Examination of Witnesses (Questions 660
- 679)
WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2004
MS MARIA
EAGLE MP AND
MR TONY
MCNULTY
MP
Q660 Mr Berry: I know you did; perfectly
reasonably. Am I to understand that the Government proposes to
have another consultation exercise on the end date?
Mr McNulty: Given that we formally
need to consult again on changes to the Rail Vehicle Accessibility
Regulations. Consultation on the end date will be formally part
of that process, purely because there is a statutory obligation
so to do.
Q661 Mr Berry: But my concern is
simply that the whole debate about the rail end date—certainly
it has been knocking around for ten years and probably longer—the
consultation exercise on the DDA, that was an issue. In 1999 the
task force recommended an end date. That is five years ago. Why
did you not consult on the end date in the exercise that you have
just undertaken? You can appreciate the frustration that many
of us feel. It is an issue that has been in the public domain
as an issue for very many yeas and yet we have still not consulted
on it?
Q662 Lord Rix: And I shall be 101
when 2025 arrives, if I am around when 2025 arrives! I do not
think I shall be using much transport. It is a long way ahead.
Mr McNulty: No, I do accept that,
and it is back to what Maria was saying about the balance between
practicability and trying to get all modes of transport accessible
at the earliest opportunity. 2025, I would suggest, is not absolutely
the guaranteed date. We will end up consulting more fully through
RVAR, but it is not a certainty.
Q663 Mr Berry: With respect, on the
two issues, one is that, yes, there has to be a decision about
an end date, and, yes, that will balance various considerations.
My point, however, was that the Government is yet to find itself
in a position where it is consulting on the end date. Are you
able to now give us some idea when, finally, that exercise might
take place?
Mr McNulty: It will take place
subsequent to this when we finalise what we are going to do with
the RVAR. This consultation on the rail proposals has just been
completed. I take your point about why has it taken so long, given
these issues have been in the public domain for some lengthy time.
I would only say, in defence of that, that we are moving towards
closure on the end date, number one, and, number two, that the
end date is meant be precisely that, an absolute end date, and
not some goal to aim at, and the sooner things can be brought
in prior to that the better.
Q664 Mr Berry: I have to say in other
areas of disability progress has been much, much faster. The final
question is this. Given that you have not yet had the consultation
on the rail end date, why do you favour 2025? On what basis is
2025, given the consultation has not taken place, other than it
happens to be exactly 30 years after the DDA went on the statute
book?
Mr McNulty: I am not sure that
was the driving reason why we said 2025. We have recently consulted
on the rail provisions of the DDA, and that is the position paper
I have put forward thus far. The consultation suggests the end
date and this kind of menu approach to refurbishment. The subsequent
consultation process, as I say, is more statutorily linked to
the RVAR and it is not simply trying to take a measure between
the extremes, in the sense of what was offered in that consultation
process of 2017 to 2035, nor to celebrate 30 years of the DDA.
It is because the costs practicability and all those elements
you say are important to take in the balanced approach do suggest
something around that date, although there has been a good deal
of progress in terms of rail rolling stock already, and classically
much of the slam-door rolling stock in the South London commuter
services will be almost completely changed over in the next year,
18 months, which is obviously one that people have most concern
about; although I do fear, just as an aside, if it is not created
already, there will be a Heritage Society to save slam-door trains
at any given moment, because some, clearly not those who seek
to judge them on an accessibility criteria, but some quite love
their slam-doors with all the sentimentality of Routemasters and
other forms, but we will resist that too.
Q665 Chairman: There is a rolling
programme for the rolling stock. Would the Department have any
idea of the percentages or how it would develop? What proportion
of rail vehicles will be done by a certain date, so that when
you get to, let us say 2025 for the moment, what is left to do,
as it were?
Mr McNulty: I am not entirely
sure, but I will get the details for the Committee in terms of
the roll out towards the end of that period. Over the last two
and a half years 1400 new fully accessible rail vehicles have
entered service, and over the next 18 months, largely the slam-door
that I was referring to, about a thousand more will be brought
into use. That is 2,400 out of something like 10,000 heavy rail
carriages altogether; and, of course, there are a further 4,000
underground and tube carriages. That is where we are now. If I
can readily put my hands on the figures for at least the next
time arising, if not the whole period, I will happily provide
that to the Committee.
Q666 Lord Rix: Whether 2017 or 2020
or 2025, what can you put in place to ensure that it is not a
last minute scramble and in 2024 rail operators start to do the
necessary alterations?
Mr McNulty: I think we are very,
very keen to discuss with the industry, not simply their rolling
stock operations programme now, but precisely the sort of programme
the Chair was looking for in trying to get substantive knowledge
of the roll out between now and 2020, 2025, whatever the date.
Clearly, in some ways there will not be "big bang" because
in many instances the natural replacement of stock is on-going
all the time as well, which is why, hopefully, and certainly from
our perspective, 2020, 2025, whatever the end date is precisely,
long enough in the future for there not to be absolutely no progress
once this total 2,400 are done, as you say, until 23/24, when
they say, "Oh my God, we have got to do this now." So
it will be a roll out. If I can provide guidance on how that roll
out will take place between now and then, I will do.
Q667 Mr Clarke: On a related subject,
the Minister will know that the House of Commons Transport Select
Committee, which I understand is the Minister's favourite Committee
next to this one, has drawn attention to the Strategic Rail Authority's
rolling stock strategy suggesting that "the SRA's policies",
and I am quoting them, "may bring forward the end date for
accessibility markedly". Can I ask the Minister, how does
your end date, consultation date, relate to the Strategic Rail
Authority's own policy?
Mr McNulty: In the context of
the consultation on rail that we have just spoken about, the SRA
supported 2025, although the Committee were absolutely right,
the strategy document does state the SRA's desire for all rolling
stock to move towards compliance with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility
Regulations. It indicates that has been achieved through the SRA's
code of practice, which again essentially talks about a menu approach
to refurbishment, but will not in itself bring forward the end
date. I think I would share with the Committee, and to an extent
the SRA, the implicit assumption underlying that that it may well
be that things are put in place, all going well, well before 2025,
not least because of what I say about rolling programmes of replacement
and refurbishment, but there is absolutely no guarantee, even
given the SRA's rolling stock strategy, the code of practice,
the menu-driven system of refurbishment to replace them, that
it will be before 2025. I would say, which I think underlines
what the Select Committee says, that with a fair wind it would
look as though things could be achieved before then, but that
is partly because of their strategy and partly because of what
they are saying about all the various train operating companies
replacing and refurbishing their stock in the time-frame so we
will get it comfortably in before 2025. I would prefer a slightly
longer end date, an absolute guarantee that it is all done by
then, rather than earlier, which may well imply the sort of "big
bang" at the end of the session, end of the time frame explosion
of activity where not much has gone on before that Lord Rix has
referred to.
Q668 Lord Tebbit: Could I turn to
aviation and shipping. Your Department is evaluating the voluntary
accounts for shipping and aviation. What criteria will you use
in judging whether or not those voluntary aspects have been satisfactory?
Mr McNulty: You are absolutely
right, in the sense that on aviation we have commissioned the
Transport Research Laboratory to carry out a comprehensive benchmarking
and monitoring exercise. In terms of process, it involves travel
agents, airlines and airports, including access audits to a number
of airports across the country and an access assessment of the
number of aircraft operated by a range of operators. So there
will be benchmarking, on the one hand, to see what we would like
to see under the voluntary system and then a whole series of assessments
to ensure that crucially, around accessibility, that that is indeed
what prevails in aviation. Disabled people will be involved in
the project, both through the steering group, which includes DPTAC
amongst its members, and directly through feedback with aviation
consumers on all aspects of the aviation sector. In terms of shipping,
a similar approach will be adopted by DPTAC, which is leading
the research project, and that project will report again in 2005.
So, essentially, to fully assess it, you need to do some benchmarking
and establish general criteria, in terms of access specific to
shipping and aviation, and then measure it to make sure you are
talking to the appropriate people, including consumers, to see
if it stacks up to what you purport to measure. We have said very,
very clearly, if it does not work we will legislate.
Q669 Lord Tebbit: Will your Department
take a view on who is responsible for ensuring appropriate access
to aircraft, particularly at minor airfields where there are not
level gates for access?
Mr McNulty: I think very much
so, and in one sense the accessibility framework, especially in
aviation, with some caveats in terms of practicability, should
be as robust at the smallest of airfields as it is at some of
the large airports. Clearly, the caveat is in terms of the size,
and we need to ensure that matters. One thing that we may well
do, and I have just thought of this and will need to take it back,
is, as a spin-off from the White Paper on air transport, the Aviation
White Paper, we have asked every airport in the country, from
the largest to the smallest, to come up with a master plan exercise
about where they are going in terms of their estate, capacity
and all that sort of thing, over the 20, 30 years arising from
the White Paper. It may well be appropriate, and I did talk to
DPTAC incidentally, that we look for some sort of accessibility
audit in terms of what the have got there. That may be the way
to do it.
Q670 Lord Tebbit: The fact that you
are asking airports implies that you are going to hold the airport
responsible for providing the access, not the airline. Is that
correct?
Mr McNulty: It is two pronged.
In terms of access to the airport's estate and the ability of
the disabled passenger to get into the airport—
Q671 Lord Tebbit: Access to the aeroplane!
The provision for the access to the estate, surely, is generally
already provided for. It is the access to the aeroplane which
is of interest, is it not?
Mr McNulty: Absolutely, but the
point about the estate, which, you are right, is pretty well already
covered for by the DDA, is that we do not want there to be expansion
in any number of directions because of the Aviation White Paper
and again the disability and accessibility framework forgotten
about. So we still need to do that exercise too.
Q672 Lord Tebbit: But you still do
not know who will be responsible for making sure that the passenger
in the wheelchair is going to be got up to the threshold of the
aeroplane door?
Mr McNulty: If it is ingress and
egress into the actual aeroplane itself, then it is the airline
operators, I would say.
Q673 Lord Tebbit: I see. I think
that will come as a bit of a surprise, because that is going to
make life difficult for a lot of airlines. What view do you take
of the conflicting requirements to provide access for non-ambulant
passengers to aircraft and the requirements for an emergency evacuation
of aircraft? Are you going to seek, with the CAA, to impose a
limit on the number of wheelchair-bound passengers who can be
in a particular classification of aircraft?
Mr McNulty: I think, in the context
of how the regulations unfold for this particular sector, we will
have to consult very, very widely, not just users, but the airlines
themselves and the CAA, because there is, specific to aviation,
that balance between safety consideration and the number of non-ambulant
passengers, which is entirely a fair point. We need to do that
consultation and do it in some detail so that whatever we come
up with is reflected in the regulations.
Q674 Lord Tebbit: This is not altogether
a surprise to you, is it?
Mr McNulty: Absolutely not.
Q675 Lord Tebbit: There is that conflict,
but you do not know how to resolve it yet?
Mr McNulty: No, because I do not
want to pre-empt or presume about the consultation process, both
the disability organisations who are involved as well as the industry.
What is the point of consulting if I know already?
Q676 Lord Tebbit: Let me put it in
this way. From your own experience, do you think that it is reasonable
for airlines to put a limit on the number of people in wheelchairs
that they carry in a particular aircraft?
Mr McNulty: As you have said yourself,
in part, that will depend on the typology of the aircraft, and
there is a balance between the safety of all passengers, not least
the disabled passengers, and the nature and type of the aircraft,
and they are things that, in the course of this process unfolding,
we will have to look at extremely closely.
Q677 Lord Tebbit: You are looking
at it.
Mr McNulty: If you are talking
about a Jumbo jet with 400, 500 passengers, if you are asking
me if it is safe and entirely fair for 300, 400 to be wheelchair
bound, I do not know the answer.
Q678 Lord Tebbit: I do know the answer
to that question. I do not know where the limit is?
Mr McNulty: That is exactly right.
It is where the limit is and where the balance is that we do need
to explore in the context of being very, very serious about the
end game of lifting the exemptions rather than otherwise, rather
than doing it piecemeal, which is essentially the thrust of our
whole approach across all the sectors.
Lord Tebbit: I look forward to hearing
it.
Chairman: This is the last of the transport
questions.
Q679 Baroness Wilkins: You made reference
in your introduction to your plans for that. I would be grateful
if you could expand. DPTAC recommended there were three changes
to the orange badge and blue badge scheme that required primary
legislation that was creating powers of inspection by the police
and parking attendants to assist with enforcement, adopting an
alternative form of wording to "institutional" to better
effect, eligible organisations and the creation of a national
database. Are you planning to make further amendments in the Traffic
Management Bill to cover these or could you expand on your previous
answer?
Mr McNulty: As I said in my introduction,
in the first instance, in terms of the national database, we want
to look in more detail at the feasibility, but I think, in terms
of the principle of there being a national database to further
help ensure that blue badges are only utilised by people who have
a legitimate right to use them and are not abused, it seems like
a good idea, but we are exploring, through some research, the
feasibility of doing that and then what subsequent legislation
there will be. So, if I can add a fourth there: the fourth area
that may have needed, or does need legislation is the notion of
reciprocity, particularly in terms of the European Union, which
again makes perfect sense. We have explored all three of those,
the enforcement and reciprocity and getting rid of the notions
of institutions and all wholly inappropriate language, and decided
during the course of the Traffic Management Bill passage in the
Commons that certainly reciprocity and the change of language
was beyond the scope of the Traffic Management Bill. Happily the
enforcement clearly was not. It would have been quite strange
if it was, given that it goes to the heart, at least in part,
of traffic management, so we were happy to make sure that the
blue badge enforcement recommendations of DPTAC were passed into
the Traffic Management Bill which is now on its way tomorrow,
I think, to your Lordships' House. The other two, we are exploring.
We accept in principle they are things that should happen and
are happy to pursue, and we are exploring legislative vehicles
to it, not surprisingly, including this very Bill; and it may
well be that those two can be picked up by this Bill, but we have
to explore the national database point and come back to that later
down the line once we have researched into the real feasibility
of it.
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