HC Deb 21 July 1987 vol 120 cc272-8

Lords amendment: No. 44, in page 15, leave out lines 39 and 40.

Mr. David Mitchell

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 46 to 48, 50 to 52, 56, 58, 62, 65, 66 and 73.

Mr. Mitchell

These are technical amendments concerned with clarifying the way in which the legal status of regulations of the intergovernmental commission is reflected in the Bill. As a result of this clarification it becomes possible to delete certain provisions as superfluous.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

8 pm

Mr. Deputy Speaker

We now come to Lords amendment No. 45, together with the other Lords amendments and amendments to the Lords amendments.

Mr. David Mitchell

May I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that the right hon. Member for—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I am sorry. I should explain to the House that we are in the same situation as we were in on an earlier amendment. In other words, the debate takes place on amendment No. 45 and it will be appropriate to discuss the Lords amendments on the Amendment Paper, together with amendments (a), (b) and (c).

Lords amendment: No. 45, in page 15, line 41, leave out "or direction" and insert "direction or certificate".

Mr. Mitchell

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

"(4) The Concessionaires shall not convey any passengers by means of shuttle trains at any time when there is not in force a certificate issued by the Intergovernmental Commission stating—

  1. (a) that the Commission are satisfied with a code of practice relating to the conveyance by means of shuttle trains of persons who are disabled which has for the time being been adopted by the Concessionaires; and
  2. (b) that the code of practice has been published in a manner approved by the Commission.

(5) Such a code of practice must contain—

  1. (a) a statement of any description of such persons not intended to be conveyed by means of shuttle trains, with reasons;
  2. (b) details of provision for ensuring the safety of such persons in the tunnel system, in particular the safety in the event of an emergency of such persons being conveyed by means of shuttle trains; and
  3. (c) information relating to such other matters affecting the conveyance by means of shuttle trains of persons who are disabled as the Commission may specify.

(6) Contravention of the restriction imposed by subsection (4) above may be restrained by an order of the High Court made on an application by the Intergovernmental Commission."

Amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 10, at end insert `and after consultation with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee'.

Amendment (b) to the Lords amendment, leave out lines 11 to 13 and insert— '(5) Such a code of practice shall be drawn up in consultation with organisations of disabled people and shall require: (a) Provisions for the conveyance of all categories of disabled persons; and include;'.

Amendment (c) to the Lords amendment, line 12, after `persons,' insert `who in exceptional circumstances are'.

Mr. Mitchell

I hope that I shall have the leave of the House to speak again following the speech by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris).

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)

I rise to speak to the amendments (a), (b) and (c) in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which are deeply important to Britain's 5.5 million disabled people and their families.

On 6 July, I tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Transport asking if he would make provision in the Channel Tunnel Bill for adequate facilities to ensure the safety, comfort and convenience of people with disabilities travelling on trains through the proposed Channel tunnel. In reply, the Minister of State said that Eurotunnel's original submission to the Governments showed that it realised the need to make provision on their shuttle services for people with disabilities. He said it was now working closely with representatives of disabled people's organisations to establish their requirements and to see how they could best be met. British Rail, he said, had a firm commitment to providing for the needs of passengers with disabilities on all its major services; and the safety authority would need to be satisfied by the arrangements proposed. He concluded:

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient co consider amendments Nos. 49, 53 to 55, 57, 59 to 60. No. 61, in clause 18, in page 16, line 38, at end insert— Provision in the Channel Tunnel Bill is therefore unnecessary."—[Official Report, 6 July 1987: Vol. 119, c. 17.] Shortly afterwards the Minister of State wrote to me to say that the Government had changed their mind and that the Bill would be amended. The Bill was then amended in another place and I spoke urgently to the organisations representing disabled people about the adequacy of the Government's amendment. I found that they were anything but satisfied with the amendment, leaving me in some doubt about that part of the Minister's reply to me of 6 July which said that Eurotunnel was working closely with representatives of disabled people's organisations to establish their requirements". That ministerial statement, made to this House, very soon proved to be highly questionable. Let me quote, for example, a letter I received yesterday from the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. It says: We think the Government's new Clause could result in disabled people being refused access to the shuttle trains. We doubt that this is what the government intended but it is crucial that the clause is amended when the Bill returns to the Commons on…21 July. The letter went on: The first thing we need to ensure is that the code of practice is drawn up in consultation with disabled people and their organisations. The amendments on the Order Paper in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends were drafted in full consultation with the organisations concerned with disabled people and represent their view of what the House should now decide. My amendments will mean deleting a provision that could be used to prohibit people from travelling on the shuttle trains. That is a very serious matter in the view of the organisations I have consulted, and the Minister must now know that to be incontrovertibly true. At the very least the Minister must agree with the first of my amendments, which provides for consultation with the disabled persons transport advisory committee. It was the Department that set up the committee and it should be at once inconceivable and indefensible for it not to be consulted.

The House needs to know whether the Minister can assure us that the code of practice will not be agreed by the Government unless the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, which represents both transport operators and disabled people, is satisfied that it meets the needs of disabled passengers. I urge the Minister to give that assurance in the terms in which I have put it to him.

As the House knows, people with disabilities want to be a part of and not apart from society. To make that possible was the principal purpose of my own legislation for disabled people, which was so widely supported on both sides of both Houses of Parliament. For new laws to disadvantage disabled people would be unforgiveable and I most strongly urge the Minister to respond positively to amendments which, as I have made clear, have the total support of their organisations.

Mr. Aitken

I rise at this quiet moment to tell the House and my hon. Friend the Minister that the amendments so ably moved by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) have cross-party support and would be welcome. The right hon. Gentleman's work for disabled people and his tenure of office as Minister for the Disabled are well known and respected throughout the House.

The right hon. Gentleman may be a little surprised to know that he has run into one of the hurdles in his own field that many of us who have been studying the Channel Tunnel Bill for a long time have encountered before. That hurdle is an announcement by Eurotunnel that it is carrying out consultations. However, when we look closely we see that no such consultations, at least in any meaningful sense, have taken place. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the apparent lack of effective consultation with disabled groups despite an announcement that such consultations were taking place. I am sorry to say that is characteristic of the unfortunate management style and tactics of Eurotunnel in the past and they still prevail.

If the Bill went through without the right hon. Gentleman's amendment it would be a most unacceptable piece of anti-disabled people discrimination. In certain circumstances disabled people could conceivably be denied access to the trains. The very least that we can do is accept the right hon. Gentleman's first amendment. I have a further point, but as the right hon. Gentleman is not as familiar with the subject as those of us who have been on the Committee he may not appreciate it. If we look closely at the safety measures on these trains we see that one of the most outstanding and worrying features is the apparent lack of exit space for passengers who might have to get out of their cars in a hurry in the event of a fire or explosion or some such disaster on the train. This has troubled people who have studied the matter, and we have always been fobbed off with the announcement that a body called, I think, the Inter governmental Safety Commission or some such elaborately-named quango will get it all right on the night.

When one looks at the plans one sees problems that are real enough for ordinary people getting out of their cars and entering very narrow corridors and shoving and pushing against one another in an emergency. Those problems are real enough for healthy people, but for disabled people in wheelchairs the safety measures and the exits could make matters even more difficult and restrictive and perhaps positively dangerous. I should like to flag this anxiety in conjunction with the right hon. Gentleman's amendments. If Eurotunnel and the safety commission have to consult the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, there is some hope that the sort of fears that I have expressed can be overcome. If the amendment is rejected, there is no hope of that worry being buried. This is a very reasonable amendment and it was expertly moved. I support it and I believe that many of my hon. Friends, if they had been present, would have supported it also. I hope that my hon. Friend and the House will accept the amendment.

Mr. David Mitchell

It may help the House if, before I address the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), I explain the purpose and background of Lords amendment No. 45. The amendment was tabled by the Government on Third Reading in another place in response to a proposal on Report by the noble Baroness Lady Stedman. Its purpose is to require Eurotunnel to draw up and have approved by the Inter-governmental Commission before it begins to operate shuttle trains a code of practice relating to the carriage of disabled people. Once the code has been drawn up, it must be published in a manner which the commission must also approve. Certain requirements as to what the code of practice may contain are included in subsection (5) of the amendment.

Whereas the Government proposed the amendment in response to proposals by a Back Bencher in another place, the principle of including a provision of this type in the Bill was accepted by the Government from the time that it was proposed. Equally, we had no difficulty in obtaining the agreement of Eurotunnel or the French Government. It is entirely common ground that it is right that Eurotunnel should provide for the carriage of disabled people and that that should be written into the Bill.

I now come to the substance of the amendments proposed by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe. Amendment (a) and the first part of the amendment (b) deal with the need to consult representative organisations of disabled people about the drawing up of the code and the manner of its publication. The Government do not believe it is necessary to write these provisions into the Bill. However, I can tell the House that Eurotunnel has undertaken, in drawing up the code, to consult thoroughly representatives of disabled people through the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee as to the content and manner of its publication before submitting the code and the publication arrangements to the Inter govern-mental Commission for approval.

Mr. Alfred Morris

The assurance that I have asked for, after very close consultation with the organisations of and for disabled people, is that the code of practice will not be agreed by the Government unless the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee is satisfied that it meets the needs of disabled passengers. Can the Minister give that assurance? Is the answer yes or no?

Mr. Mitchell

There will be thorough consultation with representatives of disabled people through the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. The proposals which flow from that have to be approved by the Inter-governmental Commission. That should reassure the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that the assurances that have been given and which I have conveyed to the House and the right hon. Gentleman today, will be sufficient to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman that we have taken the matter very seriously. I hope that that shows that we have taken the spirit of what the right hon. Gentleman is seeking and can satisfy him of the reasonable extent that we can move in terms of legislation.

8.15 pm

The remaining amendments — the second part of amendment (b) and amendment (c) — concern the question of which categories of disabled people Eurotunnel should carry and which categories it will be permitted not to carry. To put this question in its context, I should remind the House that Eurotunnel's shuttle service is a vehicle-carrying service. It does not carry lone passengers, whether disabled or not, so when we consider the carriage of disabled people, we are talking of disabled people who are drivers or passengers in cars, coaches or minibuses. Subsection (5) of Lords amendment No. 61 then permits the concessionaires to exclude from the code of practice certain categories of disabled people, but if so, they must indicate why.

Let me make it quite clear that this does not mean Eurotunnel will be permitted to exclude wheelchair users or any other major group of people with disabilities. On the contrary, our intention is that disabled people should be carried on a full and equal basis with other passengers and I am sure that the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe would agree with that. The purpose of subsection (5) is to permit Eurotunnel not to carry those categories of people whose needs in terms of facilities and equipment are so complex that the concessionaires could not reasonably be expected to carry them on shuttle trains, and they must give details of how they will ensure the safety of disabled persons in the tunnel system.

This indeed is the heart of the question. Throughout the proceedings of this Bill, the need to achieve the safe operation of the shuttle trains and their passengers has been a recurring theme. I do not think it would be consistent with the will of Parliament, expressed so often in debate and in Select Committee, for Eurotunnel to be required to carry passengers who could not be safely evacuated in case of emergency. That is the key point that the Inter-governmental Commission will want to consider. It is only in that narrow area that the question arises of Eurotunnel not carrying disabled persons.

I have not the slightest reason to doubt Eurotunnel's good intentions in this matter. Subsection (5)(a) is not intended to be a wide-open loophole to frustrate the purpose of this amendment. However, in any case, the matter is not left to Eurotunnel alone. As I explained, it has undertaken to consult representative bodies, including the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, in drawing up the code, and this statutory committee, whose membership comprises people who are expert in both disability and transport, will be able to ensure that a fair and proper balance is struck. When the code is submitted to the Inter-governmental Commission, it will be for the commission to ensure that no disabled people are unreasonably excluded from using the tunnel, and to take the advice of the safety authority as to whether the arrangements for ensuring the safety of those who are to be carried are satisfactory.

I hope that, on the basis of what I have said and the undertakings that I have been able to give the House, the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe will feel able not to press his amendments.

Mr. Aitken

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. The hon. Gentleman has addressed the House once. He cannot do so a second time.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment No. 45 agreed to.

Lords Amendments Nos. 46 to 62 agreed to.

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