Anger after government appears to drop Tory plans to put accessibility at heart of new national rail body

Labour appears to have dropped the Conservative government’s pledge to place accessibility right at the heart of the new national body that will run the railways.

Concerns were raised by The Association of British Commuters (ABC) when this week’s consultation on the government’s plans for rail reform failed to include any mention of a statutory accessibility duty.

Last February, in The Plan for Rail (PDF), the Conservative government confirmed earlier pledges that it would introduce a legal duty on the new Great British Railways (GBR) that would “underpin cultural change” and ensure GBR put accessibility “at the core of its strategic decisions”.

But this week’s consultation on Labour’s plans for GBR – which will eventually run both Britain’s rail infrastructure and passenger services – includes no mention of the accessibility duty.

And when challenged on its absence from the consultation by Disability News Service (DNS), the Department for Transport (DfT) said only that the government welcomed views on whether there should be such a duty, and declined to produce a statement on why it was not mentioned in the document.

Other GBR statutory duties – on promoting rail freight and collaborating with devolved leaders – were included in the consultation.

There are just a handful of sentences in the document that relate to disabled passengers and the accessibility of the network.

It says that GBR will “take over responsibility from [train] operators and Network Rail to ensure its trains and stations are accessible” and “will also be responsible for providing information and assistance to passengers, as well as staffing at stations and on trains”.

A “powerful” new watchdog will “act as an independent voice and champion for passengers” and will have an “explicit role on accessibility by monitoring how services are delivered to disabled passengers and advocating improvements where issues arise”.

It could also take on some of the regulatory functions currently carried out by the Office of Rail and Road, including producing guidance on accessible travel policies.

But Emily Sullivan (née Yates), a disabled researcher in equality and human rights, and ABC’s co-founder, who first spotted that the accessibility duty had been omitted from the consultation document, said: “This is a huge step back from the long-standing commitment that GBR would have statutory duties on accessibility and the environment.

“Both have been dropped, despite being well-acknowledged as the most urgent social justice issues in transport.

“Even more worrying, the duties have been dropped in the context of extremely vague and confused proposals for regulation.

“The idea that [the existing passenger watchdog] Transport Focus might produce and monitor the accessible travel policies, for example, is astounding.

“What’s actually needed is much stronger regulation of accessibility – closer to the level of importance that safety is given by the railway, not absorbed into consumer rights and ‘passenger experience’ monitoring.

“There is now a real danger that GBR could end up without either a statutory accessibility duty or adequate regulation – this can’t be allowed to happen.”

Sullivan said the government “must answer urgently” why it had dropped the duties at such “an historic time for public ownership” because “public ownership is the biggest opportunity we’ve ever had to establish an equality and human rights framework for the railway”.

She said: “Why would they waste this and drop GBR’s main equality commitments when there is finally the chance to regulate in the public, not private, interest?

“Moving away from equality and climate policies like this should be considered a matter of shame for a Labour government.”

She said she had studied every policy paper on GBR since the process started in 2018, and this week’s consultation was “the most incoherent plan for accessibility yet”.

She said that “rail access has been badly betrayed by this process and plans for accessibility and ticket retail are even more fragmented and regressive than the Tories’ version of GBR”.

Labour’s commitment to accessible transport has also come under attack after DfT said it would allow only eight weeks for responses to the consultation.

So far, five organisations have called for DfT to think again and extend the consultation to 12 weeks.

Sullivan described the process as “the most important rail consultation since 1994, and the most important for access ever”.

Speaking before concerns about the statutory accessibility duty emerged, disabled activists expressed their frustration and concerns at the government’s decision to restrict the consultation to less than two months.

It came just weeks after the high court ruled that an eight-week consultation on Department for Work and Pensions plans on cuts to disability benefits, under the Conservative government, had been unlawfully “rushed”.

Sullivan said there needed to be “an urgent extension to 12 weeks” for the DfT consultation.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) also called for a 12-week deadline.

Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said the shorter consultation timeframe would breach the Equality Act.

She said: “We back the call from The Association of British Commuters for the government to extend the consultation time to 12 weeks and demand the Department for Transport carry out more outreach so that the consultation reaches all disabled people across Britain who will be impacted by the reforms to the rail network.

“It’s the biggest reform to the rail network for decades and disabled people need to know how this will impact on them.

“It is important to stress that we continue to demand that all rail ticket offices remain open, rail stations are fully staffed and the right to turn up and go remains firmly in place for disabled rail passengers.”

DPAC also raised concerns that some accessible formats of the consultation were not yet directly available on the DfT website, other than through a link to request the document in an accessible format.

The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK), which played a key role in 2023 in defeating planned closures of nearly 1,000 ticket offices across the country, also called for a 12-week consultation.

Andrew Hodgson, an NFBUK executive council member, said: “NFBUK believe eight weeks to be an unrealistic timescale for this consultation and we would favour 12 weeks as an alternative.”

An NFBUK spokesperson added: “The short timescale and the lack of accessible formats on the website, is a sure sign the Department for Transport is failing to communicate with disabled people on the reform creating Great British Railways from the start.”

She said DfT should “swiftly organise outreach face-to-face seminars in towns and cities across the country”, and other measures including a helpline, and making watchdogs London Travel Watch and Transport Focus “an integral part of the consultation process”.

Another accessible transport campaigner, Sarah Leadbetter, said that eight weeks was “not long enough for anybody to fill in an important consultation like this”, particularly because of the extra time that many disabled people will need to secure and complete the document in alternative formats, with many needing assistance to fill in the forms.

Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, also backed the call for the consultation to be extended to 12 weeks.

He said: “This is a vital consultation, and disabled people need enough time to respond to it properly. Eight weeks will not be long enough.”

He added: “It is time for action and accessibility to be a central pillar of our railways, and this document does not suggest that this is going to happen.

“It is time for action to deliver primary legislation, with deadlines for action, and the investment needed to deliver step-free stations and level boarding, because at the current rate of progress, this will take 100 years.

“A legislative deadline of 25 years is required to deliver level boarding and step-free stations or else it won’t happen.

“I also want to see a commitment to increased compensation for passenger assistance failures, in line with the campaigning efforts of Doug Paulley and Sam Jennings.”

He said there needed to be “cultural and attitudinal change from the top, rather than the watered-down change suggested in this consultation”, and that disabled people were “bored of strategies and ‘warm words’”.

The disabled-led campaigning organisation Transport for All (TfA) supported the call from other organisations for a 12-week deadline.

Emma Vogelmann, TfA’s head of policy, public affairs and campaigns, added: “Transport for All will be examining all of the proposals in depth to understand the impacts they could have on disabled passengers – both positive and negative.”

DfT declined to make a statement but claimed the consultation was clear that accessibility would be central to GBR, while the public sector equality duty would apply to the new organisation.

It told DNS that work on GBR’s functions and duties was ongoing, and would be informed by responses to the consultation, which was particularly seeking views on what mechanisms could be used to hold GBR to account.

DfT also said that its advisory body, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee – which only yesterday (Wednesday) announced the appointment of 13 new members – had been made aware of the consultation deadline ahead of its publication.

Picture by ORR

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