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Rail Vehicle Accessibility Exemption Orders (Parliamentary Procedures) Regulations 2008

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Exemption Orders (Parliamentary Procedures) Regulations 2008. The noble Lord said: Without accessible transport, disabled people are limited in their ability to lead a full and fulfilling life. Noble Lords have always demonstrated a keen interest in the accessibility of rail vehicles and that is why we are now debating these orders. At the express wish of the House, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 secured greater scrutiny of applications for exemptions from parts of the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations. Under the 2005 Act, exemption orders became subject to the draft affirmative resolution procedure. However, it was acknowledged that this would not be appropriate in every circumstance, and therefore the Act provided for the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations that set out the basis for making a decision on which parliamentary procedure to use when making exemption orders. Such regulations form the first instrument before us today, the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Exemption Orders (Parliamentary Procedures) Regulations 2008. These set the criteria that the Secretary of State will use when deciding which parliamentary procedure should be followed and include, for example, the age of the vehicles and the length of time for which an exemption is requested. Parliament agreed that the Secretary of State should retain discretion to adopt a different procedure for a particular order having regard to representations from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, the Government’s statutory advisers on the public passenger transport needs of disabled people. I turn to the second order, the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Victoria Line 09TS Vehicles) Exemption Order 2008. This order is fully supported by the DPTAC, Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate and London TravelWatch, which is the official organisation representing the interests of transport users in London. The order will allow LU to introduce new trains on the Victoria line that have features not currently permitted by RVAR but which provide benefits for disabled people. The order also allows LU to resolve some of the challenges that the regulations present in the short term to a deep level metro service with high frequencies, inaccessible stations and a mix of old and new vehicles. These new vehicles will be the first for London Underground to be subject to accessibility regulations. The order contains four distinct provisions. First, it allows LU to use an audible door warning which is shorter than required under RVAR while the older vehicles are being phased out. This allows a consistent warning to be given on both the new vehicles and the older, unregulated fleet, to avoid confusion. Secondly, the order allows LU to vary, on a trial basis, the announcements made on the train while it is at a station. That allows them to determine whether other information, such as details about connections, would be more useful on a metro-style service than those mandated by RVAR. Thirdly, the order allows LU to use a smaller text size on public information screens inside the new vehicles. The current requirement was based on larger vehicles. On the Victoria line no one will be more than three metres from a screen, and the reduced size will allow the screens to display appropriate pictures that are particularly useful for people with learning disabilities, while still following best practice on text height relative to reading distance from the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Finally, the order will allow exemptions from the requirement for step-free access between the train and the platform at specific stations. The exemptions reduce as stations gain step-free access to the platforms, ensuring seamless travel. This allows London Underground to integrate the work required with its wider step-free access programme at stations. Not only will this reduce the disruption caused by the work, it will also reduce the risk of a wheelchair user being stranded on the platform at an inaccessible station. These orders are supported by stakeholders and seem to us to be sensible in the circumstances. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Exemption Orders (Parliamentary Procedures) Regulations 2008. 28th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 31st Report from the Merits Committee.—(Lord Adonis.)