That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Metropolitan Line S8 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2010.

My Lords, this House has always demonstrated a keen interest in the accessibility of rail vehicles, and that is why we are here today. We know that, without public transport that they can use, disabled people are limited in their ability to get to work, visit friends and family, participate in leisure activities or access healthcare and education facilities. The Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 1998—or RVAR—are just one example of the action we have taken to ensure that public transport services are increasingly available to the estimated 11 million disabled people in the United Kingdom.

More than a third of the national rail fleet, more than 5,600 vehicles, is already compliant with RVAR, and almost all older rail vehicles have been made more accessible during refurbishment. We have also set an end date of 1 January 2020, by which time all rail vehicles must be accessible.

However, it is sometimes not possible for new trains to meet the requirements of RVAR in full and the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Metropolitan Line S8 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2010 will allow London Underground to introduce new trains on the Metropolitan line which are fully compliant with RVAR in all but five respects. These can be directly traced to the significant operational and infrastructure challenges that London Underground faces and are similar to those granted by Parliament for London Underground’s new Victoria line trains in 2008. These were the first London Underground trains to be built to modern accessibility standards and we learned a number of lessons during that process which have been applied here to the new Metropolitan line stock to minimise a number of exemptions which are necessary.

The first and second exemptions requested relate to audible and visual warnings of door closure. They will allow LU to use an audible and visual door-closure warning which is shorter than that required by RVAR—1.75 seconds as opposed to three seconds. Until all the new trains are delivered, they must run alongside existing vehicles which were designed in the 1960s and consequently fail to meet many aspects of modern accessibility standards. I should share with the Committee the information that I grew up in Metroland and travelled daily to school on those A-stock trains from the first day of their introduction over 50 years ago.

As there will be a mixture of new and old vehicles on the Metropolitan line until 2013 and on the other sub-surface lines until May 2015, it would be confusing and potentially hazardous to have two different durations of door-closure warnings on the same route. As it would be difficult and wasteful to change the warnings on existing trains for the one or two years that they remain in service, allowing London Underground to continue with its current warning periods will provide consistency and allow disabled people to be confident about what the warning actually means.

London Underground is already committed, as part of the terms of its similar Victoria line exemption, to undertake a trial to establish whether a compliant warning is appropriate for its operations without impacting on the safety of all passengers once all its new trains are introduced in 2013. The results will inform the position on the Metropolitan line and future policy in this area.

The third exemption relates to the announcements made on board the train at each station. RVAR requires both the next stop and terminating station to be announced while the train is stationary at a station. This requirement was originally included to enable passengers to distinguish between fast and stopping services. For key sections of the Metropolitan line, where there are branch lines and junctions or where there is a choice between fast and stopping services, we have insisted that compliant announcements be made. However, at certain non-key sections—by that I mean, predominantly, the stretch between Aldgate and Baker Street, where there are no branches or junctions and all trains stop at all stations—the exemption will allow some, but not all, of the mandated information to be given during transit between some stations instead.

To insist on the provision of all the mandated information at these stations would greatly limit the amount of other information that can be given to passengers at that time, such as connections to other routes and services. Additionally, some platforms on the line will be shorter than the trains arriving there, and London Underground wishes to use the passenger information system to ensure that customers move towards an opening door in time for them to alight should they wish to. Again, similar exemptions were granted for London Underground’s new Victoria line fleet and it is undertaking a trial to determine what announcements passengers find most useful. These results will inform future policy.

The fourth exemption will allow the placement of a horizontal handrail in the designated wheelchair spaces on each train. This recognises the level of crowding which passengers on Metropolitan line services can experience at peak times and addresses concerns about standing customers falling against or on to wheelchair users due to the lack of an appropriate handrail or other support in this area. This is an issue that we have sought to address in revised RVAR regulations, which we expect to introduce later this year. Consultation on a draft of those regulations, completed in 2009, indicates unanimous stakeholder support for this amendment and will render similar exemptions unnecessary in future.

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.

We, too, support the order. In many respects the railway outside London is very old, as is much of its rolling stock, and the modifications necessary to meet these standards will be incredibly expensive. The noble Baroness touched on the subject of stations to which there will be no step-free access, and at many of these the cost of providing lifts will be very high. One of the problems in a democracy is deciding where limited money will be spent; in the end, we have to make judgments that some people may find unacceptable but which the majority may accept. The order is a good and clear agreement as to what can best be done.

As to the introduction of new rolling stock, both for London Underground and the big railway, there will be a lot of obstacles between now and the date that the new rolling stock will become available. The Government have still not published their rolling stock plan for the big railway and London Transport is in tremendous contractual trouble as a result of the PFI arrangements that the Government introduced and which were supported manifestly by the Prime Minister. It is difficult to see how the necessary rolling stock will be provided to meet the dates outlined.

I shall make one other point that is not strictly related to London Underground. Disability discrimination legislation applies equally, of course, to road transport, with which I am more familiar, and bus companies have invested hugely in buses that kneel and that have ramps, visible handrails, audible warnings, visual warnings and so on. However, the Government have manifestly failed to deal with the big objection that often these buses cannot berth alongside the kerb because of the flagrant breaches of parking restrictions that are allowed. On the railways we have the benefit that the train will pull up at the platform; unfortunately, bus passengers have no guarantee whatever that the bus will be able to get to the kerb.

The Government have major problems but, having made those points, I will happily otherwise support the order.

My Lords, I am most grateful to both noble Lords for their contributions. We now have a happy tradition where the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I debate these issues more or less on our own, quite often in this Room. We have done so again today. I thank them both most sincerely for the constructive and helpful speeches they have made. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, strayed a little wide of the order relating to the Metropolitan line, and I hope he will appreciate that I cannot comment on access to buses today. However, I am sure that he, with his usual ingenuity, will find an opportunity to return to that subject at some stage in the future

I am able to answer the questions that the noble Baroness put to me. She rightly drew attention to the problems at stations where, at present, we have no solution, normally because the levels are wrong or because they are severely curved. As I said in my opening speech, the exemption does not have a time limit applied to it for the 12 stations for which it is sought. We accept that there are problems there. The mayor is responsible for allocating the budget for London Underground and how he allocates the budget in this area is a matter for him. Some of the work required would be very expensive and it is he who will have to decide what the correct priorities are.

However, the order ensures that the platforms listed in the schedule are made step-free by the exemption dates. As a consequence, the number of exemptions should fall as the works are completed. I am sure that London Underground will note very carefully what the noble Baroness said about mothers with buggies—or, indeed, dads with buggies. They, too, need to get on and off trains. She is right to draw attention to them.

The noble Baroness also asked about the progress being made to ensure that the 2020 RVAR target is being met and whether any contractual difficulties are being experienced. So far, as I said, 5,600 vehicles are already compliant out of a total fleet of about 16,000. The department is working closely with industry and with DPTAC to ensure that the end date is met. That has already included work to bring the older vehicles up to compliance in recent franchises—that is a condition of new franchises. At this stage, we do not expect contractual issues to get in the way of meeting the 2020 target.

What contractual constraints are on the company to deliver by 2020? Presumably, conditions are attached to the contract or the delivery date not being met. There must be something that says that the contract must be delivered at a certain time and that, if it is not, what the penalties are.

Yes, the penalties are in the legislation and the requirement to make vehicles compliant is part of the new franchises, so a train operator that failed to comply—as I said, we have no knowledge that there is likely to be any difficulty in this area—would be in breach of its franchise, with the implications of that for the continuation of the franchise.

Would the Minister clarify that? We are talking principally about the Metropolitan line, where there is no franchise, is there not?

I think that the noble Baroness was referring to the compliance of the national railway.

I was referring to the contract that must at the moment be in place for the new trains and for the improvements to be made to the old trains. I was asking: in that contract, what are the penalties if it is not met?

I apologise to the noble Baroness for misunderstanding her. I thought that she was asking about the national picture. The position with the Metropolitan line is that all the new trains are capable of complying with the regulations now. With the order, we are effectively holding back the implementation of the RVAR regulations so that the new trains can run on the same track alongside the stock that I used to go to school on in 1960, the A-stock trains. Those trains are being progressively phased out. By 2015 the whole of the Metropolitan line will be served by the new trains, and they will all be fully compliant.

Will the date be met? The tension I am trying to get at is that we have these exemptions coming in. As I understand it, the new trains are all due to be delivered by 2020. What are the penalties to the company if they are not? It is not the exemptions to the disability Act that I am worried about at the moment; it is what happens if the trains that we are exempting are not built and ready. What are the penalties to the company for that?

I think that the noble Baroness may be misunderstanding one of the elements in the order. The order exempts the new trains temporarily so that they can run in an identical manner to the 50 year-old A stock. Those trains will be compliant when they are the only trains operating on the Metropolitan line. The other exemptions that we are discussing under the order are the exemptions that apply to things such as stations, which in the majority of cases can be met but, as I said earlier, there are 12 stations where we cannot put an end date on the exemption because the engineering work that would be required is too considerable. The trains on the Metropolitan line will all be compliant by 2015; what will not be compliant by 2015 are all the stations. There will still be stations that, because of their curves, will not be compliant.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked about the Government publishing their rolling stock plan. Again, that goes a little wide of the order, but I can tell him that the plan is still under development and we will be writing to the committee with the details when the work is completed.

My Lords, I should not like Hansard to indicate that I had not understood what the order was about. I think I have probably indicated that I did understand it, but I was widening the issue slightly to say that these trains are due to be provided by 2020. There must be some contractual arrangement by which they are provided by 2020 fully compliant, and, if they are not, there must be some contractual penalties. I do not mind if the Minister does not have the answer, but that was my question. I agree that it went slightly wider than the order, but I want it to be understood that I understand what the order is about.

The noble Baroness is right to press this matter. From my understanding, there is no contractual obligation because the company responsible, Metronet, has gone into liquidation. Does LUL simply pick up what the bankrupt company has left and does it have to adopt all the contractual obligations? It seems a very strange way for a company in liquidation to perform.

I certainly did not wish to imply that the noble Baroness had not understood the details. It is obviously my fault for not understanding what she was saying and I apologise for that.

The position is that the Secretary of State is required to ensure that all rail vehicles are compliant by 2020, except the heritage vehicles, which we debated some while ago and which are exempted indefinitely for reasons that we agreed at that time. New trains have to be compliant from the moment they come in. Therefore, all the new trains that come in on London Underground will be compliant unless an exemption is sought for operational reasons. In the case of Metropolitan line trains, the operational reason is the fact that the new trains are running on the same track and offering exactly the same service to customers as the 1960 A-stock vehicles. When the A-stock vehicles are withdrawn, the new trains will become entirely compliant and the exemptions will no longer need to apply. The contractual obligation is indeed on the Government and on Transport for London because that is what the law says: it is what happens with new rolling stock coming in after the passage of the legislation. I hope that, with those answers, I have satisfied the Committee.