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Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Interoperable Rail System) Regulations 2008

I have a couple of brief comments. My noble friend has drawn attention to how the exemptions were dealt with. I think that I am the only Member of the Committee who took part in the whole passage of the Disability Discrimination Act, during which we had long and sometimes bitter arguments, and long and bloody battles, about ensuring that we kept control of these exemptions and monitored them. As luck would have it, I was also a member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee when we first noticed the number of exemptions. The first exemption I saw was about a vintage railway system. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, would agree on this, but my attitude to that exemption was: if you are a person in a wheelchair who wants a 1930s travel experience, by all means go in the guards van along with the mailbags, but if you are using a train as a commuter in the modern age, you require slightly better standards. Let us not forget that improved accessibility in getting on and off trains also tends to help other people as well. It is almost a truism, but accessibility for those in wheelchairs tends also to help those pushing prams or carrying heavy bags. Such changes benefit the public as a whole. I am afraid that the rail industry has resisted these changes and commented that there should perhaps be other priorities. It is an ongoing discussion and there are merits on both sides. But I think that that aspect should bear some weight in the discussion. As my noble friend pointed out, we have said that we want control over this because far too many exemptions have been granted in the past. If the department has a better lobby group than the disability lobby—and between the transport and disability lobbies there is an interesting tug of war—and the transport lobby gains access to the right ear, it is easy to see that exemptions may be passed rather too readily, as has happened. It would be a good step forward to ensure that Parliament is aware when these exemptions are passed. I look to the Minister for an assurance that we will have some way of checking this in future. We agree with the Merits Committee that the assurance we were given under the 2005 Act should still be valid. We should be able to see what is happening and check it. We do not have a good record here. In the past the transport lobby or the railways lobby seemed to get their way rather too readily.