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Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Interoperable Rail System) Regulations 2008

I am grateful to all noble Lords for their well-informed questions, which add to the debate’s value. We have had a useful brief discussion on these issues. I will come back to the Merits Committee point and exemptions as I wish to deal first with the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who, like me, is a fairly regular user of the rail network and enjoys its benefits and, no doubt, some of its discomforts, as we all do. He asked three questions which concerned primarily the refurbishment process and whether future refurbishments would be prejudiced in any way. I do not think that they will. The regulations certainly recognise previous RVAR compliance and I do not think that there will be a problem there. I understand why there might be concerns but I do not think that there will be any great difficulty in that regard. We have a good track record on this and we are ahead of the game. We are very familiar with the European standard. We are simply raising the bar a little but also taking careful account of compliance considerations. I heard what the noble Lords, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Berkeley, said about enforcement. We think it is right that there should be enforcement through Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate, which has an enviable track record of enforcement on safety matters. That is entirely consistent with its safety role. It is respected in the industry here and abroad for the way in which it operates, for the standards it sets and the valuable advice and guidance that it gives. Over the long history of our railway network the inspectorate has been an important element in improving safety standards and ensuring that, by and large, we travel in safety and in comfort on the network. Overcrowding was mentioned. We are now well into the procurement process for 1,300 additional carriages, which will be targeted on the busiest parts of the network. They will ease overcrowding and ensure that proper facilities are made available for people with particular needs. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, thinks but I consider that on my line from Brighton the rolling stock is of a very good standard and provides a good level of comfort. Those of us who have commuted for longer than we sometimes care to remember have certainly seen those standards improve. I think that there is very good space provision. It is obviously best to travel outside the rush hour, but the new trains and carriages have done a great deal to improve the quality of services. I do not think that we will have an issue there; and with the way in which the procurement process is working, being targeted at easing pinch points, there should ultimately be greater satisfaction with the service. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is, as ever, acute to the issues and well-versed in European concerns. I am grateful to him for supplying us with advanced warning of his questions. His first point was to request assurances that changes to the regulations will not set a precedent for retrospective application. Since 2001 we have made it clear that we intend to apply the accessibility regulations to rail vehicles introduced before the RVAR came into force and to set an end date for the national rail fleet to be accessible. In our view, the forthcoming replacement of the RVAR by the PRM TSI does not affect that commitment. The noble Lord also asked for confirmation about which trains will be required to be modified by the 2020 date and whether we will establish a programme for modification linked to other essential changes to rolling stock. Which trains operate past the end date is a commercial matter for vehicle owners. They have identified to the Department for Transport which fleets they believe may fall into that category, and officials are working with them and DPTAC to identify the work that needs to be put in place. This has largely been welcomed as allowing vehicle owners to plan and to include rectification work during other upgrades and in maintenance schedules, consequently reducing the impact on vehicle availability. With the concerns about overcrowding, that is very important. The noble Lord also asked whether we have the necessary budget to achieve full compliance by the 2020 date. The additional cost of setting the end date will generally be met in the first instance by the train owners who will recover them through increased leasing charges. When bidding for franchises, potential operators will take account of them in their bid, which will inform the amount of subsidy required from or premium paid to the Government. Finally, the noble Lord asked a question about the new conditions for the Southern franchise. He said that they make no mention of the need to take account of and to comply with the new regulations and asked whether it is the intention of the department to introduce these requirements for accessibility within the franchise and, for that matter, other franchises at the earliest possible date. The current consultation regarding the South Central franchise seeks stakeholders’ views on additional items to be included in the invitation to tender when it is issued later this year. As we stated during consultation on the draft regulations in front of us today, it is already the Government’s intention to specify accessibility works on a targeted basis for trains that bidders may be considering using in franchises in future. I do not think we should forget the significant improvements in accessibility that the rail industry has already delivered on older trains during the refurbishment process. We must not be complacent, but a pretty good job has been done, and that speaks volumes about the improvements that the rail service has enjoyed across the network and through the rail companies. We have taken the comments and concerns of the Merits Committee very seriously. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising them today. In response to the Merits Committee, the department did not propose making amendments to the interoperability regulations of 2006 in order to introduce a statutory instrument for derogations under the PRM TSI; that is not our preferred policy. We wish to retain consistency in the manner of handling derogations against other TSIs, especially on regulation principles. In the context of the interoperability regime, we believe that the SI route is disproportionate, especially when compared with the administrative manner of handling dispensations from station accessibility requirements to which the PRM TSI also applies. It has to be remembered that dispensations from bus and coach access regulations are handled administratively. This approach has not received adverse comment from the stakeholders that have been consulted, including DPTAC, which I would argue is a very authoritative body in this area. During the consultation process we made it very clear that we intend to use the exemption power to allow only those older PRVR trains that have minor non-compliances which make little or no difference to their accessibility but which can in many circumstances cost significant sums to rectify to continue to operate. The rail industry is very well aware that significant items such as passenger information systems, priority seats and wheelchair spaces must be provided. As a user, I would argue that those three things are of the utmost importance: they provide people with information in a timely way; there must be priority seating; and there must be very generous space allowances for wheelchairs so that there is proper movement. No adverse comments on this were received during consultation on the draft regulations; in particular, no adverse comments were received from the authoritative DPTAC body. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke about exemptions and derogations. Of the 60-odd exemptions granted to trains and trams in public use, some 40 or so were granted in the period 1999 to 2002, which reflects the fact that many vehicles had already been designed or were being manufactured at the time when our work was being introduced. Those vehicles were built mainly in compliance with the regulations, but in particular cases time-limited exemptions were granted to enable the vehicles to enter service, replacing far less accessible vehicles, while certain non-compliance issues were resolved. The noble Lord made a point about exemptions. I understand the concern, but one needs to qualify it with a realistic look at the content of some of those exemptions and the impact on users. The user is the important element. I think I have answered most of the points. If I have not, I shall be happy to take further questions. We gave this very careful thought and consideration. I understand the concerns, but we are not in a bad place. One has to remember that the endgame is to raise the threshold, the standards, the bar, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve. We have made a great deal of progress in that objective.