Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Gatwick Express Class 458 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2006

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 7 February be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee and 25th Report from the Merits Committee]. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the order confident that I shall be the only contributor to the debate because today I have such a consensual House before me with regard to transport matters. The provision of an accessible public transport system in which disabled people can have the same opportunities to travel as other members of society is a key plank in our policy to improve the lives of disabled people. We are fully aware that without accessible transport, disabled people will be limited in their ability to access work, visit friends and family, participate in leisure activities or access healthcare facilities. That is why we have taken action to ensure that public transport services are increasingly accessible to disabled people. Our record speaks for itself. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Secretary of State for Transport introduced accessibility regulations for rail vehicles, buses and coaches. There are already around 4,400 rail vehicles in service, which meet the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. That Act received support in the House last year and we are building on the achievements so far. At the time of the Act’s passage, noble Lords were aware that with regard to rail services we had a perspective over almost two decades before we could complete the regeneration and refurbishment of all rail stock. Noble Lords will recognise that we have made considerable progress already. That number will double over the next 10 years and we must not forget that many thousands of older vehicles have been made more accessible during refurbishment. As a consequence of the Act, the House has secured greater scrutiny of applications for exemptions from parts of the RVAR. We are discussing such exemptions today. The case of the Gatwick Express obtains because the operators wish to sub-lease two trains from South West Trains to provide back-up for when they have problems with their own vehicles. Gatwick Express does not expect to use these two trains for more than 70 days each year, so they are there when the usual trains for any reason are not available. The rail vehicles which Gatwick Express proposes to sub-lease from South West Trains are similar to those currently used by that company, which is why it makes sense from an operational point of view to use that stock. Indeed, the vehicles already have similar exemptions, as they were built by the same manufacturer around the period when the RVAR was being introduced. In general, when trains move between operators, any exemption that has been granted simply transfers to the new operator. However, a peculiarity of the exemptions system that applies to the trains that we are discussing today is that the exemptions cease if the vehicles are operated by anyone other than South West Trains. We are not discussing granting exemptions for any new items in relation to these vehicles. We are concerned simply with the transfer of existing exemptions to a different operator—namely, the Gatwick Express—and bringing the periods for those exemptions into line with those that apply to the existing fleet operated by Gatwick Express. In accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act, we have consulted the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, the Government’s statutory advisory body on transport and disability issues. The committee recognises that transferring these two trains to Gatwick Express would deliver benefits to disabled people. The trains that were previously used as back-up were built way back in the 1970s and have very poor provision for disabled passengers. The trains to be transferred are better equipped for the disabled, but they are not fully compliant with the regulations and the Act. That is why an exemption order is necessary. Given the very limited use of the vehicles in question—they are to be used as substitutes only when the other vehicles are not able to be used—and the support of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, the Government believe that this is a reasonable application. I beg to move. Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 7 February be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee and 25th Report from the Merits Committee]—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)