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Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Metropolitan Line S8 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2010

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for his clear introduction of the order. I should say immediately that it is largely uncontentious, although it raises some issues about the amount of time that will elapse before Metropolitan line trains are fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. We appreciate that the consultation has been undertaken on this and that broadly there seem to be few disagreements with the order. We appreciate that the Metropolitan line is the oldest Tube line and therefore was not built to accommodate the standards that we now demand: that disabled people should be able to travel without hindrance, or with as little hindrance as possible, to enable them to live as full lives as possible. The uniformity of the timing of announcements across all the trains seems to make sense as it means that the wheelchair-bound, who need to know how long they have to exit or enter the train, can do so with confidence, and the timing announcements are of course invaluable to blind people, who rely on them to enable them to judge when they should, in particular, leave the train. We accept that the 1.75-second amendment to the order, to be held for the time being, is sensible across the piece. A change to three seconds would be of greater benefit, but we assume that that will come in due course if the timing of the trains can also be sorted out—that seems to be a problem as well. The one major area of concern is, of course, step-free access. While I hear what the Minister says about the humps that will be used, which seem to be a perfectly useful and sensible measure, without step-free access the trains are unavailable to those in wheelchairs and, it has to be said, to mothers with buggies. I know we are talking here about disabled access but there are other people in the world who have moveable vehicles, and mothers with buggies are among them. As a result of this, they will continue to have to use other stations or make different journeys for a number of years to come. Step-free access is also germane in the context of movement from the station entrance to the platforms. If there are no lifts or escalators then wheelchair users and mothers with buggies cannot get to the trains. I noticed that this matter is being looked at, and the salient remark was made that people should not be allowed to get out of trains on to a platform to which there is no step-free access, but this is a continuing problem. There are a number of stations in London, not only on the Metropolitan line, where it is just impossible for anyone who has any wheels at all to get themselves down to the Tube. Will the Minister explain in more detail what plans are being made to provide step-free platform access and entrance-to-platform access, and who is responsible for the latter provision—the mayor or LUL? The Minister explained this quite clearly but it is important to establish it: is it correct that a significant number of stations will never be able to accept trains that are compliant because the platforms themselves cannot structurally be made to fit the trains or to be accessible to them? We ought to be clear that there will be, as I think the Minister said, nine platforms that will never be accessible for these trains. With regard to the provision of accessible trains so that all the trains on this line will comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, 2020 has been cited as the date by which all trains will be compliant. I think 5,600 trains out of 26,000 have already been done, but what progress is being made to ensure that the target will be met, and are there any contractual disciplines to ensure that it is? With that, we are happy to accept these orders.