§ Read a third time.
§ Lord Ashley of StokeMy Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. I would like to add my thanks to Neil Gerrard for introducing the Bill in the House of Commons, for persuading MPs so admirably, and for the support of Members of this House. It will end discrimination against blind people who were being left stranded by taxi drivers who could discriminate against them legally. That has now ended and the Bill guarantees that blind people can rely on private hire vehicles.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Ashley of Stoke.)
§ Lord Morris of ManchesterMy Lords, Oscar Wilde, joining friends after the first night of one of his plays, said:
The play was a great success but the audience a failure.This Bill has been a great success and so equally has the response to it of parliamentarians on both sides of both Houses of Parliament. As ever, my good and noble friend Lord Ashley has fought the good fight for disabled people with consummate success.
I most warmly congratulate him and our honourable friend Neil Gerrard and rejoice with them at a parliamentary moment they will cherish. I rejoice, too, for the blind people who will benefit from the Bill's enactment and for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, which has worked with and for them to achieve its enactment.
On Question, Bill passed.