My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, for introducing this Bill, and echo the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Boateng and Lord Borwick, on the exceptional parliamentary skills and abilities that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, has. I also thank the Minister for her very helpful letter.
From these Benches we support this Bill, even though its scope is necessarily limited. I absolutely echo the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, who really understands the problems facing wheelchair users attempting to access taxis. I thank him for his work over three decades in improving the system in London. He spoke of Hackneys, but as a wheelchair user, Uber and other similar private hire vehicles are a total disaster. It is long overdue that disabled passengers are not charged more than other passengers, so I am pleased to see this in the Bill. On the thorny issue of disability training of taxi and PHV drivers, which is also important, it is not a perfect answer to the problem that disabled people face at the hands of the few unthinking taxi drivers, whether trained or not.
The issues that visually impaired and other assistance dog users face with drivers are appalling. As with problems that wheelchair users face, the continuing rejection of assistance dogs remains a disgrace. Disability training is part of the solution to this, as well as the clear and simple duty to carry passengers with assistance dogs. Some local authorities insist that all taxis and PHV drivers that they license undergo disability training, while others will just encourage it. It must be compulsory, but they also must train drivers on how to think, rather than giving them one solution to each different type of disability.
I have had taxi drivers proudly tell me that they have “done the training” and then insist that they push my electric wheelchair up their ramp, which is very dangerous, to them and to me. I have been pushed off the side by one enthusiastic driver at Euston station and ended up balancing precariously over the edge of the ramp. Then, thank goodness, other taxi drivers came to my aid before my chair fell. This is vital, because if a chair falls on to a user, you can break both legs, as happened to Baroness Wilkins after an accident on the Parliamentary Estate some years ago. I still miss her expertise on disability matters, and hope that she is enjoying her retirement.
I have also had drivers telling me, as they sucked in their breath, “I can’t take you because your chair’s too heavy.” Even when I asked what the limit was for their ramp and said how much my chair and I weighed, which had to be less than 200 kilograms, one still refused to take me, quoting the Equality Act, wrongly. That was at Brighton station. He was confident in his assertions because he had “done the training”. I have had drivers telling me to get out of my chair and that they will then deal with the chair because they are using the training that they have had for manual chairs, not for electric chairs. Therefore, while training is vital, it must be appropriate.
I was a member of the Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability, which published its report in 2016. The section on taxis noted that Section 165 and some other sections of the Equality Act 2010 had still not been fully commenced, meaning that there is still no duty for taxi drivers and PHVs:
“to carry the passenger while in the wheelchair; … not to make any additional charge for doing so; … if the passenger chooses to sit in a passenger seat, to carry the wheelchair; … to take such steps as are necessary to ensure that the passenger is carried in safety and reasonable comfort; ... to give the passenger such mobility assistance as is reasonably required.”
As the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, pointed out, it is reduced in its powers by Section 167—the list of accessible vehicles—but there is also a practical problem with extending the list of accessible vehicles, which is entirely due to the way that taxi licences work outside London. The problem is that outside London hackney drivers usually buy the cast-offs of London cabbies, which at least now tend to have ramps, even if they are not maintained properly, because taxi drivers outside London have a substantially reduced audience for fares and therefore a much lower income. There is much less private car ownership in London, which is one reason why hackneys have done well over the years. I say sorry to all the cabbies who might read this because I know that they do not believe their income is good, but compared with that of those in rural areas, it is. This means that drivers outside London cannot afford the capital investment required to buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle—a WAV. The other problem is that they do not have the capacity to work together with manufacturers and a group of licensing authorities in the way that happened in London. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, on his work on that because it made a real difference.
Noble Lords will be aware that the deregulation of the number of taxi licenses has meant that in rural areas there are, frankly, too many cabbies touting for business, and they struggle to get a living from it. This is not an apology, but an explanation of the problem because the problem for disabled passengers will not be resolved until there are enough wheelchair taxis available.
I shall focus on the problem we face outside London. The handful of wheelchair accessible vehicles in most areas usually have county council contracts to drive disabled children to special schools. That means that in Watford—and from my travels around the country in my past role as president of my party I know that it happens in many other places—you cannot get a wheelchair taxi between 7.30 am and 9.15 am or between 2.30 pm and 4.30 pm. You cannot get one in the evening either because those taxis work only during the day. That means that wheelchair passengers outside London do not get the choice of when to use a taxi, so frankly it is pretty useless.
The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made an important point about WAVs being available as well as about the lack of charging points being critical. What he did not mention is that far too many of the motorway service stations that have been adding EV charging units have done so by taking out disabled spaces right next to the service station and literally moving the disabled spaces to the other side of the car park.
The noble Lord, Lord Mann, talked about using taxis to get to sporting venues. I have been a lifelong supporter of Southampton FC. I cannot guarantee getting a disabled taxi in Southampton, for all the reasons that have already been mentioned, but for the past 10 years I have been able either to take a train or to park my car on the edge of the city and get a bus to the St Mary’s Stadium because, ahead of many others, as the new stadium opened, wheelchair access on the bus service was ensured.
My noble friend Lord Addington made the important point that Ministers need to ensure that not only are the remaining gaps in disabled people’s access to taxis and PHVs completed but that all the provisions in the Equality Act are fully commenced and, equally importantly, reviewed to make sure that they are working. I am really concerned that the practical problems I have outlined for drivers outside London will not resolve the issue. We need to monitor this. I applaud the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, for a meeting with the Minister and the Minister for the Disabled. Can I cheekily ask whether I might be able to join that meeting?
Regardless of my concerns, I support the Bill. It is important that these steps are taken to go forward, but we need to be careful in thinking that this is going to be a universal answer to the access issues that disabled people face in getting taxis and private hire vehicles.
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