the staff, and we
think one way round it is to do more training of the trainers,
so that these things can be embraced. It is actually about instilling
in drivers an understanding and sensitivity of the needs of people
who may be a bit slower to understand—and it does not just
affect people with disabilities; it affects older people as well,
so it is good business sense for them to do so.
Q86 Chairman: Operators, of course, being
devil's advocate, would say they have a very high turnover of
staff. How would you help them with that?
Mr Congdon: That is absolutely
right, and I think that is why I come back to my point about embedding
it in the culture. Yes, training is important, but some of this
goes deeper than training. People can attend a training course,
do the tick box and say they have done the training course and
forget everything that they learned. You have to reinforce it
throughout the organisation so they treat the customer well to
start with, and if they get it right for the disabled people,
they will get it right for everybody else. If management take
it seriously, it will flow down into the whole of the organisation.
Chairman: On that very useful point,
I am going to say thank you to all of you and say how grateful
we are to you for coming. I hope we will not have to have an identical
session in another year and have the same conversation.
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