Influential MPs have accused the Department for Transport (DfT) of 'lacking urgency' in tackling accessibility and the discrimination faced by transport users with disabilities.
MPs on the Transport Select Committee raised the concerns after the DfT seemed to dismiss recommendations they made in a recent committee report on how to improve transport for disabled people.
The DfT rejected calls for transport regulators to be given a mandate and new resources to proactively identify and enforce against breaches of accessibility law, with annual reports on progress.
It also rejected calls for a unified body to handle complaints and carry out enforcement regarding accessibility failures and declined to create a separate Inclusive Transport Strategy ITS separate from its Integrated National Transport Strategy (INTS).
The committee stated that its recommendation for ‘comprehensive data collection’ was not addressed directly at all.
The DfT said it would ‘review [its] business case guidance and associated processes at key decision points’ and agreed that there is ‘value’ in reviewing the current legislation but added that the independent Law Commission would be better placed to carry this out.
Transport Committee chair, Ruth Cadbury MP, said: ‘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.’
Access denied
The committee's report – Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people's access to transport – highlighted ‘widespread discrimination’ that was caused by transport operators failing to support disabled users of their services.
It also highlighted difficulties for disabled passengers when they attempted to file official complaints.
To address this, the committee set out a series of key recommendations to government:
- Lead a review of transport accessibility legislation in collaboration with the Office for Equality and Opportunity
- Produce an independent Inclusive Transport Strategy (ITS) separate from its Integrated National Transport Strategy (INTS)
- Produce a ‘road map’ for achieving independent accessibility across the rail network via upgrades to rolling stock and stations
- Collect comprehensive data on accessibility-related incidents
- Give transport regulators a mandate and new resources to proactively identify and enforce against breaches of accessibility law, with annual reports on this activity
- Establish single unified bodies to handle complaints and carry out enforcement regarding accessibility failures across all modes of transport.
The full report, along with the Government's and the Transport Select Committee's responses, can be found here.
