HC Deb 19 July 2002 vol 389 cc595-603
Mr. Dismore

I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 39, leave out "may" and insert "shall".

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 13, in page 3, line 40, at end insert— 'within 12 months of the date of Royal Assent'.

Mr. Dismore

I shall be relatively brief. Both the amendments relate to the commencement provisions, which I am always anxious to test. It is simply an opportunity for the Minister to say when he expects to be able to bring the legislation into force. At the same time. perhaps he will say when the guidance that he has spoken of will be promulgated.

Mr. Gerrard

I shall be brief. I understand my hon. Friend's wish to be certain about the dates on which the Bill's provisions come into effect, but there is a problem with putting a specific time scale in the Bill. There are still some issues to be sorted out in relation to London. Transport for London recently launched its follow-up consultation on the licensing of drivers, which should probably come into force early next year. However, there is a further issue in London—licensing of vehicles—on which there is still uncertainty as to timing. It would not help for the Bill to state a time scale that perhaps could not be met; further primary legislation would be needed to put things right. With the Bill in its present form, timing can be dealt with by regulation. I am also anxious to make it possible for the Bill to be brought into force in different parts of the country at different dates, without requiring everyone else to wait for everything to be sorted out in London.

Although I appreciate what my hon. Friend says, obviously, I personally want the Bill to come into operation as soon as possible, and we need the practical flexibility with the timing that it contains at the moment.

Mr. Jamieson

My hon. Friends have effectively made the point, but may I say on behalf of the Government that we intend to introduce the provision as quickly as possible? The Bill provides different commencement dates for different areas of the country—for example, in London—so we felt it inappropriate to set a specific time scale for the whole country.

Mr. Dismore

I have listened to what my hon. Friends have said, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Order for Third Reading read.

12.20 pm
Mr. Gerrard

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I shall be brief because this morning's debate has ranged over most of the issues that the Bill covers, but I want to put on record my thanks to all the hon. Members who have supported the Bill. Since first introducing it, I have received support from hon. Members from all parties, and I am extremely grateful to them for their support. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister and his officials for their help, without which I am sure I would not have been able to deal with all the required drafting details. I also thank the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the RNIB, which, again, have been very supportive in getting the Bill drafted and, I hope, accepted by the House.

Some significant changes have been made in the Bill since Second Reading. On Second Reading, clear arguments were made about the principles and the need for a Bill to bring consistency across the country and between black cabs and private hire vehicles. In Committee, we had to make sure that the Bill would work, which required some changes to ensure that operators, as well as drivers, were covered. Of course, amendments were made on Report to extend the provisions to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I am pleased that we have been able to make progress. As I said in an earlier contribution, the Bill will not affect huge numbers of people. It will affect perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 people, but it will be enormously important to those people. People who rely on assistance dogs rely much more on private hire vehicles and taxis than the average person does, and it is enormously important for them to be able to travel freely and to know that they can take their dogs with them. So the Bill makes a valuable contribution to helping people with assistance dogs in their daily lives. I am sure that that is the view of hon. Members in all parties, and I am grateful to them for all their support, which has enabled me to reach this point with the Bill.

12.23 pm
Mr. Boswell

I simply wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on his Bill and to echo his thanks to all those people who have been involved in its preparation and consideration in the House, including the officials, the representatives of the disability organisations and those hon. Members who have participated. We wish the Bill every success as it passes to another place.

12.24 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke

I join the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and, I think, the whole House in warmly congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on the excellent Bill that he has piloted through the House. We all hope that it will achieve its Third Reading and, of course, that it will be enacted in due course.

I wish to express two main thoughts in this brief contribution. The first is about the empiricism of the House as we develop legislation. The second is about the sheer persistence of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, who deserves to be congratulated most warmly on seizing the opportunity that this Bill offers to extend rights to people who would otherwise be denied them.

On the point about empiricism, my hon. Friend will recall—as he was proactive in the House when the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was introduced—that, as I said earlier, there was no intention to introduce transport provisions into it, even on its Second Reading. In due course, some of us, including my hon. Friend. pushed hard. Eventually, we achieved provisions on access to stations, to trains, to bus terminuses, to buses, to taxis, but not, alas, to private hire vehicles, which has been achieved today. I think that that shows the House at its best. It shows that the sort of determination that we have seen from my hon. Friend succeeds.

I thank my hon. Friend, too, for the sensitivity with which he has extended the Bill to Scotland. People in Scotland do not like paying out all that much, but the fines are perfectly agreeable and should, of course, be consistent with those in the rest of the UK. It is right that we should work in partnership, as we are doing, with the Scottish Parliament, which in due course will introduce a statutory instrument putting the Bill into effect in Scotland.

For all those reasons, I say again that my hon. Friend has done a fine job in the reforming tradition of one of his greatest predecessors, Clement Attlee, and long may he continue to do it. I know that people in disability organisations are profoundly supportive of what he is doing today. We thank him sincerely for his excellent efforts.

12.27 pm
Mr. Heath

I join other Members who have warmly congratulated the hon. Member for Walthamstow(Mr. Gerrard). We can be as brief as we need to be on Third Reading, as we explored the issues in Committee.

This is a good Bill. It will not make a difference to a huge number of people, as the hon. Gentleman said, but for those whom it does affect, it will make a substantial difference, across the country, to their way of life. The Bill has not been imposed on Scotland and Northern Ireland but it has been welcomed and embraced by people there who wish to be involved with it.

As some Members know, I chair the all-party group on eye health and visual impairment. We take no credit for the hon. Gentleman's initiative in the Bill or for that of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire) in her parallel measure, the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill, which I mentioned earlier. Perhaps, however, at long last, the House is taking seriously issues of visual impairment, and we are able to provide more focus on an area that has been neglected for too long. Two major stepping stones have been put in place in this Session, and I hope that both Bills succeed in another place. The House, the hon. Member for Walthamstow, the Minister and all involved with the Bill are to be congratulated on what they have done.

12.28 pm
Mr. Pond

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard)on what is a very significant contribution. If I may, I would like to pay tribute to organisations such as the RNIB, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Assistance Dogs UK, whose briefings have informed our debate effectively.

Clearly, private hire vehicles are an important part of the network of accessible transport for people with disabilities. For some of those people, in some areas, they constitute the only available form of transport. If I may, I want to share with the House the experiences of one of my constituents, who is also a friend, Mr. Wayne Busbridge of Ifield road, Gravesend. He is visually impaired and has an assistance dog. In my discussions with him in preparation for this morning's debate, he told me: The biggest fear is being stranded in a town you don't know. feeling vulnerable and insecure. He said that some private hire vehicles even try to charge him for his dog—as much as £10 a time. He said that the worst experience is turning up at taxi ranks and drivers refusing to take him, even when there are no other taxis at the rank and it is clear that he is being left stranded. He has talked about his experiences in a strange town or city. If a taxi drives away, he has no other means of getting to where he needs to go. He feels vulnerable and often waits 40 or 50 minutes while the telephone operators in cab firms search for someone who is willing to take him. It is important that the Bill has its Third Reading.

I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for his persistence. He assisted the debate considerably, and I am sure that the whole House was saddened to hear of the demise of Griswald, which we hope was not too closely associated with the damage that she did to the upholstery of my hon. Friend's car.

I confess that I am a dog owner. I was feeling rather edgy in our earlier discussions in case the organisers of the Westminster dog of the year competition were listening. In last year's competition, my dog, Camden, was guilty of many of the activities listed in new clause 1, and was so in close proximity of the judges. I had to explain that he was very obedient but hard of hearing, and that I had been telling him to sit.

I have shared the experiences of my hon. Friend the Minister, and we must be clear that such embarrassments do not normally afflict only the owners of assistance dogs. As other hon. Members have said, they are highly trained dogs and it is unlikely that they will cause difficulties in, or damage to, private hire vehicles. We must not allow discrimination to hide behind the suggestion that they would cause such damage.

It is important that the Bill brings private hire vehicles into line with taxi cabs, removes the inconsistencies that apply around the country and makes sure that people such as my constituent Mr. Busbridge no longer have to wait at taxi ranks in fear, feeling vulnerable and facing the indignity of not being able to get to where they want to go.

12.32 pm
Bob Spink

I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on introducing the Bill. It shows that we recognise and respect the needs of everyone in society. I am sure that the wonderful people who run and attend the Phoenix club in Castle Point will be delighted that the Bill is likely to make progress today. They will welcome it as an excellent Bill that will help some of them. Having said that, I hope that we can move on quickly so that we can discuss the Pensions Annuities (Amendment) Bill and help pensioners equally.

12.33 pm
Mr. Dismore

I shall be brief in warmly congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on piloting his Bill through the House, particularly as it is a ten-minute Bill. I know from my experience that trying to make law with a ten-minute Bill is very difficult.

In the earlier debates, I raised a series of reservations and concerns about the Bill, and my hon. Friend amply dealt with them in his reply. I now wish to be much more positive about the Bill. It is important to take forward the rights that it contains, given the situation in my constituency in outer London. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) will share the view that, in outer London, the availability of black cabs is less than in central London, so people rely much more heavily on minicab services.

My constituents who depend on assistance dogs have told me that they have been refused the use of minicabs. I have taken the issue up with the minicab company concerned, which has taken steps to ensure that the problem did not reoccur. I am pleased to say that, when problems have arisen in my constituency, we have been able to deal with them amicably and on a voluntary basis. Nevertheless, I fully accept that that is not necessarily the position throughout the country. I therefore welcome the Bill as an important step in meeting the needs of those who depend on assistance dogs. I fully accept that those dogs are always well behaved and well trained. They provide a very valuable service.

12.35 pm
Mr. Edward Davey

In the spirit of joining the congratulations that have been offered to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), I would say that the way in which he has conducted the passage of the Bill throughout its stages has been exemplary, and has shown the private Members' Bill process at its very best. I was delighted when the hon. Gentleman asked me to be a co-sponsor, and I thank him for that. I have been appreciative of both the communication that I have had with him on the Bill and the communication that I have had with various charities, in particular the RNIB and the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

At an earlier stage in our proceedings, the hon. Gentleman put his finger on it when he said that we were not giving any extra privileges to the people who will benefit from the Bill. He then said that we were giving them the chance to enjoy the access to transport and the freedom of movement that others enjoy. That is not a large thing to ask. Indeed, it is a small thing. It is good that there is great support for the Bill from Members on both sides of the House. We all have been seeking to remove inconsistencies and discrimination, and more importantly, to increase independence. I think that the Bill does these things well.

The hon. Gentleman said that the Bill will affect only 5,000 to 6,000 people, but that it was important that they had their rights recognised. From the information that I have received from the various charities involved, I can add that it is not a small matter for the 5,000 to 6,000. It can literally change their lives, so it is very significant for them.

In a recent survey carried out by the RNIB, it was found that one in seven of a sample of 500 visually impaired people said that they regularly used regulated taxis and private hire vehicles, and that they were the most frequently used forms of transport. One in five stated that he or she used taxis or private hire vehicles once a week. The people that the hon. Gentleman was talking about are frequent users of these vehicles. That is why the Bill is so much needed to help them.

It has been interesting throughout our debates to note the increasing range of activities in which dogs can help human beings. That suggests that this will not be the only time that we see legislation of this sort brought before us. I hope that policy changes will be made by the Government as well. We should utilise the amazing skills and attributes that dogs have. In my experience and that of my constituents, they can completely change the lives of people with physical impairments. I hope that through the experience of the Bill, the House will have heard and acknowledged these benefits and will return on future occasions to improve legislation still further. I very much support the Bill on its Third Reading.

12.38 pm
Roger Casale (Wimbledon)

At the conclusion of our proceedings, I want to add my welcome for this measure, which I know will be extremely welcome to my constituents. I spoke once again this morning to the Merton Voluntary Association for the Blind and the Guardian centre for the blind, which are delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) has introduced the Bill. It is excellent that it has enjoyed so much cross-party support. Sometimes that does not bode well for a Bill, but I think that this Bill is an exception. It is clear that we are bringing common sense into law.

The Bill is important because, as we have heard, the present lacuna in legislation causes great inconvenience to people who use guide dogs. Many measures discriminate against people with a particular disability, but this lacuna adds insult to injury. We have heard the suggestion that people are unable to look after their guide dogs, for example. That causes further offence. I know from my contact with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and having followed his career over many years, that he is inspired by his longstanding commitment to extend the rights of disabled people. I congratulate him on this measure. When disabled people are discriminated against, it is an injury and an insult to those people and to us all.

I am also delighted that the Bill is progressing because it is an important development in relation to the licensing of minicabs generally, which has been much debated in recent years. When I spoke in the debate in this House in 1998 on the licensing of minicabs, I said that I was not able to come to the House by minicab and I wished that I could say that it was because I was unable to find one that was licensed. Any humour in that remark would be removed by the fact that if I had been blind and the owner of a guide dog, even had I been able to find a licensed minicab I might not have been able to avail myself of it because it would not have accepted me with the dog.

In my discussions this morning with the Merton Voluntary Association for the Blind, I was told that it is very difficult for their clients to find minicab firms that take guide dogs. Indeed, only one company in Merton—Olympic Cars—does so, when estate cars are available. Eighteen months ago, the centre wrote to all the minicab firms in the local area asking them if they would carry people who had assistance dogs with them, and not a single one replied.

That brings me to my final point about why I welcome the Bill. It is often said in the House that we have too many regulations, but we need them if people's rights are to be properly respected. The Bill is a good instance of that. It builds on earlier measures on the licensing of minicab operators, drivers and vehicles. That is especially important in London, where many abuses take place. We cannot simply rely on the goodwill of the operators to comply with the perfectly reasonable requirement that they should accord the same service to people with assistance dogs as to everybody else.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the Bill, which will be very much welcomed in my constituency. I am pleased that it has received all-party support and wish it well on its further passage through the House.

Mr. Jamieson

It is considerable pleasure for me to be able to wind up the debate. Many thousands of disabled people rely on private hire vehicles or minicabs for their day-to-day mobility. In a recent MORI poll produced for the Department for Transport's disabled persons transport advisory committee, 40 per cent. of respondents reported that they had used taxis or minicabs at least once a month. and the figure was even higher for visually impaired people, 53 per cent. of whom had made similar use of those modes of travel. It is therefore clear that minicabs are a vital part of the transport mix for many disabled people, so it is intolerable that people who use assistance dogs often face a barrier to travel not because the vehicle is inaccessible, but because the attitude of the driver or operator of the service is at best indifferent to their needs or at worst downright discriminatory towards them. By introducing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) has ensured that such attitudes will no longer be tolerated in the trade and that the way will be clear for disabled people to go about their daily business in the confidence that they will not be refused a minicab because they are travelling with a well-trained assistance dog.

I pay tribute to Guide Dogs for the Blind and the Royal National Institute for the Blind, which have made continuing representations on the matter not only to us but to those in local government with responsibility for private hire vehicles. I pay a warm tribute to the officials in my Department, who have worked extremely hard with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow to get the Bill securely on to the statute book, or at least to assist it in its progress through the House.

I should also like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke). Like many hon. Members, he has a long and distinguished record on disability issues. However, today we must offer the warmest congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow not just on introducing the Bill, but on the way in which he has steered it through Parliament. As one of the few hon. Members who has managed to get a private Member's Bill through all its stages, I know what a difficult and arduous task that is.

My hon. Friend has placed his name on a piece of legislation that in some small way will improve people's lives for years to come. There is nothing better that a Member of Parliament could do.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

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