Examination of Witnesses (Questions 65
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2004
MR ALAN
SCOLES AND
MR STEVEN
SALMON
Q64 Chairman: Mr Scoles and Mr Salmon,
thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. I hope you
have had a statement of the relevant interests of the members
of the Committee. As you know, we are charged with reporting on
the draft bill, and you are here to speak particularly about transport
issues. Would you like to say anything at the beginning before
we start to ask questions?
Mr Salmon: No thank you, my Lord
Chairman.
Q65 Chairman: In your submission
you highlight the potential difficulty for your members arising
from confusion over what would be considered "reasonable"
adjustments for transport providers to make to their services.
How should your concerns about the practical implications of the
proposals be addressed?
Mr Salmon: We see a central role
for guidance, for codes of practice, applying the kinds of principles
which have already come out in guidance for the Disability Discrimination
Act 1995, but making them specific to the kinds of issues which
we face, and in particular we might be interested in advice and
guidance on how far in advance operators need to know about special
needs, in order to deal with them. That is what we would see as
the main way of trying to reach consensus.
Mr Scoles: My Lord, Chairman,
the confusion that the industry has comes from the fact that there
is inconsistency, about the different definitions of disability
and how we can tackle them, and of course how to interpret the
information that we are provided with up-front as to how it is
interpreted.
Q66 Chairman: Can you give us an
example of that?
Mr Scoles: Yes, for example, what
is the definition of "physically disabled"? Many operators,
particularly the big operators, would quite responsibly make more
effort, and have got more resources, to invest in training or
whatever, to understand the issues that a disabled person is suffering
from, rather than a small operator who might have had a bad experience
and who is very frightened of suffering from an issue again.
Q67 Chairman: If you are relying
on guidance and/or a code of practice, would you expect that to
be legally enforceable—in other words, a bill might say
that you should have regard to something which virtually makes
it legally enforceable?
Mr Salmon: I think we would expect
it to have the same standing as other guidance under the existing
Act.
Q68 Chairman: You have half answered
this already, but what are the boundaries that you think should
be set? How far should the guidance go? What are the things that
should be excluded altogether, do you think? Is there anything?
Mr Salmon: In our written submission,
we gave some examples of the kinds of adjustments which might
be requested, and we did not place boundaries round those because
we feel that that needs quite careful analysis in terms of the
costs and benefits of doing these things. Clearly, there are some
things that we do already. We already have a substantial number
of disabled people who use transport services; but there are other
things—for instance somebody coming on a coach holiday who
might require more or less constant care, which we would probably
think is almost certainly not a reasonable adjustment to make.
We are in quite early stages of trying to fix where between those
two extremes the "reasonableness" boundary ought to
lie.
Q69 Chairman: You said in your written
evidence, which I found surprising: "Our members are concerned
that they may have to take on the task of giving information on
the presence of a public facility such as toilets." Surely,
you say that anyway to all the passengers, do you not, where the
toilets are when you stop?
Mr Salmon: Well, my Lord, we have
a specialised all-modes nationwide integrated travel information
service called Traveline, which is run from, from memory, six
or seven call centres up and down the country. They have very
sophisticated information on transport timetables, but have less
sophisticated information on when, for instance, the toilets are
open at particular interchange points. It is quite a step from
being what we saw as providers of information about transport
to providers of information about everything that some of our
passengers might need to know during the journey.
Q70 Lord Tebbit: I have a bit of
sympathy with that point of view, although I must say my sympathy
for you was not improved by your memorandum when you observed
that car drivers and car passengers do not have to bear the cost
of making adaptations for the needs of disabled people. Come on;
tell my wife that when she buys a new car! Having said that, I
have some sympathy with you over your difficulties in knowing,
for example—let us put it at its most basic—not only
where there are toilets which are wheelchair accessible, but the
times at which they may be open or closed in some cases, and how
long it may take a passenger to use those facilities as opposed
to the other passengers and the effects on the timetable. I think
they are very real difficulties; but I do think that in general
you might consider making it more clear in advertisements, particularly
for coach travel holidays, whether or not they are at all suitable
for people with severe difficulty in walking. My experience is
that you do not.
Mr Salmon: Can I deal with those
points in reverse order, my Lord? Alan works for a coach operator,
so he can explain what his company does to show how accessible
or suitable particular holidays are.
Mr Scoles: We have for Shearings
Holidays a special help-desk with five people fully employed on
mixing the information from customers about their special needs
and information about the hotels that we visit, and matching them
to find what is suitable. We have a database of 15,000 people,
with all sorts of disabilities—physical, sensory, the lot.
I have an example of people that we deal with that perhaps another
operator did not that was in the press recently, the national
media—the three ladies from Blackpool. It was a case brought
by the Royal National Institute for the Blind. It was a mother
aged 82 who was not specifically immobile—but at 82 you
are not particularly mobile. She had a daughter who was physically
handicapped but not completely wheelchair-bound, and another daughter
that was very severely blind. As it happens, we take these people
on holiday regularly; they have no complaints, and if we ring
them up there is no problem whatsoever. On this particular occasion
they went with another operator, and they had a problem because
the operator dealt with it differently. The points I would like
to raise from that is the issue of inconsistency, which is where
it would help us with some standards; and it is easier for a larger
operator with more resources who can put all the effort into it
than it is for a small operator. Let us face it, the coaching
industry in particular, and the bus industry to a degree, is very
much a cottage industry. You have not got the specialisms. I am
responsible for planning and travel around the country and can
see some of these places; but a small operator hasn't a clue.
That is the problem we are up against. To go back to the issue
of toilets, in the depths of Scotland in winter you haven't a
chance to find suitable toilets for the able-bodied let alone
the disabled-bodied. There are very, very severe problems. The
reason you see coaches in every motorway services—and probably
if you go as a passenger you dread the idea of seeing them in
motorway services—but those are the only places that you
can literally guarantee are open 24 hours a day. I can give classic
examples of some important trunk roads like the A303 where there
is virtually nothing on the whole length of that road for a coach
and a group of passengers, whether able-bodied or disabled-bodied,
to stop; because there are only Little Chefs and Burger Kings
that do not accept coaches.
Q71 Lord Tebbit: How would you like
to see the Regulations covering these matters framed?
Mr Scoles: I would like to see
some consultation for a start. Without boasting, the leisure side
of the industry—and remembering we are entirely commercial—likes
to woo as many passengers as we possibly can, and we do not have
interest in putting anybody off. The way to do it is to try and
meet with some of the people that want to use the services and
come up with a framework that we can agree is acceptable.
Q72 Tom Levitt: I think we are in
danger of creating a few Aunt Sallies here. In Mr Scoles's opening
remarks he talked about the fear of the industry about the possible
consequences of this legislation, and yet the industry is already
covered by the obligation to make reasonable adjustments as employers.
Even the smaller companies will have that obligation as from October,
when the small employers' exemption is lifted. Providers of static
goods and services will have that obligation from October as well.
So I do not really see why there should be more fear for the provider
of a mobile service than for a static service. Let me give you
the example of the motorway services and see how you respond to
this. Surely, on the motorway services, the obligation to provide
reasonable adjustments to access those services will come in from
this October on the providers of those goods and services; and
that is their obligation rather than the coach driver's obligation,
is it not?
Mr Scoles: Agreed. That is not
the problem. I was not actually saying that. It is from the point
of view of being allowed to stop there in the first place. We
do not have a problem with motorway services. There is a distinct
lack of places to stop that will accept a coach. A Little Chef
might have disabled toilets but that is not much use if they will
not accept the coach in the first place.
Q73 Tom Levitt: I understand that.
Mr Scoles: In our industry we
get round that because we have toilets on the coaches. On every
tour in Scotland—virtually every coach you see in northern
Scotland will have a toilet on it so if anybody is caught short,
there is not a problem.
Chairman: We have the point about Scotland.
That is what comes of devolution!
Q74 Lord Swinfen: Are on-board toilets
accessible?
Mr Scoles: No.
Mr Salmon: They are not accessible
in the wheelchair state. They have handrails and so on, so people
with moderate mobility can use them. They are not wheelchair friendly.
Q75 Mr Williams: There is an ongoing
debate about the definition of discrimination triggers that will
require a reasonable adjustment by providers of goods and services.
The Disability Rights Commission has proposed that a new trigger
"substantial disadvantage" be set at the point where
a disabled person is entitled to this reasonable adjustment. The
recommendation has not been included in this draft bill. What
is your view on this proposal in relation to the transport provisions
in the bill?
Mr Salmon: My Lord Chairman, if
we have the kind of guidance and codes of practice that we were
talking about at the beginning of this session, that should make
it fairly clear both where the reasonableness of adjustment lies
and where the trigger for making those adjustments lies. I would
hope to see those things covered as a piece. I think there is
a certain nervousness that on the one hand you have—I will
not use the phrase "imprecise term" if I can think of
a better one—if you have got the reasonableness of the response
on the one side and whether a disadvantage is substantial on the
other, you have almost compounded the questions you need to address
when you are doing something or not doing something. But I hope
that will in fact become clear through guidance, codes of practice
and so on.
Q76 Mr Williams: You are saying that
timing is the essence here; that you really need to see the codes
of practice and regulation.
Mr Salmon: Yes, it is about a
common understanding; that the suppliers have the same understanding
about what they are expecting to supply as the customers, the
users, have about what they are expecting to be able to buy as
a service.
Q77 Lord Rix: Leading on from that,
can you give a view on what you mean or what coach operators mean
by "fully accessible public transport services"?
Mr Salmon: We are very conscious
of the need not to immediately jump to a mental picture of a person
in a wheelchair when disability is being talked about. There is
a very active debate in the bus industry at the moment about whether
you can put equipment on buses to announce the next stops both
audibly and visibly. In our view, fully accessible transport would
include those kinds of adaptations. It would include systems for
the basics of using transport, like paying for it, like getting
information for getting on, like interacting with the staff, which
throw up as few barriers as possible to people with any kind of
disability. That would certainly be our definition of an accessible
transport service.
Q78 Lord Swinfen: We are talking
about reasonable adjustment, but do you think that that varies
between the sizes of the operators, because there is a financial
cost to the operator on this adjustment? Should it be exactly
the same for all, or should the larger operators make more in
the way of adjustments?
Mr Salmon: Given that there may
be adjustments that for some operators, in particular sets of
circumstances, meant that they could no longer trade and no longer
have a business if they had to make them. Let us take two approaches
to coach tourism for the moment. We have some members who buy
new coaches and run them for about five years, and then sell them
on in the market; we have other members who buy five-year old
coaches and run them for maybe ten years. They both offer an attractive
service, but it may be easier to specify some kind of adaptation
or adjustment, if we are talking about vehicles, in the new vehicles,
than it would with the old ones. Equally, we have had a debate
within the industry about whether it is fair for companies to
make adjustments if they happen to have had a profitable year
before, and not if they are on the brink of disaster. It is a
very difficult issue for the industry, and that is probably reflected
by the lack of clarity in my answer, I am afraid.
Q79 Miss Begg: Are you in discussions
with the coach manufacturers and builders to ensure that all new
coaches are easily adaptable and already fully adapted.
Mr Salmon: We are coming to a
matter that we were expecting to cover within this session, which
is to do with when all new coaches, and particularly touring coaches,
should be accessible. There is a particular problem with coaches,
not so much with buses or trams, but with touring coaches; that
the currently available solution for getting wheelchairs on to
coaches available from the manufacturers is felt by the majority
of the operators to be unsatisfactory. So we are in a very odd
situation where we would love the manufacturing industry to invent
something which does the job better, and I know that there are
some good brains at work on that; but at the moment if you want
to buy a coach that you can put a wheelchair on, it is loaded
by a lift which goes up the side, and there are lots of unsatisfactory
aspects to it. We would love, as purchasers of these coaches,
for the manufacturers to invent something better which enabled
more or less the same number of people to be carried in the same
degree of comfort but with less obvious and less embarrassing-to-use
adaptations for particular users. We would much rather meet the
needs of disabled people discretely within the mainstream of what
we do than have these extraordinary things climbing up the sides
of coaches; but at the moment we have not got it.
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