Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Networks) Exemption Order 2009

My Lords, I have one question for the Minister and one comment. I start with the 20-day exemption under which a heritage vehicle may be used on the main line. Many heritage railways operate where mainline trains operate—in future more will probably do so—and therefore the heritage railway will meet the national railway on perhaps 120 days a year. I am sure that, without my reciting them, the Minister will be able to tell the Committee the number of places where that situation exists. I should like an assurance from him that, where there is, as it were, a junction between the heritage railway and the national rail network, those places will not be subject to some sort of 20-day limitation. That would be totally artificial because people go on the national railway for the purpose of getting on to the heritage railway. In fact, I think that some heritage railways would do rather badly if that did not happen. My other point is that, in his introduction, the Minister recited the fact that the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Networks) Exemption Order provides for all railway vehicles to be compliant with the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act by, I think, 2021. This is probably a leading and contentious question, but how does the Department for Transport propose to meet that deadline, with proper accessibility provision in all vehicles, bearing in mind that there is an absence of orders for new vehicles and you cannot go through a period of famine and suddenly catch up with yourself after a few years have elapsed? I foresee that the Government will be obliged to come back and ask for further exemptions because the vehicles will not be available. I refer in particular to the cancellation by the Government of the order for 200 diesel vehicles. Although that rests on the premise that much of the railway will be electrified, I somehow think that the process of electrification will take rather longer than the Government think and that we will see some pretty old and inaccessible vehicles continuing in use at the expiry of the exemption period.