My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who, as usual, brings his accounting experience to make us think about things in a slightly different way. It has also been really good to hear three maiden speeches. The noble Lords, Lord Grayling and Lord Cryer, spoke from very different perspectives but their experience and knowledge shone through and we look forward to hearing more from them in the House.
It was a real pleasure to hear the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Pidgeon. I have known her for some years too, and her expertise on transport in the Greater London Assembly was second to none. She is a tireless campaigner on improving transport for people, making it more reliable and more accessible. That is how we got to know each other. I believe that she will make as strong a mark in your Lordships’ House as she did in the GLA.
Other noble Lords have already demonstrated their knowledge of the structure of the current railway system and expressed their views on this first step of ensuring that public sector operators can be awarded contracts without us having to go to private ones. I want to focus on a key element of Labour’s paper Get Britain Moving, which is not particularly evident in this Bill but which I think is vital. It will not surprise noble Lords to hear that this element is accessibility and assistance services.
Get Britain Moving has a key thread of accessibility and ensuring that assistance is available to all passengers who need it. Indeed, accessibility is in three of the five missions in the paper: “Get Britain building again”, “Get the NHS back on its feet” and “Break down barriers to opportunity”. The contrast with the Bill that we are talking about today, its Explanatory Memorandum and the final-stage impact assessment could not be more stark. Accessibility and assistance are virtually invisible.
The Minister may say that they will come later, but the problem is that, in Clause 2(2)(b) of the Bill, the provision of services means that there will be no improvement in accessibility unless there is a specified change, because it talks about transferring existing arrangements over. If access arrangements at the moment are unsatisfactory and not meeting the law under the Equality Act 2010 provisions for disabled people, will the Government ensure that any new provision of services does meet these legal access requirements?
Why does it matter? The last Government and the present Government have kept talking about Great British Rail services, but the reality is that every part of the rail service structure that disabled passengers need to use is struggling. Transport for All and Disability Rights UK campaign constantly on this. Some of this is the responsibility of the train operating companies and some the responsibility of Network Rail.
I am so glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is in her place. Most noble Lords will have heard that, a few weeks ago, she was left on a train at King’s Cross late at night. No one came to assist her. She had to get out of her chair, crawl from the floor of the train on to the platform, lift her chair down on to the platform and then get back into it. As she says, despite everyone being horrified—I agree with her on that—this happens every day to disabled people. For those like me with electric chairs, pulling chairs off the train is not an answer. When it has happened to me, twice, at King’s Cross late at night, I have had to work out who to ring. I cannot ring the police as it is not urgent. I cannot ring 111; no one will answer until next week. I cannot ring the station because nobody answers the phone. What do you do at midnight? The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, came to my rescue on one of those occasions. She tweeted the chief executive of LNER and he managed to find someone to come and find me. She is a star.
But it is not just about understaffed assistance services. It is also the infrastructure at stations, including lifts and the lack of level boarding. The Campaign for Level Boarding rightly points out that the new Thanet Parkway, opened a year ago this July, still does not have level boarding and does not have full-time staff at
the station. The purchase of different types and styles of trains means that every station has to use multiple ramps and some train operating companies no longer have staff other than the driver on trains to help you get off when there are no staff at the station. Disabled passengers were promised TUAG—turn up and go—years ago. The cuts and poor infrastructure mean that we have a much worse service. These days, even if we have booked in advance, we are often told when we turn up at a station, “We will absolutely do our best to get you on your planned train but we are very short-staffed; it may not be possible”. This is madness.
Ten days ago, I had to travel from Watford Junction to York for a regular meeting. I always allow more time between Euston and King’s Cross in case of delays. When I arrived at Watford Junction there was a fatality on the line, no trains were going anywhere and the staff, despite dealing with the emergency, managing a distressing situation, found me to tell me to go to St Albans on the Thameslink line instead. They undertook to let King’s Cross know that I would miss my train to York and asked staff at King’s Cross to help me get on another train. It was difficult, because they are often fully booked.
When I got to St Albans, it transpired the lift from the entrance to help get me to the middle platform was out of order. So, to get to it, I had to go to back up to the main road, over the railway ridge and down the other side. I could not cross over where everyone else did because there was no dropped curve. So I had to go down to the traffic lights, cross the road and go back up to the other entrance to St Albans station, through the ticket barrier, all the way down the platform to the far end to the lift.
The staff said the next train was in seven minutes and asked if I could make it. The answer was that I could not. So, while I was chatting to staff waiting for the next train to St Pancras, they informed me that the lift at St Pancras was not working, either. I had to go on to Farringdon. When I got to Farringdon, I got out and asked the lovely assistance person, “So I go up and come down the other side?” He said, “No, you can’t do that because there is only one lift at St Pancras. It is the same one that’s out of order. You have to go out of the station, find the Underground and find the assistance staff, who will take you down to the Circle Line and you get off at King’s Cross”.
By this stage, my blood pressure was going through the roof. I certainly missed the train that was planned for York, but the one wonderful thing that happened when I got to King’s Cross was that not only Euston but Watford had rung King’s Cross and they had checked to find me a space on every possible train in that gap. So I did not make the beginning of the meeting, but I got there for the end. All the staff at every stage were wonderful: encouraging, supportive and as helpful as they could be.
This is not unusual. My story is exactly the same as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We know that this happens to people every day. The lift at St Pancras has been out for weeks. This is affecting thousands of disabled people wanting to get to work.
The new Government rightly say that they want to see more disabled people getting into work. We cannot get to work. This is vital.
The New Civil Engineer newsletter on 2 September noted that the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, who cannot be in his place and who was then chair of Network Rail, had said that Access for All was underperforming, with underspending on accessible capital works including £65 million of funding between 2019 and 2024 for accessible capital equipment at stations, including lifts.
In February, the German travel booking company Omio found that the UK ranked among the least accessible railway nations and reported
“alarming inadequacies for individuals with disability in national rail transport”
in the UK. Part of the problem is that Network Rail operates regionally and, with the TOCs having their own standards and their own systems, there is no consistency in provision.
By the way, the long-awaited Access for All portfolio sponsorship office has been delayed again. We are all still waiting for the DfT-commissioned AtkinsRéalis accessibility audit of all the over 2,500 stations, which was one of the recommendations in the Williams-Shapps plan for rail in 2021. So can the Minister outline how the Government will assure us that, as a matter of urgency, their priorities so ably discussed in Getting Britain Moving are put into action for this Bill before any franchise transfer happens? Because, until then, disabled people will not be able to rely on our rail system.
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