|
UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 93-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE TRANSPORT COMMITTEE
DISABLED PEOPLE'S ACCESS TO TRANSPORT: FOLLOW UP
Wednesday 1 December 2004 CHARLOTTE ATKINS and MISS ANN FRYE OBE MR WILLIAM BEE, MR NEIL BETTERIDGE, PROFESSOR PETER BARKER OBE, MRS ANN BATES and MR DAVID CONGDON MR NEIL SCALES, MR MARK YEXLEY, MR TONY DEPLEDGE, MR DAVID MAPP and MR JOHN YUNNNIE Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 134
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Transport Committee on Wednesday 1 December 2004 Members present Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody, in the Chair Mr Jeffrey Donaldson Mr Brian H Donohoe Mrs Louise Ellman Ian Lucas Miss Anne McIntosh Mr John Randall Mr Graham Stringer ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Charlotte Atkins, a Member of the House, Under‑Secretary of State, and Miss Ann Frye OBE, Head of Mobility and Inclusion Unit, Department for Transport, examined.
Chairman: Good afternoon, Minister. Can I ask you before we begin if you would just give us a small indulgence, a little bit of housekeeping, members having an interest to declare? Mr Graham Stringer: I am a Member of Amicus and Director of the Centre for Local Economic Studies. Mr Donohoe: I am a Member of the Transport and General Workers Union. Mrs Ellman: I am a Member of the Transport and General Workers Union. Chairman: I am a Member of ASLEF. Ian Lucas: I am a Member of Amicus. Miss McIntosh: I have an industry and parliamentary trust placement with Network Rail. I did have an interest in Railtrack. I currently have interests in Eurotunnel and First Group. Q1 Chairman: Can I ask you firstly to identify yourself and your colleague for the record, and then perhaps you have something you would like to say to us before we begin. Charlotte Atkins: I certainly would, but let me put on the record first that I am Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Transport, and I would certainly like to make a few comments. Q2 Chairman: Your name is? Charlotte Atkins: Charlotte Atkins. Miss Frye: I am Ann Frye, Head of the Mobility and Inclusion Unit at the Department for Transport. Q3 Chairman: Minister, did you have something you wanted to say? Charlotte Atkins: Yes, please. First of all, I would like to make a short statement, but first, of course, Miss Dunwoody, I would like to say how pleased I am to be appearing before you in this Committee for the first time ever. I expect it to be a very challenging period, and I am sure I will not be disappointed because both your reputation and the reputation of your Committee goes before you. If I could make a few comments just to update on the memorandum, that would be very helpful. You have already seen our memorandum, so I am not going to take up time going over that material, but you will be aware that on 25 November the Government introduced the Disability Discrimination Bill in the House of Lords. The Bill includes several measures on transport, which we have outlined in the memorandum. Once enacted, these will make a significant contribution towards achieving our goal of a truly accessible transport system. In particular, the Bill will enable us to extend the Part 3 duties to cover the provision and use of transport vehicles. It provides a regulation making power rather than removing the exemption from the face of the DDA. We recognise that Parliament will want to know exactly how we propose to exercise it, and so on Monday we issued draft regulations for consultation. Those regulations would apply the Part 3 duties to the provision of public transport services, which includes rail vehicles, buses, coaches, taxis and private hire vehicles as well as to vehicle hire, breakdown services and vehicles used in the leisure and tourism transport services. We believe that these measures will have a big impact on the mobility of disabled people in their every day activities. The Bill also provides for a number of changes in relation to the accessibility regime of rail vehicles. First of all, it will enable the Government to set an end date in the regulations by which time all railway employees will have to comply with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations. It will also allow the regulations to be applied to rail vehicles which are being refurbished. On Monday this week I made a written statement to the House announcing our policy proposals on which the draft regulations will be based. I have indicated our intention to set an end date of 2020 for compliance with the regulations and to require access improvements in line with the regulations for those features of a vehicle which are the subject of refurbishment plans. The Bill also includes two measures on the Blue Badge parking scheme. The first would remove the stigmatising term "institution" which appears on the face of some badges, while the second would allow for regulations to be made to provide reciprocal arrangements for badges issued in other countries. We will seek to introduce these new provisions as soon as possible after the Royal Assent. I hope the Committee will agree that these transport provisions demonstrate that we are making some progress, but much remains to be done. Thank you very much. Q4 Chairman: We are grateful for that, Minister. We warmly welcome you, not only to your job, but also to the Committee. We have a long a reputation, as you suggest, with being gentle and understanding with ministers in your position, and one which I hope we shall continue. What would you say has been the most noticeable improvement since the Committee looked at the whole question of disabled people's access to public transport a year ago? Charlotte Atkins: I think there were a number of issues. To start off with, before you started it a year ago we obviously had to ensure that rail vehicles were accessible from 1999, but we have certainly had by section 37 of the Disability Discrimination Act the ability to carry guide dogs and assistant dogs in taxis and in other private hire vehicles as well free of charge, which I think is very important. On the taxi side we have been struggling with the design of taxis, and we have now come out with our conclusions in terms of accessible design for taxis. We do have a real problem, given that we have a producer in the UK, in Coventry, coming up with a design which is workable, and, although we obviously want to introduce regulations and will be doing so over a ten‑year period (2010 to 2020), clearly we need to find a solution which will, in fact, work. We have also been conducting two studies in relation to both shipping and to the air industry as well to see whether the voluntary code is working in terms of disability accessibility. Q5 Chairman: Those are all very laudable aims, which we all share, but we were really concerned with what has happened since this Committee looked at it 12 months ago, and the answer is not a great deal. Would you be surprised to know that a lot of our evidence on the part of, say, the rail industry, says it is all going terribly well, and then the next bit of evidence from the voluntary group says nothing has changed? Charlotte Atkins: I would not be surprised, because there have been some cases which have had a very high profile, including, indeed, one of our own members of Parliament who was forced to share the guards van rather than travel in the passenger part of the railway carriage because, obviously, she was using a wheelchair. I know that cannot be acceptable and I know that you will share my disappointment that the slam‑door trains are going to be continuing to be used until next year, whereas we had hoped, of course, that they would be withdrawn by the end of this year. Q6 Mr Randall: I think it was your first Question Time where this particular was raised. You may recall that just after that another of our colleagues, the Honourable Member for North Wiltshire, raised the question where somebody who had been using a powered scooter ‑ I think the name is Graham Coe ‑ for the last six or seven years and now has been told that he cannot use it. So in some respects it has not only not got better, it has got palpably worse for some users. Charlotte Atkins: What happened in that situation, and, of course, I promised Mr Gray that I would look into that issue and of course I did do so, was that the train operating company had left it, I think, to the discretion of the people on the station to decide whether a powered scooter could be carried on the train and had sought assistance, and so on, but what had happened was that because of the DDA they had to say whether they were willing to carry powered scooters from all stations. As a result of that - having to say a "yes" or a "no" - they then had to decree that they would, in fact, say that they could not carry powered scooters. Q7 Mr Randall: I have just contacted Mr Gray to see whether there was a resolution, because I remembered this particular case. He said that he had not heard from your Department, so perhaps you might want to check on that. There was also this question that the Department was supposed to be looking at kite‑marks and they had ceased to do so. What was the position there? Charlotte Atkins: To be honest, I am not sure about the situation with kite‑marks. I know we were certainly going to be looking at that, and I do not know whether Ann wants to raise the issue of the kite‑mark, but what I did want to raise with you is that the kite‑mark is all well and good if you are going to buy a new vehicle, but, certainly from my constituency experience, a lot of these powered vehicles are exchanged, bought and sold on the second‑hand market. May be Ann will take up the kite‑mark issue. Miss Frye: The first stage of what we have done is to work with the British Health Care Trades Association who represent the wheelchair manufacturers and suppliers, and we have produced a publication called Wheels within Wheels, which gives details of the large range of scooters and wheelchairs currently available in this country and which of them are compatible with use on public transport, because some of the scooters are simply too big ‑ they cannot be accommodated ‑ and we are very anxious that disabled people have that information before they purchase. That was the first stage. The next stage, which we have not given up but it is quite a long process, is to try to develop some kind of a labelling system. Whether it is technically a kite‑mark or some other form, I do not know, but we want to have new wheelchairs and scooters labelled as transport compatible so that if that label is not there you know you will probably have problems on public transport. The difficulty, as the Minister said, is the large number that get transferred through the second‑hand market and the very large number coming in from overseas. The number manufactured in this country is very small, so it is quite a challenge, but we are working with the industry to get that done. Q8 Mr Randall: What I am trying to get at is why a particular scooter was acceptable for six or seven years and now you say it is not able to be accommodated. What has changed? Is it the Health and Safety Regulations, or is it the carriages, or what is it, because it seems to have got worse for these individuals? If they have already invested in one of these things and it has been accepted, they are going to be very disappointed to suddenly find they are excluded from transport? Charlotte Atkins: As I understood it, it was left to the discretion of the people at the railway station and the train operating company - and it is always the train operating company that decides whether they can take scooters or not - then had to decree whether or not they were going to be taking scooters. Q9 Chairman: We are going to come back to the train operating companies, because unfortunately this is not their only problem. Will the creation of a single commission for equality in human rights, which is going to take in the Disability Rights Commission, reduce the amount of work that is done to promote disabled people's access to transport? Charlotte Atkins: I certainly hope not. I would have thought‑‑‑ Q10 Chairman: We would hope not, but that is not quite the question. Charlotte Atkins: Absolutely. I cannot tell you absolutely whether that is the case or not, to be absolutely honest, but I would certainly hope that, as we work through these issues and we recognise the whole range of challenges that we face, disability should be very much at the top of the priority list as far as the Commission is concerned. Q11 Chairman: The Government are quite clear in their own minds, because it has taken some time to do this. You will forgive me pointing is this out, Minister, but we are apparently in the run up to the next General Election and this has been a commitment for a very long time. It has taken a great deal of preparation to get us this far? Charlotte Atkins: I understand that, and I can understand your frustration in terms of the delays ‑ I share those frustrations absolutely ‑ but I think that we are now making some progress and a lot of things that are going on at the moment will help raise the profile of disability discrimination, which is very acute. Q12 Mrs Ellman: When consideration was being given to setting up the single commission was the Transport Department asked to submit any views on that in relation to its impact on disability? Charlotte Atkins: I do not know if that is the case. I certainly am not aware of it. I do not know whether anyone can help me. Miss Frye: We certainly did feed in at the time that the discussions were going on about the importance of continuing focus on disability, but, of course, we also have our own statutory Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, who are the Department's own statutory advisers on transport; so we have, if you like, that in‑house capability, but we did make the point of the importance of the single commission having that function. Q13 Mrs Ellman: Are you satisfied with the result? Do you think your views were considered? Miss Frye: It remains to be seen. At the moment we are looking at a structure without the substance on it. Q14 Mrs Ellman: What can the Government do to ensure more coordination in securing access for disabled people to trains and stations in a coordinated way? Charlotte Atkins: I know the SRA has an access fund. We are consulting the whole arrangements for that access fund: because I recognise that 60 per cent of stations are not accessible. Some of those will need very serious changes to make them accessible, and in that situation obviously alternative arrangements have to be made, but in some stations it is quite possible to make small changes, and hopefully this access fund will enable the SRA, or its successor body, to ensure that this fund is used most effectively in terms of accelerating the amount of accessibility we have at stations. Q15 Mrs Ellman: But that is about another body, and it is looking simply at stations. What can the Government do as the Government or the Department as a specific department in looking at coordinating accessibility to both trains and stations? Charlotte Atkins: Clearly, under the new Railways Bill, we are hoping, should Parliament allow us to do so, to take a much greater role in running the railways via Network Rail, and certainly it is a priority for the Department for Transport to ensure that accessibility and absence of discrimination is a priority for us, and, because we are also going to have fewer franchises, and so on, it means that we will have a much more hands‑on approach towards disability and other issues within the railway industry. Q16 Mrs Ellman: Is there anything specific in the Railways Bill or elsewhere that means the Government can influence what is in those franchises so that there is a coordinated approach to accessibility for trains and stations together everywhere? Will the Government take that role in determining what should be in the franchise? Charlotte Atkins: Certainly accessibility is an important part of the rules we lay down, whether it be in local transport plans or whether it be in franchises, to ensure that accessibility is a part of our overall structure? Q17 Chairman: Forgive me, I know this seems almost impossible in this day and age, but there are stations in this country where nobody can even get a lift to get from one platform to another. You do not have to be disabled; you just have to have a big case to discover that you cannot get from one platform to the other without staggering up three or four flights of stairs. Over a period of seven years what can you demonstrate to us the Minister has done, the Department has done, to insist on ATOC looking at all of its member companies and asking them what they are doing about straightforward access? Charlotte Atkins: Certainly the stations are now included within the access regulations, but clearly it is an issue of, as you know, reasonableness and the balance between accessibility and affordability, I suppose, in terms of railway stations. Q18 Chairman: This is so fundamental. There is no point giving access if you have no trained staff so that when people arrive there is no‑one to help them; there is no point in giving access to a station where there are no trains. Is there now a very urgent view in the Department that we cannot really wait any longer, we have to have this kind of straightforward decision‑making pushed to the front of the queue? Charlotte Atkins: You are absolutely right, and, now that we are taking greater control of the railway industry, that will help us. We have been struggling, as you know, to bring the railway industry under control, under cost control as well as under control in terms of ensuring that the franchises do not fragment the railway industry as it has over the last few years. We are struggling with that. We are putting a huge amount of investment into the railway industry. Part of that investment must be to ensure greater access. Q19 Chairman: What was the answer to the question Mrs Ellman asked you? Charlotte Atkins: She asked me what we could be doing. Chairman: Exactly, as a department. Q20 Mrs Ellman: As a department, not what somebody else might do? Charlotte Atkins: No; absolutely right. Q21 Mrs Ellman: What are you going to do as a department? Charlotte Atkins: We are bringing the railway industry under greater departmental control, and part of that process is to ensure that our railway stations are more accessible, not just accessible but pleasanter places to be for everybody. Q22 Mrs Ellman: Would you make it a requirement for all franchises to provide trains which are accessible to disabled people? Charlotte Atkins: They will all be accessible to disabled people by the end date of 2020. That is certainly the case. What we are also saying is that when trains are refurbished that those items which are refurbished will have to be accessible as well. Q23 Mr Stringer: I think I am right, Minister, in hearing you say that you were consulting on whether voluntary codes should still apply to aviation and shipping. Why do we need a consultation when we had Mr McNulty here 12 months ago when we heard evidence that blind people were not being allowed on ferries and we have evidence before us today that deaf people are not being allowed on Iberian Airlines and EasyJet? Why do we need a consultation? Why do not we just stop this discrimination happening? Charlotte Atkins: At the moment we have the voluntary code. We have been reviewing that in terms of whether we need to bring it under the DDA, and that is the process which we are undertaking at the moment. Certainly the changes to the DDA mean that we can now remove that voluntary code an introduce compulsion. We can do that now that we have got the Disability Discrimination Bill about to go through Parliament. We have got that option. Miss Frye: I wonder if I might add to that. The voluntary code of practice which applies currently is for the UK industry. So Iberia, for example, would be outside that code. We are however, working--- Q24 Chairman: They fly in here. Charlotte Atkins: They fly in here. Q25 Chairman: Do we not have an impact on people who fly in here in terms of health and safety? Charlotte Atkins: I think health and safety possibly, but the issue we have discovered that caused the problem with Iberia is down to something called JAR-OPS, which is the operational manual by which pilots operate, which currently places a limit on the number of people with reduced mobility. Clearly that should never have been applied to deaf people. We have taken this up because it is an international manual. We are taking it up to try to get it amended. The captain consulted his operational manual and did what he thought was right, so the fault, I think, is in the international code that is behind it. We needed both aviation and shipping to be working at international level as well as at domestic level if we are really going to make a difference, and that is what we are doing. Q26 Mr Stringer: That is very helpful. Minister, you said that we will have the power. Do you intend to use it to stop this discrimination? Is it your objective? Charlotte Atkins: We are doing research to see how significant the problem is. If the voluntary code is not seen to be working, then we will use compulsion, yes. Q27 Mr Stringer: But I go back to the original point I made. The voluntary code is not dealing with EasyJet, it is not dealing with one ferry company who are not allowing disabled people on to their ferries, so are we going to carry on the voluntary code or are you going to do something about it? Charlotte Atkins: Now that we have lifted the exemption, or now that we are about to lift the exemption for transport services - certainly it has been the case whereby you could have, say, a bus which is accessible and the driver might refuse access to someone who had a disability - that will change, and we hope that both aviation and shipping will also comply with that. If we feel that the voluntary code which is presently operating is not sufficient, then we will take action. Q28 Mr Stringer: But it is not sufficient, is it? There is discrimination happening on a daily basis. Do you not think it would be helpful if you frightened some of these companies that are discriminating against disabled people? Charlotte Atkins: This is why we are doing the research work at the moment. I do not know when that research work is likely to be completed. I am told in the course of next year. When we have seen that research work, if we feel that is the case ‑ you say it is happening on a daily basis ‑ if it is happening on a daily basis, we will certainly take action, but I think we should wait for the research work first. Q29 Mr Stringer: I do not know if it is happening on a daily basis; I assume it is. We had evidence before this Committee, and it was visited with your predecessor, and nothing is being done. The evidence is there, and I would have thought that the Government should be setting out its stall to stop these companies doing this? Charlotte Atkins: We will certainly be doing this. We will wait for the research and, as soon as we have that, we will act on it. We have certainly made it clear that it is inappropriate to discriminate in any way against people with disability. Q30 Mr Stringer: Can I go back to Mrs Frye. It was a very interesting answer you gave on Iberian Airlines. What is the situation with EasyJet? Miss Frye: I do not know the background entirely, but I think again the same international manual that pilots operate by may have had an impact there. I think the other issue in those cases is that this was a large group of people, and certainly in the case of Iberia they had not notified of their intention to fly. The European code does ask that disabled people travelling in groups notify that they intend to do so. While it is not an excuse, the problem was the exacerbated by the fact that they turned up on board and nobody knew that they were coming in that sort of number. It is not a fundamental problem in law; it is a problem of practice and perception that we need to deal with here. Q31 Mr Stringer: That is not quite what the evidence from the Disability Rights Commission says. It says that the reason was that the disabled people, the deaf people, could not hear the safety instructions; nothing to do with numbers? Miss Frye: I think there have been a lot of differing press reports and misunderstandings on it. Our information is that it was the operational manual that caused the problem, but, as I say, the fact is that it is an issue that we can deal with best at European level by giving clear guidance to airlines on the different disability issues. Clearly a group of deaf people should be no more at risk than people who do not speak the native language that is used on the aircraft. Q32 Mr Stringer: Precisely. Minister, do you believe that exaggerated health and safety considerations or excessive fears about liability sometimes prevent the implementation of sensible measures which would improve accessibility? Charlotte Atkins: I think that is absolutely right. I am told that there are such things called barrow crossings ‑ I believe there are something like 180 in the country ‑ which have been used in some areas quite successfully to allow people with a disability, wheelchair users, to cross the line. Clearly in a high speed train situation it would be not a very sensible policy, but, where you have a low speed line and visibility is fine, it seems to me that there should be no problem. I think health and safety on occasions can give the impression that that is foremost rather than the need to make all transport accessible. Q33 Mr Stringer: This Committee has found evidence that the Health and Safety Executive gold plate a lot of their requirements, and I think you are agreeing with this. In those situations where you believe the Health and Safety Executive are making it more difficult for disabled people to access transport in a balanced way, what are you going to do about it? Charlotte Atkins: All we can do is to look at the individual instances and obviously rule on those or encourage whoever the operator is to ensure that a sensible approach is taken: because certainly health and safety, whether it be youngsters in school or whether it be dealing with disability, should be taken as part of the overall assessment of the situation. Q34 Mr Stringer: How will you approach operators to do that? Take a real example in my briefing notes, the grab handles that can help people who have difficulty in walking are being recommended to be removed because people train surf on them. What will you say to train operating companies about that situation? Charlotte Atkins: It would largely be an issue for the train operating companies to make that decision, but clearly it seems to me that by placing those handles in such a way that they could not be grabbed from the outside in that way, if someone is getting off a train, for instance, grab handles could be located in a place where they could be used by people who need them for their disability but not by people who are going to be surfing on the back of a train. Q35 Mr Stringer: They have to get on the train first? Charlotte Atkins: I appreciate that, but there has to be a sensible approach. I do not know whether you want to add anything? Miss Frye: There are technical ways of looking at how we position handles - whether they can appear as the doors open, and so on - that enable disabled people to gain access without leaving the temptation behind for youngsters to surf afterwards. We are looking at technical ways of dealing with the positioning of the handles. Q36 Mr Stringer: When could you expect to have a solution to this problem? Miss Frye: It is a continuing exercise. You are right, we need to make sure that we are not making it worse for disabled people, so we just have to try different solutions, but we are working with the rail industry and with researchers to try and improve on the design features which are there and make sure that we do not have unintended consequences such as that one. Q37 Miss McIntosh: Minister, you did actually say that you are about to lift the exemption for transport services. Why have the Department not lifted the exemption before now? Charlotte Atkins: The exemption was there. We have now got the vehicle of the Disability Discrimination Bill by which we can do that. Q38 Miss McIntosh: You will be aware of the fact that Leonard Cheshire have expressed their disappointment that you have not decided as yet to remove the blanket exclusion for transport providers. I think they feel that the situation would have been helped if you had lifted the exemption earlier. Charlotte Atkins: We did need a vehicle like the legislation to do that. If we could have done it by regulation, I am sure we would have done it, but we did need primary legislation to do that. That is the problem. Q39 Miss McIntosh: We have been there for seven years? Charlotte Atkins: This is true. 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 the disabled because many of these people presumably will be travelling for legitimate purposes, may be coming back from work or from holiday day 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 Disability Discrimination Rail Card 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, quality 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 to be somewhat earlier. 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 per cent of buses are accessible. It will be 100 per cent by next year. In some urban areas it is 80 per cent. Overall something like 38 per cent 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! Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr William Bee, Director for Wales, Disability Rights Commission; Mr Neil Betteridge, Chairman, Professor Peter Barker OBE, Chair of Built Environment Group, and Mrs Ann Bates, Chair of Rail Working Group, Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee; and Mr David Congdon, Head of External Relations, Mencap, examined. Q55 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. May I ask you first, from my left, your right, to identify yourself for the record? Mr Congdon: David Congdon, Head of External Relations at Mencap. Professor Barker: Peter Barker, member of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. Mr Betteridge: Neil Betteridge, Chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. Mrs Bates: Ann Bates, Rail Chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. Mr Bee: Will Bee, Wales Director for the Disability Rights Commission. Q56 Chairman: Am I to take it that you are prepared to go straight to questions, or did any of you have anything you wanted to say? Let us start off by asking you if there has been any noticeable improvement in access to public transport since we looked at this issue a year ago? Mr Betteridge: There have certainly been some modest improvements. I think many disabled people and others are still frustrated at the painfully slow pace of change in many areas. If we were to highlight a couple of the areas where we have seen progression, the accessibility of buses for mobility impaired people, for example, is something where we have seen a slow and steady increase of something like a four per cent rise from 14 per cent to 18 per cent of accessible buses for people who use wheelchairs and have other mobility issues; that is leaving aside sensory impaired people who have seen no progress on issues such as audio visual information. We heard earlier from the Minister about modifications through primary legislation to the Blue Badge Scheme, and that has been very welcome. There are many other improvements to the Blue Badge Scheme which do not require primary legislation and on which we still require political will to see those go forward; so that is another area of frustration. We still operate in a system whereby significant areas for disabled people, like the use of taxis, are still on the whole unregulated, but in some currents we are seeing developments, so it is a mixed picture. Q57 Mrs Ellman: What are your views on the problem of lack of coordination of access to trains and stations? How do you see that problem and what do you think should be done to improve the situation? Mr Betteridge: I will ask my colleague, Ann Bates, to answer that. Mrs Bates: I think we need to make sure that it is really important that a journey is seamless for disabled people. I think there is no point being able to get on the station at one end and not being able to get off at the other. Personally, I am not a fan of, but I would see the reasoning behind, booking ahead. I think we need to look at it from a different point of view and I am encouraging train operating companies to make their booking lines into 0800 numbers so it encourages people to book ahead. So rather than just wring their hands about the people who turn up, they should be making active encouragement for people to book ahead; then they can make robust plans about what would happen to people at stations and on trains. I believe that in my lifetime not every station will be accessible, but I think they need, again, robust plans to transport people who find difficulty at stations too. Personally, I do not want to get on at an unstaffed station; I would much prefer to be taken to my nearest staff station that has refreshments, a toilet and staff, and go on my way from there, but it should not be at my cost, it should be at the train operating companies' cost to take me there. Q58 Mrs Ellman: How big a problem is this? You mentioned the difficulties of disabled people to get on a train at one station but not being able to get off on arrival, or not being able to move around the station. Is this a very regular problem? Mrs Bates: Yes. Habitually there has been a lack of information about each station. I think Railtrack and Network Rail have not had a terribly good grasp of what facilities there are. A start was made on this with the Disabled Persons Protection Policies, where train operating companies looked at all the stations that they ran and looked for step-free access at those stations. I think it is important that we get a proper database about what stations have what facilities, and then we can work from there. At the moment, although valiant work has been done and John Yunnie at ATOC has produced a step-free map, I think there is still a lot of work to be done about the details of what facilities there are at each station. Q59 Mrs Ellman: You are saying that there needs to be more work on providing accessible information? Mrs Bates: Very much so. The booking service, although I use it, I think is far from robust as well. I also work for the Rail Passenger Committee, and we have figures that suggest that for at least 60 per cent of journeys the booking fail. We are looking to get the booking system vastly improved so that people can have confidence, because at the moment, especially for wheelchairs users, there are new trains running around with wheelchair spaces but not enough wheelchair users confident enough to use them. Q60 Mrs Ellman: What are the general views on the requirement to book ahead? Is it a general view? You seem to be suggesting that booking ahead is acceptable and that it does not always work effectively? Mrs Bates: No, I would prefer not to book ahead at all. I do not see why we should book ahead at all, but I am a pragmatist and in the real world out there I would like to have some assurance that when I get on a train I stand just some chance of getting off it. I need a ramp to get off a train, so even an RBAR compliant train still not accessible to me without a ramp; so I need to book the man with the ramp at the other end, because I have overshot stations on numerous occasions. Q61 Mrs Ellman: Are you saying that in practical terms the requirement to book ahead is acceptable in current circumstances but ideally it would be better if everything worked? Mrs Bates: Exactly. I think that train companies would learn more if people booked ahead. They would have a ready pool of people who they could call on for advice about things like that. Ideally I would like it not to be so, but in the current climate I believe it is best to book ahead. Q62 Mrs Ellman: Are staff generally sufficiently well trained to assist people with disabilities? Mrs Bates: It is very patchy. There are pockets of good practice within the rail industry and there are very poor train operating companies. Q63 Mrs Ellman: Do you have any views on buses? Professor Barker: May I start with trains. Clearly making railway stations wheelchair accessible is going to be expensive, but there are opportunities lost on a day to day basis through ordinary maintenance spending and minor improvements to make some improvements in access. For example, when hand‑rails on stairs are improved, they should be upgraded to better designs; when seating is replaced it should be replaced with seating that people can actually use; when stations are repainted they should be repainted in colours that make it clearer for people and the lighting can be upgraded. These are relatively minor expenses. When we get to signage and public information systems, it is well‑known, if only people attempted to look at it, that the new plasma screen systems are not effective - they are not visible - and yet we see them continuing to be used. In the case of painted signs, many of them do not conform with standard guidance that is available. The conclusion I reach is that the maintenance of stations and the management of stations is just not being done terribly well, and money is being wasted and opportunities lost. When we get to buses, the word "accessibility" is a big problem. We hear that by 2017 buses will be accessible. That is not true. Buses will be wheelchair accessible, and that is a wonderful achievement, but that leaves outside two million people with a serious sight problem, two million hearing aid users, and I do not know how many hundred thousands of people with learning difficulties that do not like to use buses because they feel unsafe and they cannot use them independently because, although they may be able to get on a bus, they do not know where to get off; there is no information system that tells them where to get off the bus. There is an overwhelming case for an on‑board audio-visual system on buses. There is very little credible evidence that other passengers, able‑bodied passengers, put it that way, do not like the system. The technology is available. It works. It would seem that there is no ministerial objection, because Tony McNulty is on record a couple of years ago saying that he was encouraging the Department to move towards introducing an amendment to the regulations. DIPTAC encouraged the Department. Q64 Chairman: Mr Barker, we will have to ask for a little discipline. Forgive me; we have got lots of people wanting get in now. On the same thing, Mr Betteridge, because I would rather move on to something else. Mr Betteridge: Can I say one sentence, if I may. On training in the bus industry DIPTAC has a system with the Department for Transport over the last 12 months to produce a DVD or video on best practice in terms of conduct with disabled passengers. So that is good. That will form part of the NVQ, which will be a necessary part of bus drivers' training the future, but the problem is going to be about enforcement: how on earth do we enforce this. For disabled people whose impairment is invisible to bus drivers I suspect there will be problems for a long time to come. Q65 Chairman: Very quickly, Mr Congdon on training? Mr Congdon: Can I just deal with the accessibility point, which is really what I wanted to come in on? Usually accessibility is spoken of in terms of physical access to stations and trains, and that is very understandable. Mr Barker, quite rightly, extended that to the issue of people with a learning disability who have a particular issue around information and signage being very clear to them so they can find their way round the system; but the issue about audio-visual equipment goes to the heart of it. We understand that there are issues at the moment about the technical side of audio visual equipment on buses. Whether that is right or whether that is wrong, in a sense, is almost irrelevant, because it is a problem. Why can we not get to a situation where drivers on public transport give out announcements to passengers. Q66 Chairman: It might not always lead to clarity! Mr Congdon: It could be the wrong place, I know, but in terms of giving information to people, it is very important that they have that information. It is not just for people with a learning disability, it is loads and loads of passengers, and it would be beneficial to the operators because more people would feel confident in using that transport. I wanted to make that as an important point around the issue of accessibility. Q67 Miss McIntosh: Mr Betteridge, you said that there was a lack of political will. I wonder if you could clarify that. Would you also accept there is a certain degree of lack of clarity still and ambiguity as to which operator is responsible for what? Mr Betteridge: Which mode? Q68 Miss McIntosh: Railways, mostly. Mr Betteridge: I will pass over to one of my colleagues who is a rail expert in a moment. My point initially on lack of political will was about some of the changes we still need to see round the Blue Badge scheme. Ms Bates: Yes, there is a lack of co-ordination. I think ATOC will say that they are a consultative group but, especially around things like staff training, there should be a consistency, because passengers do not see the difference between one train operating company and another. Mr Bee: I think that - and it is something I need to relate to previous points - the whole issue of planning for access for disabled people within the rail industry runs far behind the whole of the rest of British industry. The Disability Rights Commission spent much time talking to retailers, public bodies, and local councils about their duties which came into effect on 1 October this year, and every one of them had strategies in place. The Strategic Rail Authority publishing its strategy next year for duties that came into effect on 1 October 2004 to me shows an unacceptable level of planning and co-ordination. Q69 Miss McIntosh: I am in a very privileged position because I am spending time with Network Rail and they do a monthly update. One last question to DPTAC. You say in your memorandum that private cars will remain vital for some disabled people to travel, and you mention also that the congestion charge is working fairly effectively. If the congestion charge does go up to £8, will that have a serious impact on you, and if it is introduced into areas other than London, or if it is extended in London, do you have a view on how that will impact your members? Mr Betteridge: The congestion charge in London has, as you say, worked fairly effectively from the point of view of disabled people, largely because the exemption system has worked quite well for most people. People who have a Blue Badge or other forms of disability identity can use the system reasonably effectively, so that should not impact too adversely, and we would want to see the same sort of robustness about exemptions in other cities, if developed. Q70 Mr Donaldson: Are you concerned that the proposal by the Government in the Queen's Speech for a new Equality and Human Rights Commission will reduce the Disability Rights Commission's ability to promote disabled access to transport? Mr Bee: It will, in that we will be abolished. The legislation will abolish the Disability Rights Commission. We have argued strongly, and I think to a large degree so far successfully, that the timing for disabled people of this change is critical. The Government have indicated they expect to remove the exemption from the transport industry at the end of 2006. The indications are that the Commission for Equality and Human Rights will come into effect early in 2007. Our ability to inform disabled people of those changes and to help industry prepare for them is bound to be hampered by that timing. We have been reassured to some extent by the commitment to establish a Disability Committee which will have a majority of disabled members, and there will be a disabled commissioner. We still seek reassurances about the structure and powers of that committee, in particular with regard to some of the transport provisions under part 3 and under part 5 of the Disability Discrimination Act, and we seek reassurances that the committee will have resources available to it to carry out its functions, and it will not be simply a talking shop. Without staff support, it will not be an effective advocate for disabled people to ensure that the new duties under the Disability Discrimination Act are implemented effectively. Q71 Mr Donaldson: Has the introduction of the final duties under part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act in October improved disabled people's access to transport, in your opinion? Mr Bee: I think, as I stated earlier, we have seen less sign of planning and preparation for those duties particularly in the rail industry than in almost any other major service provider. It was why we supported the Roads case against Central Trains and why we are looking for other cases which will highlight the lack of planning. The process of the Court of Appeal hearing emphasized that Central Trains did not strengthen their position by their failure to complete their DPPP, their disabled persons protection policy, by the timetable set, and that this meant they had no basis for raising issues of cost as a defence to the action which we brought. This is a warning to all the train operating companies that they must be taking effective steps to plan how they intend to improve access to disabled people for their facilities. Q72 Mr Donaldson: Is there any specific evidence of practical improvements to back up the assertion in the Government's response to this Committee's report that, as a result of part 3 coming into force, inclusive design is being mainstreamed? Mr Bee: We are not in a position to survey every piece of work that goes on across the rail network. What seems to be drawn to our attention are, as Peter Barker was saying, opportunities that are missed for effective co-ordination, when normal refurbishment is taking place, to enhance access for disabled people. We have been reiterating the message endlessly to other providers that if you integrate access improvements to your normal cycle of refurbishment, you reduce the costs significantly. If you run around like headless chickens, trying to do it in September 2004, you increase your costs substantially. I fear the railway industry has not even got into headless chicken mode. Chairman: Some of us might even dispute that. Q73 Mr Randall: Can I ask you about some things that have been raised with us, in particular with regard to buses. Have you done any work on hail-and-ride, on request stops, and also on, as we have here in London, the ticket machines by the bus stops, particularly the latter might be in relation to those with learning disabilities, but with regard to disabled access to those things, whether request stops might have to be taken out, hail-and-ride, that sort of thing? Mr Betteridge: There is a particular set of issues around hail-and-ride. For a disabled person to have access to a bus, it is not a question of simply getting the design of the bus right. The built environment has to be right too. There is an argument that says if the bus cannot pull up alongside the kerb and provide level entry, even with a kneeling bus, then perhaps potentially that operator is falling foul of the Disability Discrimination Act. One would imagine that therefore hail-and-ride is a concept which could and indeed should be maintained because it suits many people in areas where it is difficult to actually put an accessible bus stop in place, but one also has to take account of the needs of visually impaired people, who will also need regular fixed bus stops in order to know where to begin and alight. That is something where we need a mixed economy of solutions. On the whole, it is not something that operators should be too fearful of because in that context, it would be entirely reasonable to have both hail-and-ride facility and fixed bus stops on the same route. Q74 Mr Randall: Is there a danger that over-zealous operators might withdraw services like hail-and-ride, using the Disability Discrimination Act as a shield perhaps? Mr Betteridge: There is that danger. It depends if they are trying to get it right but are misguided or actually want to withdraw the service. The key concept, as we know, in the legislation is reasonableness. As I said in my previous answer, it would be entirely reasonable to continue to include a hail-and-ride facility. Q75 Mr Randall: We have been talking about all forms of transport. Of course, walking is a very important mode of transport. Do you think enough is being done there to make sure that we do not forget the pedestrian environment with regard to people with disabilities? Mr Barker: I think there is some evidence that we have forgotten the interests of pedestrians. There are some improvements. Some of the crossing systems we have now, the bleepers and the rotating cones are a significant improvement, but there are not enough of them. We are worried that in the future the local authorities will not get strong enough direction from the Disability Bill to ensure that they are working very seriously to improve the street environment. The guidance, for example, on local transport plans I do not think is strong enough. The other issue which is of concern is the encouragement of cycling, which is very commendable but there has a been a significant increase in illegal cycling on the footway, and there is evidence both from the Cycle Touring Club and other organisations that that is deterring pedestrians from walking in certain areas, and certainly the more responsible cyclists are concerned about the situation. We need proper facilities for cyclists to prevent them getting entangled with pedestrians. Q76 Ian Lucas: You mentioned the Roads case earlier on. How much does a case like that cost the Disability Rights Commission? Mr Bee: That was the very first case under part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act to reach the Court of Appeal, and that and the Ryanair case, which is in the Court of Appeal at the moment, are the only two. They have both required our support. The Roads case at county court cost us approximately £12,000, the appeal rising to £25,000, although having been successful, we are obviously hoping to recover those costs. Had we been unsuccessful, paying the costs of Central Trains would have been significant. Q77 Ian Lucas: You are looking at doubling those figures essentially. Without going into the particular cases, Mr Betteridge mentioned the issue of reasonableness, which is at the heart of all of these cases. Does that really boil down to cost as far as your opponents, if I can call them that, are concerned? Mr Bee: In the Roads case, cost was not at issue, and I will turn to that if I may briefly afterwards. The debate was what constituted a reasonable alternative means of access. Central Trains offered to stay on the train from Thetford to Ely, where you would be demounted from the train, you could then use a lift to cross the line and return to Thetford, a journey lasting approximately an hour, for which Central Trains would not charge you. We argued that the provision of a taxi was closer to the sort of service a non-disabled person would have received in being able to use the footbridge and cross the track, and the Court of Appeal, whilst acknowledging that there were some particular circumstances around this case, supported our argument that the reasonable adjustment should as closely as possible follow or allow the disabled person to receive the same sort of service. We are certainly reassured. The prospect of lots of disabled people having to stay on trains and travel many miles further than they intend to in order to return to the right side of the station is not an attractive option, and we are pleased the Court of Appeal did not support that. The feature with regard to this case which meant the cost was not an issue was that Central Trains had not at the time we originated the case, or Roads did, completed their disabled persons protection policy, and did not have a strategy in place which could have said "We want to spend our money in particular ways to improve services for disabled people" and therefore they could not raise costs as a factor, or we would have challenged them in so doing, and they therefore decided not to make that an issue in this case, which means that some of our ability to extrapolate from it into other circumstances is limited by those unique features. Q78 Ian Lucas: How long did these cases take to come to court? I suppose they are continuing. Mr Bee: The Roads case was in process for approximately two years. Ryanair has been in the judicial system even longer. Q79 Ian Lucas: Have you ever considered whether there may be some other way, some less cumbersome, quicker way of resolving this type of issue, some sort of arbitration system between the Disability Rights Commission and the operators? Mr Bee: The Disability Rights Act gives us the power to set up an independent conciliation service. We have done so. It is operated for us by Mediation UK. It has provision to deal with about 250 cases a year. It is not quite reaching that number as yet because both parties have to agree to that process, but equally, it is important sometimes to get into the courts, particularly the higher courts, to get clear interpretations of the law, and that is why we have supported both the Roads and Ryanair cases. 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, thirteen 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. Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Neil Scales, Chief Executive and Director General, Merseytravel; Mr Mark Yexley, Managing Director, London Bus, and Mr Tony Depledge, Development Director, UK Bus, Arriva; Mr David Mapp, Commercial Director, and Mr John Yunnie, Head of Disability and Inclusion, Association of Train Operating Companies, examined.
Chairman: I am grateful to you all for coming this afternoon. Did any of you want to make an opening statement? Mr Depledge: A short one. As members of the Committee will know, Arriva is one of Europe's major transport companies and of course, we are very happy to help the Committee with their inquiries. My colleague, Mark Yexley, will be able to deal with any operational issues that come up, because we do hope we can make a constructive contribution to the Committee's work. We do have a commitment to delivering better service, and we have listened very carefully to some of the earlier comments made today, because one of our central corporate commitments is not only through our own efforts but by working in partnership with other authorities - and I am very pleased that Merseytravel is here today - and community partners such as the RNIB and Age Concern and Changing Faces, we are able to make improvements not only by investment in buses, which is, of course, only part of the story, £200 million in the last five years, but working with other organisations, because we believe we always have something to learn from our partners. If I may be allowed to make a very short point about staff training, training and development is something we do put a lot of emphasis on. Our drivers have specific training in disability awareness, and we are about to issue a new guidance note to drivers early next year, as part of our regular work with the Transport & General Workers Union. We are having a workshop for senior shop stewards on the subject of learning, where we aim to widen knowledge from a basic skills base to cover topics such as both disability and diversity, creating, we hope, a positive attitude to valuing and welcoming diversity and difference amongst our employees and customers. Q87 Chairman: That is helpful, Mr Depledge. I should say a particular thank you to you, because some of your colleagues in the bus industry are not too anxious to talk to us. I cannot think why. We are grateful to you for coming this afternoon. Would you like to give us a copy of your note to drivers? Mr Depledge: I would be happy to do that, as soon as it is published. Q88 Chairman: Yes, obviously I am not asking for prior notice. Has there been any noticeable improvement in disabled people's access to public transport? Mr Scales: I think so. On Merseyside we are trying to get to a single integrated public transport network that is accessible to everyone. We have been very fortunate through the local transport planning process in getting lots of good capital funds from UK Government, which we have tried to spend very wisely. At the moment, of the 80 stations on the Merseyrail network, 42 are now fully accessible to the disabled, including wheelchairs, and we very much subscribe to the social model of disability, which means that it is the infrastructure that makes people disabled, not the person themselves. So by the end of the second local transport plan in 2011 we aim to have all the stations fully accessible. All our bus stations are fully accessible now, and we are working in concert with all the operators on Merseyside to get a single integrated network, which is not new; it is in the 1966 White Paper introduced by Barbara Castle. Q89 Chairman: Do you want to comment on that from ATOC? Mr Yunnie: On the rail industry, in the time that has passed since your Committee last addressed this subject, the biggest single improvement has been in the number of railway vehicles that have entered service compliant with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations. The other area where we have concentrated a lot of effort has been in improving information about the level of accessibility that exists at the present time, with the stations, accepting that there is much still to be done physically there, but to help people to understand how they can best use what does exist at the moment. Q90 Chairman: How many stations could I access if I suddenly rang up and said, "Where can I get on a line?" Let us take a north-west group. Mr Yunnie: I could not give you an answer in a specific region. Nationally, approximately 52 per cent of all the 2,500 stations on the rail network have step-free access to every platform, and you can obtain information about those, on the one hand, by ringing any of the train operators. Reference has been made earlier this afternoon to the map we produced earlier this year depicting where those stations are. Q91 Chairman: Where would I get the map from? Mr Yunnie: Any staffed station, or from our office, and from a significant number of disability organisations that we have supplied. In addition to that, and sadly, Ms Bates of the last presentation, at the most recent meeting of the DPTAC Rail Committee, where I did actually present on the very recently live addition to the National Rail website, where there is extensive information about the facilities available at every one of those 2,500 stations - not just on issues about access but hours of opening, refreshment facilities, etc, but including quite a considerable amount of information describing the level of accessibility at each one of those stations. That came on stream literally within the last number of months. Q92 Chairman: Mr Scales, what about the staffing on your stations? Mr Scales: Staffing is before the first train gets into the station and after the last train leaves, so fully staffed. The stations outside of the network, there are eight of them in the old section 20 boundary down to Cheshire, Ormskirk and Ellesmere Port, and we intend to fully staff those in the next two or three years, Chairman. Q93 Chairman: Mr Yunnie, I was not trying to cut you off. That is it, is it? Is it only on the website? You have a printed map, you say. That does not have all the information that is on the website. Mr Yunnie: No. At the moment we can print off on request any information that somebody requires. We are examining ways in which to make the information available in other formats at the present time. Q94 Chairman: So if I am visually impaired, there would be a way of me getting access to that information? Mr Yunnie: Yes. Q95 Chairman: What? How would I find out? Mr Yunnie: You might, for example, have speech equipment on your PC, but if you do not have that, we will be able to make information available in audio format on request. Q96 Chairman: How often are you asked? Mr Yunnie: We have had very few requests so far. Q97 Chairman: How would I know that service existed? Mr Yunnie: It is on the website, which is one of the most visited... Q98 Chairman: But if I could not read the website, how would I know it existed? Mr Yunnie: Any station can give you the information. It is available through the National Rail inquiry service and, as we reprint information that we provide for our disabled passengers, we shall be incorporating reference to it. Chairman: You are leaving a few hostages to fortune here. The temptation to ring up and find out is very strong. Q99 Mr Stringer: Mr Depledge, what is the cost ratio between a new, accessible bus and the older buses, new to new? Mr Depledge: That is a very difficult question to answer, new to new, because all you would buy now would be a new, accessible bus; you would not actually buy a bus that was not accessible. You are not faced with a choice of going to the manufacturer and saying, "I would like one of those that is not accessible and one of those that is, please." Of course, the cost of vehicles has progressively increased over recent years. Their complexity has increased, the technical requirements for lifts and ramps and all the other things that are now necessary, have increased over what you might have projected a bus might have become if we had not had all those issues. It is an almost academic point because we are where we are, and you will only buy accessible buses now. Q100 Mr Stringer: Have a go. Tell us the cost of the last non-accessible bus you bought compared to an accessible bus at the moment, and we can work out inflation ourselves. What would be the difference in cost? It is not a trick question. Mr Depledge: I appreciate it is not a trick question. One are the marks of realising you have been in the bus industry for a long time is when you start to scrap buses that you bought. I am trying to remember the last time I bought a non-accessible bus. It is such a long time ago, I could not actually give you a figure. I am not even sure whether my colleagues could give you a figure. Mr Yexley: I would say that the last non-accessible bus would have cost about half the price of a modern-day one, but about five or six years has flown by in between times. Perhaps what is more telling is to emphasize Mr Depledge's point that the running costs of a new bus are higher, because you have many more bits of kit to keep going. That is just part of progress. Q101 Mr Stringer: How much higher are the running costs? Mr Yexley: Whereas we have still the tailender buses, which would be 17 or 18 years old, which are costing about £6,000 a year to run, a comparable bus, which might be three or four years old, which is low floor and fully accessible, would be costing us round about £3,500‑£4,000 in parts, never mind all the rest of it, whereas you would expect there to be a much greater gap, given the age difference. As I say, it is academic because the whole industry is committed to achieving full accessibility, and that is where we are. Mr Scales: As an ex-manufacturer, madam Chairman, in 1986 a double-deck would have been about £70,000, but double-decks are notoriously not accessible. A new single-deck accessible bus now would be about £120,000-£130,000, depending on specification. Single‑decks in 1991-92, you could get ten for £1 million. The total vehicle population of the UK is about 72,000, and when I was at Northern Counties the double-deck mark was about 1,000 buses a year. That is just to give you an example of the numbers. Q102 Mr Stringer: Mr Depledge, what percentage of Arriva's fleet is accessible? Mr Depledge: Just over 50 per cent of our fleet at the moment is fully accessible. Q103 Mr Stringer: How do you decide who gets the accessible buses and who gets the old crocks? Mr Depledge: Nobody gets the, to use your phrase, "old crocks". We have progressively replaced our fleet as the fleet ages. Throughout the country we have vehicles of different ages, of course. Individual businesses will make a business case for replacements. We put substantial replacement into all our fleets throughout the country. So we have a progressive process of replacing vehicles. There may be occasions, I should say, Mr Stringer, where particularly if we are working with a local authority that is doing some special work, some infrastructure changes, we will be in a position to bring forward some replacements in those cases. That does depend on the circumstances in a particular area, but we replace all our fleet progressively. Q104 Mr Stringer: I was just interested in how you distributed the accessible as opposed to the non-accessible. We have written evidence suggesting that you put preferentially put your accessible buses into London and withdraw the non-accessible buses to places like Kent. Is that accurate? Mr Depledge: No, it would not be accurate. Again, Mark Yexley can probably deal with the London issue, but if there is a contractual requirement to provide an accessible vehicle in London, then we will provide an accessible vehicle for that contractual requirement. However, we will replace the vehicles that we are operating outside London as well as time goes on. Q105 Mr Stringer: I know that you have a commitment to replace them. I am just trying to assess what criteria you use to deploy the non-accessible buses. Mr Depledge: We are not redeploying them by moving non-accessible vehicles around on a systematic basis. But there may be circumstances when we have a particular project we are working with a local authority, as I say, where we would put a batch of vehicles in here this year, and the following year somewhere else. There are examples round the country that I could point to where we have had a partnership arrangement with a local authority where we have said that is obviously the location to go for because we are now going to get the raised kerbs, the better access, which means that the value of this accessible fleet would be greater. Those policies are developing over time. The Chairman's question at the very beginning was have things got better, and the answer is, of course, they are progressively getting better but they will not get better really until the whole thing is accessible. That is still a little way down the line. Q106 Mr Stringer: We have had some evidence that these buses, as well as being accessible, are more powerful, and that this leads to problems of bus drivers accelerating away very quickly before disabled or partially sighted people have had time to sit down on the bus. Is that your experience? I would be interested in Mr Scales' view of that. Have there been any other unexpected consequences of improving the accessibility? Mr Depledge: To pick up your unexpected consequences point first, if I may, the unexpected consequence was a certain amount of friction between people wanting to travel on buses with children in pushchairs and buggies and people wanting to use the spaces on buses for wheelchairs, and we had even more friction between people who wanted to bring their buggies on to the bus when there were already one or two buggies on. That was unexpected; we did not anticipate that this would create friction, but we have been able to manage that I think reasonably well. We have reviewed our procedures. Your point about drivers using more powerful vehicles in a rather less passenger-friendly way is well made. It is something which we are very conscious of, to ensure that our drivers are properly trained and do understand the issues around that. There is often more anecdotal evidence than actual evidence of such things. Mr Scales: We get a lot of evidence about exactly that, about bus drivers moving off before people have properly taken their seats. On the 20 per cent of the network that we control through the subsidised services, we ensure that drivers are properly trained and we write that into our contractual obligations to our colleague bus operators. It is a problem, and it is a matter of making sure you keep on going at it, making sure that if these instances are identified, we are able to take appropriate action and make sure that driver is taken for remedial training. We do have feedback loops that we can use on that, but we have an integrated fleet across the county of probably over 1,000 vehicles and we are only controlling 20 per cent of that. Fortunately, these are usually late at night, early mornings and schools, so we can actually get to the driver really quickly if there is an issue. Q107 Mrs Ellman: Mr Scales, how far would you say your local authority members have influenced Merseytravel's policies on making good provision for disabled people? Mr Scales: The authority actually sets the policies and, as the Director General, I execute those policies. So they are very far-sighted. We have been working on social inclusion - before it was called social inclusion - for the last 10 or 15 years now, so things like our free passes from 9.30 on all modes of transport, that is, bus, rail and ferry, and making sure that all our facilities are fully accessible, is something that the authority members have made sure that we build in as part of our ethos. To give you an example, the tunnels building down at St George's dock is a grade II listed building, and we actually spent a six-figure sum putting two very accessible ramps outside so that people can actually get access to our facilities. So it is something that has been strongly put forward by our local members for well over 10 or 15 years now. Q108 Mrs Ellman: Some of the private sector providers tell us that they cannot afford to make proper access for disabled people and proper facilities, yet you have been able to make these things affordable. Is that because you are a public body or is there some other factor? Mr Scales: No, it is a straight business reason. If you make it accessible for disabled people, you make it accessible for everybody else. If you take the total design cost of, say, a bus station or a rail station and the build cost, it is about 2.5 per cent over the total life of the facility, so we spend 3.5 per cent and we build quality in. By making it accessible to everybody, you make it accessible to normal people, if I can call them that. We build it in anyway. Things like handrails, grab rails, stanchions, tactile paving, making sure you have brail signs, and making sure that we engage with the disabled community so that the brail signs are in the right place; we have two access officers, one of which is in a wheelchair, and if we are influencing new vehicle design, we send Mr Finnegan down to make sure that the wheelchair space on the first vehicle is right, because being able-bodied and an ex-manufacturer, I do not have the same view as he has. You have to reverse your wheelchair, and you do not necessarily see from an able-bodied point of view. We have been doing this now for a long time, but it is a purely business reason, and it is because we subscribe to the social model of disability, not the medical model of disability. Q109 Mrs Ellman: Going to some of the questions to the Association of Train Operating Companies, from the evidence that you have given us, it paints a rather contrasting picture to the one we have just heard. You say in your evidence that to meet the assumed Disability Act requirements would be very costly. You talk about estimates in excess of £2 billion. You then say, "In the current climate these are sums the industry just cannot afford." What does that mean? Why should it be acceptable that the industry cannot afford to meet the requirements of its customers? Mr Mapp: I think it is a matter that the industry is progressively dealing with through franchise agreements as new franchises are awarded. In the case of new franchises, there is provision for investment in a whole range of aspects of their operation, including the upgrading of rolling stock and station facilities, and within those agreed investments, provision is made for improvements to access for disabled people. In the overall scheme of things, the amount of finance that can be made available through those franchise agreements to support that kind of investment is the result of a discussion between the competing bidders for the franchise, at the moment the Strategic Rail Authority, and in future the DFT, and it is through those discussions essentially that investment priorities are identified and implemented. I think that is the process that the industry follows at the moment. Whether or not £2 billion is affordable I think essentially is a public policy issue. If £2 billion worth of investment was built into franchise agreements, then yes, £2 billion worth of investment could be made. In that sense, it is not just an issue for train operating companies; it is also a public policy issue. Q110 Mrs Ellman: Are you saying then that, as an industry, you might feel unable to make the necessary changes unless you are instructed to do so? Mr Mapp: I think ATOC represents an industry that is a private sector industry, and clearly, the nature of that industry is that we have to make a return on investment for our shareholders. The legacy of the rail industry in terms of station infrastructure in particular is a Victorian legacy. There is a huge amount of work that needs to be done to make the network accessible. Would that investment pay a pure commercial return? The answer is that in many cases it would not pay a pure commercial return. Q111 Mrs Ellman: So you are saying that if this is to be dealt with purely commercially, the answer is no, you cannot do it? Mr Mapp: In many cases that is the correct answer, yes. Q112 Chairman: You have just been told, however, that it is good business sense. Why should it be good business sense for Merseyrail but not for another form of railway company? Mr Mapp: The point that was made earlier was that the way in which improvements are made is on a progressive basis, that when stations are refurbished or investment in major new stations or major upgrades to stations, then yes, it is cost-effective in those circumstances to ensure that the new stations or the upgrade stations are indeed accessible for disabled people. When it comes to making a Victorian station with multiple footbridges and platforms and so on accessible, then the commercial case for that I think is more difficult to make because it is a major, significant investment. Q113 Chairman: Do you have a very clear policy as ATOC that says to the individual companies you need to plan in each significant reorganisation not just to provide these facilities at your stations but also in your trains? Mr Mapp: It is worth remembering the limitations of ATOC. ATOC is a trade association, so it is not an executive authority. We cannot tell our members what they should do. Q114 Chairman: No, but you do talk to one another, presumably? Mr Mapp: Yes, we do. One of the primary roles that ATOC fulfils is to encourage and facilitate better practice across the industry, and in that sense, best practice both in terms of station design and indeed rolling stock design is something that we actively facilitate. Q115 Chairman: So in whatever form of documentation that takes, there would be a clear policy commitment to making sure that no franchise takes on rolling stock that has not taken account of it, and no station refurbishment goes ahead without specific involvement in this particular area? Mr Mapp: I think it is a more complex picture, because each train operating company has to have a DPPP policy agreed with the SRA and that is built into their franchise agreement, and in essence, that commits that train company to follow a series of practices in regard to station design, rolling stock procurement and so on that conform to the SRA code of conduct, and that itself is based on best practice in regard to disability design and procurement. That effectively is the mechanism through which the industry ensures that investment in new rolling stock, investment in new stations and so on, does take account of best practice in disability issues. Q116 Chairman: So Mr Bee was not correct when he said that the rail industry was lagging behind? Mr Mapp: I think you have to take a balanced view of where the industry is. In terms of rolling stock provision, we are making enormous progress. The 4,000 new vehicles ordered since the late 1990s are all DDA-compliant. Q117 Chairman: Would it surprise you to know that I have received a series of complaints about the new rolling stock and accessibility for people in wheelchairs particularly, and the fact that they frequently find themselves stuck right outside the door of stinking loos that do not work? You have no evidence of that? No-one has mentioned this to you? Mr Yunnie: We are aware that these things happen from time to time, but I travel on a RVAR-compliant train to and from work every day and I do not think I have ever witnessed it happen on one of those trains. Q118 Chairman: Could you tell us where this line is in order that we can make this generally public? Mr Yunnie: With pleasure. I am a Midland Main Line commuter. I am not disputing for a moment that these things can happen, just as I can go to almost any public toilet anywhere in the land and find things that on occasion are not working as they should do. Q119 Chairman: Yes, I can assure you that public toilets on the whole do not actually cost the taxpayer what railway companies do. Mr Yunnie: The general situation is that the modern compliant toilet is a perfectly fit for purpose piece of equipment which most of the time works as designed. Q120 Mr Randall: This question is for the rail operating companies. You may have heard in the first session that there was a gentleman who had been using his motorised scooter for six years successfully, quite happily getting on and off the train. Then quite recently he was told that he could not use it any more. What do you think was the cause of that? Has there been a change in regulations or the way it is perceived that might cause that for the same model? What I am saying is a year later, for that particular user of the trains, instead of getting better, it has got palpably worse. Mr Yunnie: I have spoken to Mr Coe, so I know the case very well indeed. I think the background to it is that the train company he travels with had not really had an enforced policy about the carriage of powered scooters, and I would just say as an aside that there is actually no requirement upon rail operators to carry scooters at all. What seems to have happened is that the local staff at the stations between which he seeks to travel had been finding a way of accommodating him, as you say, for about six years. One of the perhaps unforeseen effects of the train operators getting their newly updated DPPPs approved by the Strategic Rail Authority has been that it has heightened awareness among train company management of the obligations and implications of the documents that they have signed up to, and in the case of Great Western, they had decided as part of that exercise that, at any rate for the time being, while the range of issues, which I am happy to talk about if you felt there was time, are resolved on a national basis, and therefore they implemented a ban, and Mr Coe has found himself excluded from the train as a result of that chain of events. Q121 Mr Randall: I am very grateful for that but what I am interested in is whether sometimes the implementation of new regulations or agreements or health and safety - I think we all know in everyday life sometimes some of the health and safety things seem to be over-zealously implemented. I am not saying this particular one was health and safety. Is that a problem for you? Mr Yunnie: I was here earlier this afternoon when there was a discussion about the implications on the use of barrow crossings was discussed and I would entirely subscribe to the general comments that were being made at that time, that there has been an issue there between health and safety issues and those of access. In the case of scooters, it has long been the case that, regardless of whether there is a requirement to carry them or not, physically, some scooters will fit on to some trains. One of the key issues is that the manoeuvring characteristics of a powered scooter are not the same as those of a wheelchair, and there are numerous types of rolling stock running on the network at the moment which are broadly accessible - not necessarily RVAR-compliant but they have a wheelchair space, they have an accessible wheelchair toilet, but the way in which one manoeuvres into the wheelchair space can be quite tricky, and there are many classes of powered scooter that will not actually carry out that manoeuvre. The issue is, as Anne Fry from the Department rightly said earlier on, there is the publication Wheels for Wheels, which indicates which scooters potentially will go on to public transport. However, because we have such a range of accessible but not compliant rolling stock, it actually becomes rather more complicated than that when you are faced on the ground with whether Mrs Smith's powered scooter will actually fit on to train operator X's particular train that turns up on the day. Q122 Mr Randall: One other question. We have heard about the book ahead service, and although I think the pragmatic view prevailed, is there a policy or is there any way you could encourage the other operating companies? Some do have 0800 numbers and some do not. Is there anything happening on that? Mr Yunnie: Yes, there is, in as much as as my colleague Mr Mapp has already said, ATOC's role is that of encouraging best practice amongst the operators, but without the ability to actually force them to do something they do not wish to do. We have taken on board the advice that we have received from DPTAC, amongst other places, and are at the present time encouraging operators to look into whether they can indeed move over to 0800 numbers. I personally do not dispute the view that although it might only be a local rate call to make your advanced arrangements, that is nevertheless quite possibly a telephone call you would not have had to have made at all if you were not seeking the disabled people's assistance service, and therefore we are indeed encouraging train operators to do that. Q123 Chairman: You are rather giving us the impression that train operating companies only actually do things when they are required to do so. I am sure you do not quite mean that. Or are we suggesting that the rules of the Strategic Rail Authority are not tough enough? Mr Yunnie: No, I do not think that is the case. There has been a gradual move over the last two or three years from the majority of train operating companies, not even using an 0845 number but requiring you to call an ordinary national number which, depending on where you happen to be ringing from, might have actually resulted in you paying a full national price. They moved from that to almost entirely using 0845 local call rate numbers. It is an ongoing process and we now seem to be at the point where we are moving into the world of the 0800 number. Q124 Chairman: I was not just thinking about the access to telephone information; I was thinking about all the other provisions. You are quite convinced that the train operating companies are going to be responsive without being told that they had to provide certain facilities, are you? Mr Mapp: I think in many cases train operators do pursue good practice without having to be forced into doing so. They, like any other commercial entities, have a business incentive to ensure that the whole of their market is addressed and in that sense, providing services for disabled people, making sure that accessibility is provided, is part of that. I do not think it is the case that train operators only act when they are forced to act. Q125 Chairman: Central Trains? Mr Mapp: It is an interesting case. I heard the description of the court case earlier. I think one issue that was missed out from that description was that there is not actually a taxi company in Thetford that is able to provide an accessible taxi, and the only option was to procure a taxi from Norwich, one hour's drive away, a two-hour round trip, in order to take the customer from one side of the station to the other. Q126 Ian Lucas: Whilst we are on the subject of court cases, I think you were present when we had what I thought was an interesting discussion about mediation in trying to resolve a lot of these issues. Have any of you had any experience of dealing with the mediation system? Mr Yunnie: Certainly some of the train companies have engaged in mediation over issues like the provision of large-print timetables and the degree to which it was reasonable to meet a particular customer's request in that area. In the main, they have come to mutually satisfactory conclusions at the end of the process. Q127 Ian Lucas: Does ATOC promote mediation amongst your members? Mr Yunnie: Yes. We have regular meetings of the ATOC disability group, where the train operators come together to discuss disability issues. We exchange information between the train companies within that forum on recent mediation cases that have come to their attention. Q128 Ian Lucas: So far as the importance of legal cases in terms of driving your policy, do you think that those legal cases are necessary to actually drive you in taking forward improvements in accessibility? In other words, we are back to the question of whether you will do things voluntarily or only if you are forced to? Mr Yunnie: It is certainly not the case that we will only do it when we are forced to. However, I would agree with the remark made in the previous session that a number of relevant court decisions will help everybody. One of the unfortunate aspects of the much publicised recent case affecting Thetford station is that there were a number of unique circumstances surrounding that case, which we clearly do not have time to go into today, but it has meant that the outcome has perhaps not provided much in the way of a way forward, and to that extent the train company community as a whole will welcome some appropriate cases emerging over the coming months to help a better understanding of what is reasonable and unreasonable. My colleague Mr Mapp has just referred to the fact that the nearest accessible cab in the Thetford case was a very long way away. We assume that a test of reasonableness would set some kind of boundary around how far it was realistic to bring a cab, and an appropriate court case would go a long way in helping those kinds of issues. Mr Depledge: From the bus industry point of view, we are very much a local business and our objectives would be to solve matters at a local level, to work out what the appropriate local solution is. At a policy and strategic level, we have undertaken an audit of every interface that we might have between our organisation and a potential customer from the point when the customer starts to think about going by bus to the point where they have completed the journey. That is a very helpful way of analysing all the issues that might come up, but in principle, it is a local option. Mr Yexley: David Congdon made a really good point in the last session, that if you have the vision to appreciate that so many good things flow from training people properly, that is something which is very easy to jump on board with. Even if in the very short run it costs you money to do the training, it has got to be the way forward. Q129 Chairman: Finally, Mr Scales, is it really easier to provide proper services for disabled people where there is a passenger transport executive, and if that is the case, why is that the case? Mr Scales: It is a treadmill, Chairman. Once you get on, you cannot get off. Basically, our philosophy is to get a single integrated network that is accessible to everyone, so we have invested in a lot of things. We have trained all the staff; all 924 staff are trained on DDA. We are making sure that all our facilities are fully accessible, all our media is fully accessible. It is easier when you have the advantage of a good local transport plan and good guidance from government on that. That has helped a lot. Before LTPs came about in 2000, we had already embraced the disability agenda and we are trying to move it forward, but not as quickly as we would like, because whilst we can make our facilities very accessible, and our bus stops very accessible, the pathway in the middle is not, and you can end up with very poor pathways between two very accessible islands, if you like. It is very difficult to get local authorities to come to the party in some cases. The transport side is fairly easy. On the train mode we are a lot better off on Merseyside because we have a 25-year concession, and we are in effect the SRA for the area, so we can influence things and our colleagues in the private sector, having such a long franchise, can make the investment and can get the money out. Q130 Chairman: Are you really saying to us it is only when you have the muscle to do this that the private sector will respond to your minimum conditions? Mr Scales: No. I think it is a matter of education. If everybody starts subscribing to the social model of disability rather than the medical model of disability, we have an ageing population. We need to start taking action now. If we join up all the accessible bits that we have, we will be all right. That is what we are trying to do, to promote good practice. It is easier, I think, if you have a unitary authority, where you have control of everything. It is much more difficult where I am trying to influence five separate metropolitan districts or five separate highways authorities. Our colleagues in Manchester have double that problem, with ten separate districts to deal with, all with different priorities, different urban development plan at different levels. Any support from government is welcome. You have to listen to the pressure groups and embrace them. Just get it into the culture. Once you have got it into the culture, it makes life a lot easier. Everything we design is accessible now, and you just build it in. Q131 Mr Stringer: Would it be easier if the buses were re-regulated? Mr Scales: I think that is a very interesting question, sir. Q132 Mr Stringer: Are you going to give a very interesting answer? Mr Scales: I think the system that Mayor Livingstone has got is very expensive but very nice. The system we have got in Merseyside is not working properly and I am looking for something in the middle. Q133 Mr Stringer: But some form of re-regulation would help with disabled access? Mr Scales: It certainly would. It would certainly help the investment decision. I have to say that our colleagues from Arriva are making large investments in vehicles and a lot of them are on Merseyside. Our average fleet age is about 8.5 years but there are certain operators where the average fleet age is 20 years and they are operating ex-London Transport Titans, which are incredibly inaccessible. I think it would help enormously, Mr Stringer. How we actually move that model forward is something I am sure I may be examined on in the future. Chairman: On that happy note, gentlemen, thank you very much for coming this afternoon. We are very grateful to you. |