Transport (Wales) Bill

moved Amendment No. 1:"Page 1, line 4, at end insert ““accessible,””" The noble Lord said: I thank the noble Lord for his opening reminder of the inclemency of the weather outside and the hope that it will assist us in our Committee proceedings. The purpose of this amendment is to raise the provision of facilities suitable for elderly or disabled people to equal importance with safety, efficiency or sustainability. The ability to use transport facilities is critical to ensure that elderly or disabled people fully enjoy the opportunities that good public transport can open up for them. The provisions that the Bill will lead to should take accessibility into account from the very start. Amendment No. 1 is grouped with a number of others. I acknowledge my gratitude for these amendments to the Royal National Institute of the Blind Cymru, the Joint Committee on Mobility of Blind and Partially Sighted People and the Guide Dogs for the Blind association. They have all assisted in drafting these amendments, with special reference to the elderly and the disabled. Amendment No. 4 would establish that the transport facilities and services are equally suitable for disabled persons as for pedestrians and cyclists and that the elderly and disabled are included in the general transport duty, as expressed in Clause 1, rather than as it is expressed in Clause 7, which is confined to public passenger transport services. I am told that the Government have made a commitment to accessibility being a condition of any public money spent in support of their 10-year plan, Transport 2010, and not just public passenger transport services. The organisations which assisted me therefore consider that it would be more appropriate for the reference to accessibility and disabled people to begin in Clause1 and be part of the general transport duty. The disabled are one of the groups who stand to suffer most from an inadequate transport system. The RNIB Cymru told us that RNIB’s study, Lost Vision: older visually impaired people in the UK, found that 59 per cent of respondents never went out alone due to their difficulties of accessing public transport. This is obviously a major factor in increasing their isolation and exclusion, and taking the needs of the disabled into consideration should be the priority of the Bill. We are talking about some 100,000 such people in Wales. Amendment No. 6 aims to ensure that the policies relating to facilities for elderly and disabled people are clearly and publicly announced to ensure their implementation. The Minister has assured us that a code of practice for disabled passengers will be published for England and Wales by the Secretary of State in consultation with the National Assembly of Wales, but that is mentioned nowhere in the Bill. This code will be of great importance to many people and it should be given greater prominence than is now the case. Amendment No. 9 encourages the Assembly to consult relevant bodies on ways in which public transport can be made more accessible to the elderly or the disabled. I have already referred to the conglomeration of groups who have briefed me for this Committee; they emphasise the importance of ensuring that proper accessibility measures are put in place as a result of consultation. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that consultation with bodies such as those that I have mentioned would ensure that the proposals are well targeted and effective. Finally, Amendment No. 10 is designed to ensure that the local transport plan is available to everyone it affects. As it stands, the Bill ensures that this plan is available to the public at a low cost, but it does not ensure that it will be available in a suitable format for disabled people—there are all kinds of disability, particularly concerned with sight and so on. It is important that that information is available in a form that is understandable by disabled people, whatever their disabilities might be, so that they have the same access to the plans as the rest of the public. I beg to move.