The Government has promised a review of the legislative framework relating to disabled people’s access to all transport services, following a report by the Transport Committee.
The announcement is made in the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) response to the Committee’s report, which was published in March.
The report highlighted widespread discrimination due to failures by transport operators to support disabled people to use services, and difficulties that disabled passengers experience when trying to complain or seek redress.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has now said it will ask the independent Law Commission to carry out this review, with the eventual outcome of new “universal and clear” standards being recommended to the Government.
One of the Committee’s major recommendations was for DfT to produce an Inclusive Transport Strategy within 12 months, updating the last iteration from 2018. DfT’s response says that accessibility will be made a “key area of focus” in its forthcoming Integrated National Transport Strategy, but it is unclear when this will be published.
The Transport Committee said that the response does not fully answer its call for the DfT to produce, as part of an updated strategy, a “road map” for achieving independent accessibility across the rail network via a series of upgrades to rolling stock and stations.
It refers to the Rail Minister Lord Hendy’s previous commitment to produce an Accessibility Roadmap by “later this year”, but “will not provide an immediate solution to these longstanding challenges [such as level boarding at platforms], it will outline measures and initiatives”.
The Committee also said that the government rejected MPs’ recommendation that transport regulators should immediately be given a mandate, with new resources, to proactively identify and enforce against breaches of accessibility law, and for regulators to report annually on their inspection and enforcement activity.
DfT said it will “be clear that operators and regulators should also treat accessibility as a fundamental expectation that should be prioritised and not considered an optional service”. But the Committee said “there is little detail on how this could be achieved”.
The report’s recommendations that the UK Government should establish single unified bodies to handle complaints and carry out enforcement regarding accessibility failures, across all modes of transport, are also both rejected.
The Department said it envisages the co-production, between providers, passengers and regulators, of an “accessibility charter” that “brings together in one place the guiding principles that underpin the rights and responsibilities of disabled passengers, regulators and enforcement bodies, and operators”.
Transport Committee Chair Ruth Cadbury MP said:
“There are warm words and some promising signs in this response to our report. But taken together, there is a disappointing lack of urgency to deliver real, lasting progress and improve the daily lives of disabled people – to close the gap between rights and reality. Our inquiry heard so much evidence from disabled people about how their ability to work, access services and socialise is denied by transport services that fail to live up to the promises of equality legislation and policies. This can’t go on.
“We need a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination and inadequacies in our transport services. Getting the Law Commission to review the Rubik’s Cube of legislation around accessibility will be a vital first step towards tackling one of the key problems our inquiry identified. But straightening out the law, on its own, is unlikely to prompt the cultural transformation that makes a difference to people’s experience on the ground. A root and branch change in attitudes and more effective, user-friendly complaints and enforcement processes will all be needed, backed up by real incentives to improve and genuine penalties for failure.
“We await the Integrated National Transport Strategy and the forthcoming Accessibility Roadmap, and we are putting the Government on notice that we will be watching closely to see if they deliver for disabled travellers. The suggestion of ‘a clear action plan and milestones’ for improvement sound promising. But longer-term planning and concrete commitments to funding will also need to be forthcoming in this Strategy, for staffing and staff training, for infrastructure and vehicle improvements, and for effective enforcement.
“Accessible transport is a theme this Committee will return to throughout this Parliament, expecting to see robust plans and progress. We will hold this Government’s feet to the fire and not let accessibility be forgotten about. This week, we have written to the Secretary of State to ask further questions about the Government’s response to our report and how it can be strengthened.”
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