Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this group. Of course, I completely agree with noble Lords on the importance of making our railway more accessible. In the spirit of collaboration, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that there are benefits for everyone in this. He mentioned signage. Having station names in the same typeface written in black on a white background would be a huge benefit for many partially and poorly sighted passengers. I have in my office one station name expressed in 18 typefaces with different colours and backgrounds and, even with my freshly done cataracts, I still cannot read some of them. We can do a lot better by being consistent. I listened to the noble Baroness: too often, the railway has let down disabled passengers, and it needs to change. Under the Bill, GBR, Ministers and the ORR all have a statutory duty to promote the interests of passengers “including, in particular, the needs of disabled persons”. That is a significant step forward. For the first time, the railways’ major players will be bound by a specific accessibility duty. This will make a huge difference. At present, no equivalent duty applies to train operating companies or Network Rail, meaning that accessibility is all too often an afterthought, as we have heard. Under GBR, it will become a core responsibility, shaping decisions about services, stations, rolling stock, investment and the overall passenger experience. Amendments 116, 121A and 144A seek to strengthen the accessibility duty, so I will take them together. The duty has been drafted broadly so that it applies across the full range of GBR’s functions, which means it will not be treated as a secondary issue but will be considered in each and every decision that GBR takes. Promoting the interests of disabled passengers can and should include the consideration of how services can be improved over time, how barriers can be removed and how access to the railway can be expanded, just as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, proposes in Amendment 144A. That is why the duty as drafted covers both current and future passengers by including the wording “users and potential users” in our duty. We require GBR to consider how decisions can remove barriers and enable more people, including more disabled people, to travel by rail. The Government therefore believe that the duty already encompasses the full range of ways in which the interests of disabled passengers can be advanced, including through the continuous improvement of services, as the noble Baroness highlights in Amendment 121A. GBR could not fulfil its accessibility duty if it did not take measures to improve things continuously for disabled passengers across all aspects of accessibility. The change to the accessibility duty to make it a proactive duty means that it promotes the interests of disabled passengers rather than just having regard to them, as characterised by the quotation from Transport for All that the noble Baroness used. On the topic of disabled rights, the drafting of the accessibility duty ensures that disabled passengers’ interests are actively considered even where no specific legal right is engaged. For example, on trains with a catering provision, it is in the interests of disabled people for staff to offer at-seat catering. There is no legal right to at-seat catering, but providing the service is precisely the kind of operational decision that I want GBR to take with disabled people in mind. Indeed, a few train operators do that, while some of them could but do not. That is what the duty in the Bill will require GBR to do. The duty in Clause 18 does not exist in isolation; rather, it sits alongside wider protections. I reassure noble Lords that, unlike the privatised train operators, GBR will be subject to the public sector equality duty, as provided for in Schedule 4 of the Bill, and that will require GBR to give proactive consideration to the rights of disabled people across everything it does. The duty to protect the needs of disabled people is complementary and additional to the public sector equality duty, meaning that disabled people’s rights, interests and needs are all enshrined in the Bill. With reference to the reporting proposal in Amendment 144A, I reassure the noble Baroness that accessibility outcomes will be subject to robust transparency and scrutiny. She has rightly mentioned failures of Passenger Assist in particular. As later amendments address this issue directly, I will return to that topic in more detail in subsequent debates. For now, I will say that it is clear to me that there is significant scope for GBR to improve those services. Action is already under way, with £11.5 million in funding and the delivery of a national training package. GBR will publish assessments of its performance, including its delivery of accessibility commitments, as part of the business planning process. In practice, these assessments will form part of the business plan’s annual update. The updates will also report on the outcomes of GBR’s compliance with mandatory accessibility standards. If those plans are not good enough or there are failures, the watchdog, the ORR, and the Secretary of State will ensure swift redress using their respective levers, up to and including mandatory directions for GBR to change its behaviours. I hope this clarifies the rationale for the drafting of the duty in Clause 18 and reassures the noble Baroness and other noble Lords that Amendments 116, 121 and 144A are already captured by the Government’s plans in the Bill as drafted. On Amendment 186A, I should mention that the Bill contains two accessibility duties. The first, which we have already discussed, applies to GBR, the ORR and UK, Scottish and Welsh Government Ministers. There is a separate duty on the passenger watchdog, which is the subject of Amendment 186A. I completely agree with the noble Baroness that the passenger watchdog should protect the rights of disabled people, reduce barriers to accessibility and promote independent travel. The Bill requires the watchdog to consider the interests and needs of disabled people in all its decisions. As the passenger champion, it could not fulfil its accessibility duty without promoting accessibility and addressing the barriers that disabled passengers face. In fact, I confirm that we expect the watchdog to develop new accessibility standards in consultation with disabled people as one of its first priorities, and I am pleased to discuss with the noble Baroness outside the Committee what these standards might entail. We will certainly return to the subject of the watchdog in later debates, but for now I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we share the same aims, although in my view the drafting of the duty does not need to be changed to achieve them. On Amendments 220A, 220C and 220P, I absolutely agree that better accessibility benefits both passengers and the wider economy. Ensuring that decisions are informed by the evidence and the lived experience of disabled people will help remove barriers to opportunity and support economic growth. I commit to the Committee that my department will publish a new accessible travel charter by the end of 2026. It will require the operators and railway organisations which sign up to it to commit to regular and meaningful engagement with disabled people, and to record how lived experience has informed decision-making, training and service delivery. I commit now that GBR will be a signatory to it and, once again, I hope to discuss the contents of the charter with the noble Baroness ahead of Report.