Transport (Wales) Bill

Clause 1 places upon the Welsh Assembly a general transport duty. Part of that duty will be to develop policies for the promotion and encouragement of safe, integrated, sustainable, efficient and economic transport facilities and services to, from and within Wales. Amendment No. 1 would require the Assembly to consider accessibility as another criterion when developing its transport policies. In fact, the technical specification of public transport vehicles to ensure that they are suitable for disabled people is not a devolved matter, and this Bill will not change that position. The UK Government are of course committed to providing an accessible public transport system and we have sympathy with the intention behind the amendment. However, the issue of accessibility of public transport vehicles has been adequately covered in other legislation. Physical access to public transport vehicles is covered in Part V of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 and the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 1998 were made under that Act. Turning to Amendment No. 4, Clause 1(3) makes it clear that walking and cycling are modes of transport for the purposes of the general transport duty. I would emphasise that the subsection deals with modes of transport rather than with meeting the needs of particular sectors of society. Again, we have sympathy with the intention behind the amendment. Clause 1 has been drafted so that the Assembly will be under a duty to meet the needs of all people in and travelling through Wales. This includes the elderly and the disabled. The proposed amendment is not legally necessary and, in our view, would add nothing to the provisions of the Bill. Amendment No. 6 would require the Assembly to provide a timetable of its proposals for making transport more accessible for disabled and elderly people in the Wales Transport Strategy. The strategy will be a broad policy statement setting out the Assembly’s visions and priorities for the transport system in Wales. This will form the basis on which programmes for the future delivery of transport infrastructure and services will be formulated, including the trunk-road programme and local transport plans. It would not be appropriate to include detailed proposals about improving accessibility, including timescales, in the strategy itself. This will depend on a range of factors, including the amount of funding available to take the strategy forward. Instead, the Assembly will make it clear to local authorities that they should consider the inclusion of measures to make transport more accessible in the next round of local transport plans. Amendment No. 9 would place a requirement in the Bill that the Welsh Assembly Government should consult representatives of elderly and disabled persons in the development of the Wales transport strategy. We appreciate the spirit of the amendment, but we do not think that it is necessary as representatives of the elderly or disabled will be consulted. Indeed, representatives of these groups were consulted on the draft Bill as part of the pre-legislative process. Transport is a complex area, with a wide range of interested parties, including service providers, network managers, local authorities, regulatory bodies and, not least, passengers and road users. The Assembly would not prepare or amend the strategy without an extensive public consultation involving all interested parties. We do not feel it appropriate in those circumstances to single out the elderly and disabled in the Bill, but of course we recognise the great importance of these two categories. Amendment No. 10 is intended to ensure that local authorities publish their local transport plans in a variety of formats to ensure that they are accessible to all people. Again we support the intention behind the amendment, but we feel it is not needed. The clause has been drafted using standard legal phraseology, which is similar to that used in the legislation for traffic orders and development plans. I can give the Committee an absolute assurance that the Welsh Assembly Government will include a clear and unambiguous recommendation in the statutory guidance they will issue to local authorities for the next round of local transport plans that these plans should be made available in a range of accessible formats. Given that, it is not appropriate to specify this in the Bill. I hope that the explanations I have given on the amendments tabled are satisfactory, and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.