Joint Committee on the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill Written Evidence


Memorandum from the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (DDB 75)

BONA-FIDES: BVRLA, THE INDUSTRY AND ITS MEMBERS

  The BVRLA is the representative trade body for the companies engaged in the operating leasing of cars and commercial vehicles. Its Members provide short-term self-drive rental, contract hire and fleet management services to corporate users and consumers. The BVRLA has 842 Members of widely differing sizes, who operate and manage a combined fleet of 2.5 million cars, vans and trucks.

  BVRLA Members provide a vital service to UK industry and commerce, facilitating the movement of goods and people for essential business purposes. Members buy around one million new vehicles every year, at a cost of nearly £14 billion, representing the biggest volume of purchases by any fleet sector. In making these purchases, Members are a major support to the UK automotive industry. In addition, by way of ancillary services, our Members spend an additional £2 billion.

  Together the Rental, Leasing and Commercial Vehicle Membership provide the significant voice of an industry, which purchases over 40% of all new vehicles registered per annum in the United Kingdom. This, combined with the diversity of BVRLA Members creates a unique organisation where one Association represents three combined sectors allowing Members to share representation on committees and in the activities of the BVRLA.

  BVRLA Members subscribe to a Code of Conduct which sets out stringent standards in terms of the operation of vehicles and the commercial propriety of their businesses. The BVRLA adopts a strict process of vetting applications for Membership.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  1.  The BVRLA and its Members share a wealth of experience and operational knowledge to recognise the rationale for extending Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) to include vehicle rental services.

  2.  We welcome the opportunity to offer our written submission to the Joint Committee on the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill, and for us to share and raise our specific concerns with the practical implications our Members have highlighted to us. It is on this basis that we feel this matter should be sufficiently debated, to ensure that the Bill strikes a fair balance between removing any undue discrimination that may be being imposed on the disabled community, and that the obligations imposed on the vehicle rental sector are; achievable, realistic and importantly proportionate.

  3.  We therefore commend that sufficient importance is placed towards ensuring that future legislation is sufficiently clear and concise as to what reasonable steps a rental vehicle company should take, and that this may be delivered through a Code of Practice, which we have been positively discussing with Department for Transport, Disabled Drivers Association and Disabled Drivers Motor Club. As a pre-requisite to our support of extending Part III to the vehicle rental sector, we endorse the importance for a Code of Practice that embraces our call for a pragmatic and realistic approach when dealing with the obligations to be adhered to by our Members.

  4.  Moreover, we feel that the obligations and expectations are achievable, but only if the proposals do not prove to be unduly onerous or indeed operate in a manner that threatens the commercial viability of providing the service in the market place.

  5.  We note the reference in the invitation letter to leased vehicles, which we would argue should fall outside the scope of the Bill, as this is not a provision of transport, but more a long-term financial arrangement, whereby the customer will enjoy the use of the vehicle the customer has specifically ordered, which would include the modification or adaptation of the vehicle for a disabled driver. Moreover, leasing Members' customers are predominately corporate entities, to whom the bill will not apply. Any specific leasing agreement between a disabled customer would not only be a long-term arrangement, but where the adaptations would be specifically requested and paid for by the customer at the time of entering into a financial agreement.

  6.  We are pleased to have been able to encourage the Department for Transport to host cross industry working group last year, which was attended by Disabled Drivers Associations and Disabled Drivers Motor Club, where some of the issues highlighted in this submission were discussed.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Contract Hire or Leasing Members

  7.  In general, contract hire, sometimes referred to as long term rental, is technically an operating lease which, when stripped down to its core component, the user (the hirer) simply hires the use of the vehicle for a predetermined period, typically 36 months, at fixed monthly rental from the owner (the contract hire company).

  8.  Ownership is retained by the contract hire company and any specific adaptations required by the user would usually be built into the monthly rental. You will be aware that our Member, Motability Finance is a leading specialist provider of vehicles to the disabled customers and have for many years provided its service to the benefit of some 350,000 registered disabled customers. This unique and subsidised contract hire scheme is for three years which includes insurance, maintenance and breakdown assistance. The hirer is responsible for any adaptations needed and cost of fitting and removing.

Rental Members

  9.  Rental Members offer daily, weekly and monthly rental of vehicles to corporate and retail customers.

  10.  Again, as above, they have no operational control over the use of their vehicles.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

  11.  We note and comment on the following areas the Committee has requested for specifically.

Question 1: Whether the draft bill's proposals are necessary, workable and sufficient

  12.  Predominately, this question raises several issues, including whether or not disabled drivers are in effect being currently discriminated against by the vehicle rental sector. Moreover, and quite specifically, whether the proposed legislation would go someway to remove any such barriers, should they exist, for disabled customers to fully utilise a rental vehicle.

  13.  Having comprehensively discussed the matter with our rental Members, it has been reported that to the level of demand for rental vehicles has been less than ½% of the total number of rental transactions per annum for those Members that offer assistance, through the provision of temporary adaptations, for those disabled customers with either upper or lower body restricted mobility. It may be helpful to clarify that there are a limited number of Members that offer the facility or provision of temporary adaptations to enable disabled drivers to securely and safely operate the vehicle. It must nevertheless be stressed, that these adaptations can usefully be used by only a small proportion of disabled drivers, especially as the adaptations are wholly dependant on the extent of the drivers disability together with the level of experience they have in operating such devices.

  14.  Worryingly, it has become patently clear there is currently no national accredited or Government approved standards for these adaptations, this includes the lack of any legal framework, requiring the testing of these products. Also, there are no minimum standard or competency levels to which an installer of such devices would be required to meet. We understand that this is to be covered under the proposed work projects for MAVIS in 2004, however, we understand that this is still subject to ministerial approval at this stage. We would encourage this project to be carried out, as our Members are increasingly concerned with quality of the product, together with issues surrounding poor installation liability issues, which are inevitable, when dealing with the high level safety matters related to the operation of a motor vehicle.

  15.  From our initial discussions with the Department for Transport, it is clear that this area is complicated by the fact that the adaptations can only used with certain vehicles, ultimately depending on the make and model. As highlighted below, this area is of great concern to our Members due to the manner, in which their vehicle fleet is utilised, they would not know the availability of the exact make and model of the vehicle, until the point of hire. This would make it extremely difficult for our Members to marry the type of adaptation required with the specific make and model of vehicle.

  16.  We questioned a sample of our rental Membership that do not currently offer the availability of such temporary adoptions, as to the level of enquiries or requests they have received from disabled customers for such provisions. Again, to date, the demand from the disabled community has been less than 40 enquiries per annum, against annual consumer rental transactions of four million.

  17.  For us to be able to comment accurately on whether the proposals are workable requires us to know the potential number of consumers that are likely to exercise their rights under the DDB. Whilst we note there are approximately eight and a half million disabled people in the UK, it remains unclear what percentage of this group could be considered as potential or existing renters of vehicles on a short term basis.

  18.  There are three key issues that the rental industry fully need to understand, to ensure that the proposed changes contained in the Bill are sufficiently targeted at addressing the issues of discrimination.

    (a) We need to fully understand what disabled drivers perceive the barriers to renting a vehicle to be.

    (b) What practical steps rental companies can take to help bring down these barriers.

    (c) With prior notification being provided, what temporary adaptations could be made available, the cost provision of which disabled drivers are prepared to contribute towards.

  19.  As an agreed action point at our last cross industry group, the Disabled Drivers Associations and Disabled Drivers Motor Club agreed to survey their Members. Unfortunately, to date we remain disappointed that this has not been carried out, especially as it creates further uncertainty for our Members in being able to ensure that they assist pragmatically in removing any barriers that may exist. Ultimately, this level of information would go someway in equipping the rental industry with the degree of confidence, that the investment and steps they take, are not only necessary, but match the needs of disabled drivers and is sufficient to meet their demands.

  20.  We note that Clause 3 of the Disability Discrimination Bill inserts a "21ZA—Application of sections 19 to 21 to transport vehicles and in particular, 21ZA (2)(a) which makes reference to the proposal that it would never be reasonable for transport service providers to make alteration or removal of physical feature of a vehicle used in providing the service. It is arguable that there are going to be a higher number of instances whereby a rental vehicle provider will be unable to reasonably meet the requests of a disabled driver, as it would alter or remove a physical feature of the vehicle. Whilst there are a limited number of adaptations currently in the market place, it remains unclear the extent to which this would potentially alter or remove a physical feature of the vehicle.

  21.  It must be at this stage reinforced that our Members would be reluctant to install any devices that would permanently damage the vehicle, as they would not necessarily be the fiscal owners of the vehicle. Rental Members would normally either lease their vehicles, or the fleet would be subject to a Manufacturer buy back scheme. In the latter, the manufacturers operate a policy of zero tolerance on damage or modification, and would impose high penalties for any damage caused to their vehicle.

  22.  Another area of concern for us is the practicalities and time it would take our Member to ring fence a vehicle for a disabled renter. Our Members will only know which vehicle is for which renter on the day of rental. In addition to changing this procedure they will need a day either side of the rental for fitting and removal. This could cause great operational difficulties for our Members.

Question 2: When the bill's provisions should come into force

  23.  Given the difficulties with the areas raised above, we believe that there should be a minimum lead in time of one year.

  24.  We feel that there should be greater appreciation on the impact the installation of such features will have across the diverse range of vehicles in the market place, together with a clear understanding of what the disabled customers demands and needs are.

Question 3: What should be in the regulations, orders and codes of practice proposed in the draft bill

  25.  We would expect Codes of Practice for our industry to contain the following:

    (a) The extent rental companies need to take to adapt their vehicles including advice on practical implementation.

    (b) Definition of reasonable including the factors that will be taken into consideration when defining reasonable, for example:

      —  Size of Company.

      —  Staff training and knowledge.

      —  Fleet size.

    (c) What steps a rental company would be expected to take.

    (d) With no national accredited or Government approved standards for adaptations, including the lack of any legal framework, requiring the testing of these products we would require information along these lines to be included in a Code of Practice. Our Members are increasingly concerned with quality of the product, together with issues surrounding poor installation liability issues, which are inevitable, when dealing with the high level safety matters related to the operation of a motor vehicle.

KEY ELEMENT FOR A CODE OF PRACTICE:

  26.  By way of a summary, we outline below some helpful examples provided to us by the Department for Transport, which would endorse that should be reflected in a Code of Practice:

    —  It would not be unreasonable for a rental company to refuse to adapt fully the rental vehicle if they did not have suitable adaptations available or be expected to provide an automatic vehicle if they were not part of their fleet. However, refusing to offer an automatic vehicle where one is available, could be deemed as unreasonable and therefore discriminatory.

    —  The extent a rental company would need to go in adapting a vehicle for a severely disabled person. For example, one of our Members recently had to refuse to rent to a disabled driver who was a paraplegic as they were unable to provide suitable adaptations. We would hope that this would not be deemed discriminatory.

    —  Expectations on rental companies when no vehicles are available.

    —  Confirmation as to whether a rental company could make a charge for the additional equipment required by a disabled customer.

  27.  To assist on this point, we have extracted from correspondence that offers the Department's thoughts on these specific points raised:

    "As a guiding principle, it is unlikely to be regarded as discriminatory if the charge levied is applicable on all renters. If the disabled customer is being asked to pay a charge over and above that charged to an able bodied renter, then this would be deemed as discriminatory—eg the basic cost of the rental is increased just because the customer is disabled, also an automatic vehicle is requested, then a rental company is able to charge the normal tariff for vehicles falling in an automatic vehicle category."

Question 4: The adequacy of the enforcement procedures

  28.  You will see that for our industry, the proposals contained in the Bill, predominately rotate around the issues of what reasonable steps our Members would be expected to take. As such, we feel that an independent body, such as the Disability Discrimination Commission should be sufficiently empowered to oversee the issues of reasonableness and proportionality as part of its enforcement remit.

Question 5: Whether the draft bill achieves the right balance between securing the rights of disabled people and imposing duties and costs on the private and public sectors

  29.  We attach a copy of our formal response to the consultation paper at Annex A (not printed), in which we highlight our concerns with the following key areas:

    (a) The importance for obtaining clarity as to what "reasonable steps" a rental company would be expected to take and,

    (b) Whether these steps are pragmatic, and can be realistically achieved, without creating too many day-today practical difficulties.

    (c) Clear guidance as to what role, if any, a rental company would be expected to take in selecting the appropriate adaptation, to suit the disability of the driver.

    (d) The importance of ensuring that there is a minimum notification period, to enable the rental company to source in the adaptation from a third party, to deliver and install, we have suggested a period of not less than 72 hours.

    (e) Rental Members should be permitted to make a reasonable charge to cover the cost of the equipment requested by the disabled driver.

Question 6: The Proposed change to the Definition of Disability

  30.  Whilst we do not have any specific comments on the proposed definition, as explained above, it would be helpful if the accompanying codes of practice provided a set of clear guidance on the various levels of disability, so that vehicle rental operators are offered with some degree of clarity as to whether or not they would be able to offer their services.

  31.  This point was well made in a recent incident involving a rental company, who was approached by a severely disabled customer requesting that our Members adapt the vehicle for a few days. The level of adaptation requested, not only meant that the vehicle would have had to undergo extensive alterations, but would effectively leave permanent damage to the vehicle, created by holes being drilled into the dash for the adaptation to be securely fixed into the vehicle.

Question 7: Whether the range of "triggers" in the draft bill for requiring reasonable adjustments are appropriate

  32.  As indicated above, we feel that the bill as is currently drafted, does not offer a sufficient guidance as to whether or not the steps a rental company takes would be deemed to be making reasonable adjustments to a rental vehicle. It is envisaged that the accompanying codes of practice should help address this gap, and ensure that businesses are offered the degree of clarity and certainty as to their obligations.

Question 8: How the draft bill reflects the Government's 2001 manifesto commitment to extend basic rights and opportunities for disabled people

  33.  We are satisfied that the draft Bill does help match the Government's manifesto commitment.

February 2004




 
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