Baroness Pinnock (LD)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this mini-debate. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her important amendment; again, it rightly raises the issue of access for those with disabilities. I always think that if we get access for people with disabilities right, we get access for everybody right. The noble Baroness has placed an important amendment before us to make us think about that. In my councillor role, at the moment, I am trying to help a resident who is in a wheelchair. There are three wheelchair users on her estate and only one can get on the bus at any one time, so she is unable to get the bus if they are there at the bus stop; she has to wait another hour to get a bus. Somebody said to her, “Well, get a taxi”. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, will know, the answer is frequently no. There are no accessible taxis in my town, so that resident is stuck. We need those issues to be at the forefront of this debate, which is why the training is so important; otherwise, we will get it wrong. That would be both a terrible mistake and a loss of an opportunity. I thank the Minister for his reply. I can understand why he stepped carefully around the issues of local government requirements and training for those on local transport authorities. I thank him for saying—sort of—that he will think about this. I hope that he will, because better decisions are made when folk understand the parameters within which they are operating. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.