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Lord Swinfen: I support the amendment, to which I have added my name. It is eminently sensible. Guide and assistance dogs are essential for those who need them. Minicab and other drivers are perfectly happy to take into their vehicle someone out of the pouring rain whose clothing is shedding water left, right and centre, with streams of muddy water coming down from their umbrella. However, at the same time, some of them would object to a guide dog being put in the car, even if it had shaken itself thoroughly and would put less moisture into the car than one would get from a very wet umbrella.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I am speaking in an entirely personal capacity. I am rather baffled by the need for the amendment. I entirely sympathise with the intention behind it. Licensed private hire vehicles—I think that that is the correct term—should be required to take guide dogs. However, almost the first Bill that I was involved with when I joined your Lordships' House back in 1990-91 was a transport Bill, on which I persuaded the then government to require all minicabs outside London to be regulated and licensed by local authorities. In other words, the power is already there for every local authority in this country to make what we are asking a condition of its licensing law.
If some local authorities are failing to do that, there is nothing to stop local access groups, local MPs, the local press, local disability organisations and the Local Government Association holding those local authorities to account for their failure to put into the local laws by which they license private hire vehicles the provisions that your Lordships require. There is a means to make the provision stick now if local organisations are prepared to go down that path.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: Again, the Minister has thrown a bit of a spanner in the wheels. She mentioned just minicabs, but we are dealing with all forms of—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I think that the noble Lord will find that we are talking about minicabs, which are private hire vehicles. To be able to perform, private hire vehicles outside London have to be licensed by the local authority. The standard required
is inferior to that for hackney carriages. For example, drivers do not have to pass the knowledge test. However, their vehicles have to be more regularly inspected and they have higher insurance charges. Police tests are run and there are other conditions for acquiring a licence. The main difference between them and what we call black taxis are that they are not allowed to ply for hire and the drivers are not required to pass a knowledge test.The problem is London, where local authorities do not license black cabs as they do outside London. That is done by the police and the vehicle licensing authority. That is why London is peculiar. Outside London, local authorities regulate both sorts of vehicle and there is nothing under the sun to stop them doing what all of us in the Committee would like.
Lord Addington: Even if the amendment would cover only the population of London, I still think that it is probably worthwhile.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: Maidenhead has a very powerful access group. I should have checked before I came here, but I do not think that it has succeeded in pushing the local authority to do all that it would have liked.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: I somehow thought that the Minister's response would be along those lines, but that was only my first point. Despite her valiant effort to protect people using minicabs and similar vehicles, which is much appreciated, it is possible that the legislation was not as perfect as we would want. In any case, there is no harm in double locks. If the other legislation is not well known, this new legislation will be brought to the attention of various authorities. This is a valuable double check. There is no doubt that many people with sensory impairments have been surprised to find that it is perfectly legal for private hire vehicle drivers to discriminate against them by refusing assistance dogs. If that is not the case, at least the amendment would go some way towards double checking the existing law.
I am grateful to the Minister for her intervention, but I am even more grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Astor, for tabling the amendment, which I gladly accept.
Lord Astor of Hever: I am grateful to the noble Lord for accepting the amendment. Private hire vehicles—mini cabs—should be treated the same as licensed taxis. I appreciate the Minister's point but her solution would be more complicated than accepting the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.15 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 8 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I take the opportunity to clarify an issue that arose on Second Reading about the status of certain services provided by public authorities—in particular, footpaths, towpaths and bridges. I mentioned those on Second Reading on 23rd January, at col. 1544 of the Official Report. My declaration of interest as being president of the Disabled Ramblers somehow got into Hansard as being president of the Ramblers' Association. I apologise to the president of the Ramblers' Association for that confusion and I have corrected the Official Report for the Bound Volume.
At cols. 1555-1556, the Minister said that she would expect towpaths, footpaths and bridges to be covered by the word "facilities". She suggested that I write to her, saying that she would obtain expert advice. The DRC wrote to the Minister on 5th February saying that in its view and that of the Disability Rights Task Force certain service functions carried out by public authorities may not be covered by Part III of the 1995 Act and that it was likely that the functions of the highway authorities—including paving, footpaths and possibly bridges—would fall under that exclusion. That view was reached by the code of practice working group, which had Department for the Environment lawyers among its number.
The DRC ended by saying that naturally it would be delighted were footpaths to be explicitly covered by Part III of the Bill. We would all be delighted. Bridges are my particular interest.
Since then, the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, Maria Eagle, replied to the DRC in a letter to Bert Massie on 28th February:
- "The issue of whether footpaths and towpaths are covered by the DDA is complicated. There are two key issues to consider, firstly is whether footpaths and towpaths are facilities in terms of the DDA and secondly, if they are, whether the provision of this facility is a service to the public or a function of a public authority.
- Our legal advice confirms what was said in the debate that since courts tend to give a generous interpretation to the term 'facility' we would expect footpaths to be covered where they are part of a public footpath.
- However, this still leaves the issue of whether the provision of a footpath in any particular case is a service to the public or a function of a public authority and this would ultimately be for a court to decide. As you rightly say, certain functions carried out by public authorities are not covered by the DDA but we cannot say precisely what these functions are since no DDA case law has yet been established. I understand that this is the reason why the revised Code of Practice on Part III was drafted so as to avoid being categorical on a number of matters (including the issue of footpaths). Though there is uncertainty about whether Highways Authorities are covered by the DDA, I have been told that many act as if they are.
- As you know, the Government is committed to extending the scope of the DDA to include most functions of public authorities when legislative time allows and this ought to make the position clearer".
One cannot have a test case until 2004 because it will not be law, but it would be helpful if the legislation were in place now so that the public authorities would be aware of what they have to do. I consulted Bert Massie this afternoon and he said that that is precisely why there cannot be a test case yet.
I am sorry to plague the Minister again but will she confirm that the Government are committed to extending the DDA's scope to cover most functions of local authorities when legislative time allows? A nod will do if that is all she can face.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: That is what the Government hope and expect to do.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: I am most grateful to the Minister.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
- House adjourned at twenty-one minutes past ten o'clock.
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