Disabled MPs, staff and visitors to Commons face career blockages, out-of-date facilities and access barriers

MPs have spoken out about the shortage of accessible meeting rooms in Westminster, as well as outdated toilet facilities for wheelchair-users, and large parts of the parliamentary estate that cannot be accessed by many disabled visitors.

They also spoke of disabled parliamentary staff who are blocked from progressing in their careers by access barriers, and an MP left in agony for days because they had to wait hours to speak in a Commons debate.

MPs were discussing a report by the Commons modernisation committee into access to the Commons and its procedures, and last month’s response to the report by the House of Commons administration.

Labour’s Daniel Francis, who is a member of the committee, has a disabled daughter, and chairs the all-party parliamentary groups for wheelchair-users and on access to disability equipment, told the debate that only “a very small number of rooms” are accessible enough to book for their meetings.

Under the Commons booking system, his groups cannot be given priority.

And, he said, parliament’s only Changing Places toilet is fitted out to outdated standards, while there is no Changing Places toilet at all in the modern Portcullis House annexe.

Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, another committee member, said that a young wheelchair-user who had visited Westminster last week for a roundtable meeting had not been able to see part of the tour arranged for the group for access reasons.

Chamberlain said it had been “shameful” for the committee to hear evidence from disabled staff members working in the Commons.

One clerk “cannot progress in his career” because he is no longer able to sit at the table in front of the speaker in the main Commons chamber, while it took 15 months for an MP’s staff member, a wheelchair-user, to be able to access the nearest wheelchair-accessible toilet to his place of work.

Labour’s Sarah Coombes, another committee member, said some of the evidence they had heard for their report was “shocking”.

One disabled MP had told the committee “how difficult they found waiting hours and hours to speak in a debate”, she said, and that they “felt physically exhausted by the time they were called to speak many hours later”.

Another disabled MP “sat on these benches and waited to speak for so long that they were in agony for days afterwards”, while yet another told the committee that “voting 10-plus times over hours left them practically unable to walk in the days afterwards”.

Jesse Norman, the Conservative shadow leader of the Commons, said accessibility “should never be an afterthought” and that a “vital aspect of being an effective parliamentarian is that every single member of parliament, whatever their background and personal needs, should be able to discharge their full capabilities on behalf of their constituents”.

Sir Alan Campbell, Labour’s leader of the Commons, and chair of the modernisation committee, said they had heard “sobering evidence” about the impact that the accessibility problems had on MPs, staff and visitors.

He said: “They include inaccessible doors, toilets, lifts, lighting and signage, which impact on the daily lives of people trying to use the estate.

“The committee has been encouraged by the house administration’s efforts to address some of these issues, including before the inquiry concluded, but the tasks before it remain substantial.”

He said an “overarching challenge” was “the culture around accessibility”, which the committee concluded “must be addressed by introducing better training and practical guidance for staff”.

The committee also recommended in its report that the House of Commons administration must “make it explicit, as part of the value of being inclusive, that accessibility is a priority for the organisation”, which it has now done through a commitment in its three-year strategy to improve accessibility.

Sir Alan said his committee would hear from the house administration on its progress later this year.

Among changes to Commons procedures and processes, he said, work is underway on a potential “reasonable adjustment card scheme” for MPs who need to use a particular seat in the Commons chamber for access reasons.

Commons administration said in its response to the committee’s report that improving accessibility was one of its “current investment priorities”, with “immediate” improvements planned to toilets, entrances and access routes, while a “whole-building accessibility audit of the Palace of Westminster” was due to be completed last month.

It is now “working to prioritise actions”, in consultation with disabled MPs, in response to the committee’s report.