Labour blasted for failing to improve public transport for disabled: ‘This can’t go on!’.uk
The youngster behind Zach’s Law has set up a petition to make buses and trains more accessible for people with wheelchairs
Disabled people have reported difficulties using public transport (Image: Getty)
MPs have slammed the Government’s “disappointing lack of urgency” on improving the daily lives of disabled people on public transport. The Government has pledged to review accessibility laws in response to findings by the Commons’ Transport Select Committee.
Its report highlighted widespread discrimination because of failures by transport operators to support disabled people to use services and difficulties that disabled passengers experience when trying to complain or seek redress. But the committee said the Government’s response to the “scale of failings lacks urgency”.
Ruth Cadbury MP, the group’s chairwoman, said: “There are warm words and some promising signs in this response to our report. But taken together, there is a disappointing lack of urgency to deliver real, lasting progress and improve the daily lives of disabled people – to close the gap between rights and reality.
“Our inquiry heard so much evidence from disabled people about how their ability to work, access services and socialise is denied by transport services that fail to live up to the promises of equality legislation and policies. This can’t go on.
“We need a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination and inadequacies in our transport services. Getting the Law Commission to review the Rubik’s Cube of legislation around accessibility will be a vital first step towards tackling one of the key problems our inquiry identified.
“But straightening out the law, on its own, is unlikely to prompt the cultural transformation that makes a difference to people’s experience on the ground. A root-and-branch change in attitudes and more effective, user-friendly complaints and enforcement processes will all be needed, backed up by real incentives to improve and genuine penalties for failure.”
The Department for Transport has said it will ask the independent Law Commission to carry out a review, with the eventual outcome of new “universal and clear” standards being recommended to the Government.
Determined Zach Eagling has been fighting to make public transport more accessible for people with wheelchairs.
The 13-year-old schoolboy, who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, has set up a petition calling on the Government to do more to make train, bus and other services more inclusive.
The youngster, from West Yorkshire, previously successfully campaigned with the Express for a law against cruel trolls trying to provoke seizures in people with epilepsy by sending them flashing images online.
Now the Express is backing his new campaign with our Zach’s Right to Ride crusade.
To sign the petition, visit this link.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “It’s clear that accessibility has been an afterthought in developing transport services. This government will change that so that disabled people, and others with accessibility needs, can travel easily and with dignity.
“The Transport Select Committee’s report was timely and will help inform work that’s already underway to put accessibility at the heart of the transport network. That’s why we’re working with the Law Commission to explore how the current legislative framework could be reviewed, and are already developing a new Integrated National Transport Strategy.
“Our clear ambition is for the transport network to work for all, and this is is central to our bus and rail reforms, as we continue to make hundreds of train stations step-free among other accessibility works across modes.”
