Welcome to this morning’s evidence session, the second in our scrutiny of the Railways Bill, which had its Second Reading in the House of Commons yesterday, and top billing on the TV. We will host three panels today. During our first panel, we will hear from passenger organisations; in our second, we will hear from independent ticket retailers; and, in our final panel, we will hear from Transport Focus about plans for the creation of the new passenger watchdog. Will our first panel of witnesses introduce themselves, starting with Ben?

Good morning, Committee. My name is Ben Plowden. I am the chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport. We are a national charity campaigning for better, more sustainable transport choices in all communities in England and Wales.

Good morning, Committee. I am Sue Sharp. I am the deputy chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, otherwise thankfully known as DPTAC, the Government’s statutory adviser on transport and mobility, which this year celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Good morning. I am Emma Vogelmann. I am one of the co-CEOs at the charity Transport for All. We are a disabled persons organisation focusing on all modes of transport and all disabled people across the UK.

Welcome to you all. Going in the same order, in your opinion, is the Bill likely to produce a railway that better serves passengers than the current set-up?

I think broadly, yes. We welcome the creation of Great British Railways. We have long argued for the creation of an integrated rail body, which Great British Railways will be. There are some important questions about issues such as affordability of fares, whether there should be a duty on GBR and the Secretary of State to increase passenger demand over time, the funding regime and other issues such as open access and ticketing, but broadly, we think, overall GBR should improve conditions for passengers. The other thing I would say is that a substantial amount of other things need to be in place to ensure that that happens. Broadly speaking—we cannot quantify it precisely—the Bill will account for, say, 30% of what will need to be in place to make GBR an effective organisation. A long list of other things will need to happen as well: guidance, regulatory change, funding changes, and all sorts of processes and documents that will need to be produced in the next couple of years, once the Bill is passed. It is important to understand how the Bill will intersect with those other processes and documents to see whether that will produce a good outcome for passengers.

DPTAC welcomes the opportunity that the Bill presents to improve the railway for passengers and to put passengers, particularly disabled passengers, at the core of the network. The introduction of the passenger and accessibility duty—as we all know, it is the first time that we have had such a provision in legislation—is welcome. It is particularly useful that it is applying not just to GBR, but to all those involved in the rail industry, including the Secretary of State, Scottish and Welsh Ministers, and the ORR. In GBR, having one body that is driving consistency of standards and bringing together the real vehicles and the stations is a real opportunity to drive change for disabled people and to provide the consistency that is so often lacking. One of the biggest barriers for many disabled people is having a lack of confidence in the system to be able to deliver the service reliably and accessibly. We have an opportunity here to deliver that change.

First, I completely echo what has been said by the other panellists, particularly the point about consistency for disabled passengers. The fragmentation of the rail industry has posed so many problems for disabled passengers. In the Bill, as was mentioned, accessibility provisions are incredibly welcome and the unifying of the railways is absolutely welcome. I have a number of concerns, however, which could turn into opportunities to strengthen this legislation and to make sure that accessibility is enforceable and is an overriding, consistent priority for GBR, as opposed to what we have at the moment, where we feel GBR is potentially not given enough enforcement power and is subject to political will in some instances where the Secretary of State has complete control over things like licensing and standards.

We will probably delve into those issues in more detail in our subsequent questions.

Looking at the Bill, a section of it includes the general duties that apply to GBR, Ministers and the ORR—all of them. That is clause 18 of the Bill. Is that clause sufficiently targeted to compel GBR to act in the interests of passengers?

The duty to promote the interests of users, potential users and, as colleagues have said, in particular disabled persons is very welcome. We have a question about the difference in the duties between the way that freight is treated and passenger travel is treated: the duty on GBR and Secretary of State in relation to passengers is “to promote” their “interests”, whereas it is “to promote the use of the…network” for freight. Our view is that in order to incentivise GBR strongly—once it is set up—to grow the network and to grow passenger demand, there should be equivalent duties about passengers in clauses 18 and 17, so that GBR is required to promote the use of the network for passengers and future passengers, with a corresponding duty on the Secretary of State to set a passenger growth target. Our concern is that otherwise, the risk is that GBR might manage demand as a steady state, achieving its other objectives without necessarily seeking to grow demand by expanding the network or making better use of existing capacity.

I was particularly interested to read the submissions from Transport for All and the Campaign for Better Transport on this particular point. Clearly, DPTAC have a very different role to either of those organisations, given our relationship with the Department as its advisers, but it is important for us as well to be able to hear the views of others in the disability community in order to shape our thinking. Certainly, we will reflect on that over the next few months as the Bill goes through.

Would you like a target for passenger growth, like Ben would?

I would, but I cannot speak on behalf of the whole committee at this point. I think we would like to see more disabled people having the confidence to travel by rail for all the journeys that they want to make, whether that is social, for work or for whatever reason.

Especially in clause 18, the mention of disabled passengers is in itself very welcome. However, “to promote the interests” is very vague; it does not have any real targets attached to it, and there is no way to measure what good looks like. Personally, we at Transport for All feel that the current wording is a little bit too unenforceable. It does not guarantee improvements for disabled passengers, and it does not deliver measurable outcomes or create any real accountability when looking at the desperate change that is needed in accessibility. Transport for All would very much suggest changing the wording to have a duty “to actively and continuously improve accessibility across the rail network”, so that they provide measurable outcomes, year on year, to make sure that progress is being made, and that people are able to see what is changing and whether accessibility is actually improving. We feel that accessibility really needs to be treated as a core strategic responsibility.

Shall I ask about clause 18(4), Chair?

It is essentially a yes or no question, isn’t it?

This question may be a bit more technical. We have just been talking about clause 18, which says that all these duties are subject to maintaining sufficient network capacity, as laid out in clause 63. Are you concerned about that at all, or do you think it is self-evident that there has to be sufficient capacity?

I think that this is linked to the question of a promote duty and a growth target. Clause 63 implicitly assumes that the network is essentially fixed—of course, it will be fixed at any point in time, won’t it? If GBR and the Secretary of State had a duty to promote use of the network for passengers and future passengers, including disabled passengers, and a growth target, you would then ask the Secretary of State to make sure that the long-term rail strategy had a network expansion plan that would increase the capacity available to both current and future passengers to avoid crowding. You need to link the clauses on duties and the long-term rail strategy to the clause about a capacity duty. Capacity will be less of a constraint over time, if the Secretary of State has a duty to set out how the network should be expanded over time. Sorry, that was not a yes or no answer.

Quite honestly, I am not an expert in capacity planning for the network—I think that DFT Ministers would probably be better able to answer that question than me. As I understand it, in exercising any of this, they always need to have due regard to the general duties, including the passengers and accessibility duty. It is about that being there.

Yes, there is certainly a concern that accessibility could be deprioritised in favour of other strategic goals. The short answer is: yes, there is definitely concern.

Okay, thank you. There is one thing that we wanted to pick up with this general duty, which is about how it would be enforced. Do you have any thoughts about who you think would be deciding whether the general duty has been met?

Do you mean all the general duties?

Yes.

My understanding is—I think there is a reference to this in one of the documents that were published alongside the Bill—that there is not going to be a hierarchy between the duties. GBR will have a duty to balance them—in fact, that word is used in the Bill—and demonstrate how it is balanced. I think the question will be how you judge whether the trade-off that may arise between different duties is being appropriately judged. I assume that will be a job for a combination of the passenger watchdog and, in particular cases, the ORR. They will be scrutinising GBR’s performance, along with the Secretary of State and Ministers. One’s assumption is that a combination of ministerial oversight and the different regulatory and advisory bodies will be checking whether those trade-offs are being made appropriately between GBR’s operational outcomes and wider public purpose outcomes.

We would really like to see a dedicated statutory duty requiring continuous improvement on accessibility across the rail network. We would also like to see the passengers’ council be given enforcement powers and be able to impose a statutory duty on the ORR to act on accessibility issues within different timeframes. We would also like to see mandated disabled representation, including those with lived experience, on the passengers’ council. Those are just some of the things that we would like to see included that we think could really strengthen the commitment to accessibility. As this Committee knows extremely well, from the “Access denied” report earlier this year, there is not enough explicitly enforceable legislation when it comes to transport for disabled people. We really cannot accept having a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the rail network and continue to have this vague, unenforceable wording.

Can we explore a little bit more what some of you were saying about the need for an equivalent duty to the one for rail freight for growing passenger use of the railway? The Government have said, to us and in the Chamber, that they feel that that is inherent already in what GBR exists to do. If that is the case, why do you feel a duty to grow passenger use of the railway is necessary?

This question is for Ben, really.

It seems to us that the logic would suggest that if it is important for GBR to have a statutory incentive to promote a growth in freight traffic, it also ought to have a statutory incentive to do that for passenger growth. We know that the expansion and increase in capacity and connectivity in the rail network has huge socioeconomic benefits. Look at the Northumberland line that recently reopened; look at Crossrail. There are huge benefits from expanding network capacity and increasing the number of people who are able to travel by rail. If you look at the Bill, it is interesting that service performance is defined in terms of “reliability (including punctuality)” and “the avoidance or mitigation of passenger overcrowding”. There could be a scenario whereby GBR decided that, in order to meet its reliability duty, it reduced services to smooth them out and improve reliability, and in order to avoid overcrowding, it then introduced fares that, as it were, choked off demand, as has been suggested might happen on the west coast main line in the context of HS2. There might be scenarios where, for perfectly logical reasons, internally GBR might decide that it did not want to increase passenger demand either on a particular route or overall. It seems to us that it would be sensible to have an equivalent duty or pair of duties in the Bill on passenger demand as it has for freight. GBR would need, as we were just discussing, to work out how to optimise that objective versus the other objectives it has set out in the duties and functions.

We are going to move on now to the licence.

We do not have sight of the licence yet, but what do you think needs to feature in there to best serve passengers?

We already know that it will include accessibility requirements but, like everyone else, DPTAC has not yet seen a draft of that. I can assure the Committee that we will be seeing a draft of it before it goes out to consultation, and we will be giving very careful consideration to what those accessibility requirements are to ensure the needs of disabled passengers are fully reflected. We would also expect that, post consultation, we would have the opportunity to advise Ministers on the response to the comments that are made and, indeed, what finally comes out.

I think the licence will be critical. There are various references in the documents that the Government published to a “streamlined licence”, so I would be quite interested to see what that means relative to the current licence that applies to Network Rail. I think the Government are going to consult on the draft licence, so we will all have a chance to look at it. The other point I would make is one I made earlier, which is that the licence will be one of many documents the Government will produce in the next year to 18 months. There is the long-term rail strategy and GBR will produce its business plan. There will be the access and use policy; the new periodic review process; and MOUs with Ministers in Scotland and Wales. There will be guidance on partnerships with mayoral combined authorities, and guidance on the right to request full rail devolution. There is a huge amount still to come. Understanding how the licence intersects with those other documents and processes is going to be critical, because between them they will add up to the set of arrangements that determine whether GBR is successful or not for passengers. We have to see the licence in the context of all the other things that will be guiding, directing and shaping what GBR does, how it invests, and what it does operationally.

Just to your point about it being a more streamlined licence—that is what the Department has said. Have you got concerns about what that could mean for passenger outcomes, and whether it might actually be a worse outcome for passengers?

I am sure that will not be the intention, but it will be important to see how the licence reflects the functions and duties in the Act when it is passed, including, potentially, if the Government decide to introduce a passenger promote and growth target. We have to see what the streamlining means in practice, and how the licence intersects with all the other things that will be in place.

Just to come in briefly on licensing, in the goal of being streamlined, we also do not want there to be too centralised a source of power, with the Secretary of State potentially being the sole granter and modifier of the GBR licence. We do not want any of the conditions within licensing, particularly around accessibility, to be a matter of political will. We are very much interested in seeing what the draft licence will look like.

The Bill makes changes to the ORR’s role. What are your reactions to its role in enforcing the licence? What thoughts do you have about that?

It seems to be very important that the ORR continues to have that role. Quite a lot of what the ORR currently does will go to the new passenger watchdog, and some of its decision making will go to Ministers and to GBR itself. ORR will have a smaller role, it seems to us, in the overall system of regulation and oversight than it currently does, and quite a lot of what it does will go elsewhere. Again, understanding what consequences the transfers of powers and responsibilities will have for how the railway operates for passengers will be really important, and we will not be able to do that until the whole system is in place and has settled down. That may take a while.

Given that bigger picture, from DPTAC’s perspective, wherever the licensing function sits, our focus is always to ensure that the needs of disabled passengers are addressed within it. Our unique position as statutory advisers gives us the opportunity to be involved at every stage in the development, and as we see how the other documents that come out—in terms of guidance and so on—fit around the whole package.

Our recommendation on the role of the ORR is to retain its independent authority. We are definitely interested to see how that transition of powers, as Ben mentioned, plays out, and how enforceability plays into that.

Sue, the previous Government’s version of this legislation did include a duty for DPTAC to formally advise GBR. The current Bill does not in the same way. How do you expect your organisation will interact with GBR? Do you think that would be purely through the Secretary of State?

As you say, it was the previous Government’s proposal that DPTAC’s remit would be extended, and this current Government have decided that our role remains the same, and that the passenger watchdog will take on that passenger champion and, explicitly, the accessibility role. From DPTAC’s perspective, we are statutory advisers across all aspects of transport policy—every mode of transport, including rail—and in that broader remit, we would not have the resource to address the depth that is required to drive the change in this place. I think that the passenger watchdog, with its relationship with passengers, is in a good position to be able to draw on the evidence, and so on, to see how the improvements are panning out, and indeed, if they are not, what needs to happen. From our perspective, we will—and would expect to—have a role in terms of any emerging findings that the watchdog reports back to the Secretary of State, with how the trends coming through there might play out in changes as the system develops, as Ben says, and settles down. Also, of course, as DPTAC, we are not just waiting to be asked for our advice; we can obviously take a proactive role in offering advice to the Secretary of State where we see and hear of things going on in the new framework that may not be in the best interests of disabled people.

Thank you very much. With more questions on the passenger watchdog, we will move on to Baggy and then Elsie.

The passenger watchdog will be taking on quite a lot of the passenger oversight functions currently carried out by the ORR. For that reason alone, I think it is important to understand what capacity and powers it will have, which I suspect will be defined through secondary legislation. Because it will now play an important role in overseeing what GBR does, and what the other operators do, I think it is very important that we are clear about its powers. And, for example, how will the board of the passenger watchdog be appointed? Will that be completely independent, so that it independently represents passengers? It is also about making sure that its relationship with the ORR is properly defined, because our understanding is that it will primarily have a kind of oversight and monitoring role; it will seek to engage with GBR if it thinks it is not doing its job properly and then will pass on issues it feels it cannot resolve through negotiation or conversation to the ORR to enforce against GBR’s duties. Understanding that relationship will be very important as well.

As a follow-up, do you have any thoughts about how the leadership of the passenger watchdog should be determined and appointed? I am particularly interested in understanding how we can ensure that a plurality of voices can be heard—or maybe mandated—on that body. Sue, have you got any thoughts on that, first of all?

In terms of the governance structure of Transport Focus, I think we are still waiting to see how that will pan out. Clearly, they have always had representation and engagement with disabled people as part of the work that they have been doing. I cannot imagine that that will change, but it will be important to see how it actually looks in the new framework and with its new duties. In terms of DPTAC’s relationship with Transport Focus, we meet regularly—although probably not frequently—to discuss issues around transport and accessibility. I would fully expect that that would continue and may well develop as they take on this bigger role in rail, which in turn will help us in our strategic role in advising the Secretary of State on the rail aspects.

Emma, do you have any thoughts on that?

In terms of the watchdog itself, I have briefly touched on this already, but we feel very much that the passengers’ council really needs to be given enforcement powers to be able to take proper action on cases that are involving accessibility breaches. In cases where things do get referred up to the ORR, we would like there to be a statutory duty on them to act on those referrals made by the passengers’ council, and to have those outcomes within a clear timeframe. On the make-up of the passenger watchdog, we currently have complete faith in Transport Focus. We have a really positive relationship and meet regularly to talk about accessibility issues. However, we very much feel that lived experience of disability needs to have a formal role in this; there needs to be a statutory requirement to have some proportion of disabled people on that passengers’ council to ensure that lived experience is going to be part of the decision making—we would very much like to see that. In addition, we would also like to see a duty for the council to consult disabled passengers and organisations representing disabled people, where decisions that it is going to make could impact those with protected characteristics, particularly disability from our perspective.

Thanks Emma. My final question is slightly different. Ben, I know that Campaign for Better Transport has previously emphasised the importance of devolved authorities throughout the Bill. Do you think it is important that there are voices from the regions and nations with seats at the table, particularly when it comes to the passenger watchdog?

Yes, that is an interesting thought. It seems to me that the key stakeholders in the exercising of the passenger watchdog’s function should have some representation. For example, you might potentially ask the Urban Transport Group, rather than an individual combined authority, to represent that group of organisations on the board—that would be one way of doing that. Clearly, how GBR interacts with its combined authorities, given that they have a statutory role to be consulted and that we are potentially asking for full rail devolution, is going to be a really important of whether, and how well, it works with the regions and nations. That might be one interesting way of doing that.

Do you think the watchdog should have powers to enforce its findings?

I think that is why I made the point that understanding the new relationship between the passenger watchdog and the ORR is going to be critical. My understanding is that the ORR will remain the principal enforcer. The passenger watchdog will survey, review and monitor GBR’s performance against the standards that it will set, and it will engage with GBR to remedy things, where it thinks remedy is needed. In the case where it cannot get the desired outcome, it will then pass the act of enforcing to the ORR. The question is whether that process will be efficient, effective and work adequately for the outcomes of not only passengers but disabled passengers. By definition, the jury is probably out on that question. It might be the case that, if it proves difficult for the passenger watchdog to get the outcomes that it wants, it might then need to be given enforcement powers in some regard down the line.

So you are effectively saying that there is a concern that there would almost have to be a second investigation if it went to the ORR, which then slows things down for passengers.

Yes, because my assumption is that the process would be that the passenger watchdog would hand over a whole set of documentation to the ORR and say, “We are not satisfied with the response that GBR has given us, or what it has done in response to our concerns, which we have sought to negotiate with it. Can you please enforce against our findings of inadequacy?” That introduces a new process into the system, and the question is: will that be effective and efficient? If not, should the passenger watchdog be given some enforcement powers as well?

You were nodding, Emma. Do you want to briefly add anything?

I will just completely echo what Ben said about enforcement powers. On the particular question about publishing findings, yes, that should be happening, so that more accountability can be possible when looking at what gets passed up.

I will take the last point first. On GBR’s licence, given our role as—I keep saying this—statutory advisers to Secretary of State, we would expect to see, and indeed I am quite positive that we will, the draft licence before consultation and, as I say, the responses thereafter. I am not sure it is necessary to provide additional statutory provision for us to do that, given the core provisions in the ’85 Act that set up DPTAC. Like Emma, we have already established a good relationship with Transport Focus. From our point of view, in terms of reviewing and shaping our future advice to the Secretary of State, it will be important that we continue that engagement to understand what is going on at the coalface, essentially, because we are slightly removed from that. Another aspect is the complaints resolution, which is a really important part of what the watchdog will be able to do. Knowing who to complain to, and who is going to take that forward, has been a real problem for disabled people, so having the provisions for independent dispute resolution within Transport Focus will be really important. We would like to understand what those complaints are, so that we can see whether the advice we are giving remains relevant and appropriate, or whether we should be recommending anything else.

We will now move on to fares and ticketing.

Ben, is there any indication that fares will become more affordable for passengers because of any provision in the Bill?

That is the proverbial $64,000 question, isn’t it? We made two points in our submission. First, the definition of affordable in the Government’s documents has changed, subtly but significantly, between the consultation document and the response to the consultation, in which the new definition seems to be much more about the affordability of the railway for taxpayers through the amount of money that the Treasury might need to invest in railway infrastructure and operations. The issue for us is whether and how the Bill could require the Secretary of State to take into account passenger affordability in the guardrails and parameters that she sets out—if it is the current Secretary of State—for Great British Railways when she gives guidance or direction on fare setting. It would seem sensible to us to include in the Bill some reference to the need to take account of passenger affordability, so that the Secretary of State needs to explain what they have done around taking account of income in particular. Our research shows that almost half the people we have talked to say the cost of rail travel is the main reason why they do not travel by rail, either at all or more. It would be very helpful to build passenger affordability into the Bill.

To completely echo Ben’s point, we have also found that one of the primary reasons why disabled people do not travel by rail is the cost. It is separate to the Bill, but I want to mention the accessibility road map that accompanies it, which sets out some of the plans for accessibility on rail. The expansion of the disabled persons railcard has been looked at, and we would very much be in favour of making sure that more people are able to access that concession. However, it has to be mentioned that this comes in conjunction with the current discussions around potentially reducing the amount of people on disability benefits, which will inevitably mean that fewer people are eligible for a disabled persons railcard. We are very much looking into the affordability aspect, particularly in the light of the concessions.

Can I make one other point? We were very supportive of the fares freeze that was announced in the Budget—the first for 30 years—which hopefully gives an indication that passenger affordability is going to be a consideration in the Secretary of State’s decision making around fares guidance. But let’s wait and see what happens and what that guidance says.

It is about accessibility as well as affordability—accessibility to the tickets. Emma is absolutely right about the road maps. There is very welcome news on the expansion of the disabled persons railcard, on the plans to improve the vending machines from which you can access these tickets, which have often been less than accessible, and the functionality that they will offer in accepting disabled persons railcards, and on the improvements to Passenger Assist. Yesterday, we heard that the GBR ticketing app will allow people to book their Passenger Assist as well as their ticket, which will be a massive step forward in making journeys easier for disabled people. We were also very keen to make sure that the apps are not the only way that people can access tickets, given digital exclusion among some disabled people and older people, and that GBR will be selling tickets across the widest range of channels to make sure that they are accessible.

Ben, why do you feel that a fair and open ticket retail market is important to passengers?

We think that because the independent retail market has produced significant benefits for customers in the time that it has been in existence. It is heavily used by rail passengers. The critical question in relation to the Bill, and the other mechanisms that will be in place once the Bill has been passed, is how we ensure that there is genuine fair and open competition between GBR ticket retailing and the independent retailers currently or potentially in the market. There are various references in the Government’s documentation to the fact that they decided not to set up GBR retail as a separate entity, and that its management will be separated from the management of the operational and commercial functions of GBR. Colleagues may want to talk about this in later sessions, but there is a really important question about whether and how the code of practice on ticket retailing applies to GBR retail. It will be worth interrogating whether and how there will genuinely be a free and open market for ticket retailing as we go forward. There are references in the various documents to the fact that the Government appreciate the benefits of the independent retail market and want to keep it in place, but the critical questions will be how GBR retail operates in that market, and whether it will have some kind of unfair advantage, whether deliberately or unintentionally.

Do you think that the Government are getting themselves involved in something that they could be leaving to the market? Going back to what Sue said about what the Bill is offering for booking of accessibility, it is offering this amazing landscape, but might we be better off developing what already exists rather than starting from scratch with GBR?

It seems to me to be logical and important for GBR to be able to sell its own tickets. It would be odd to preclude it from that. Obviously, it will be a single seller of GBR tickets, as opposed to the multiple ticket selling operators that we have at the moment. The question is how we can make sure that that GBR function is complementary and additive to the existing retail market, rather than subtracting from it and making it less good for customers.

This is an interesting area. Is it not the case that third-party resellers only exist because the current framework is just so complicated? They have managed to decrypt it for users, but GBR should remove that. I have the LNER app on my phone and it is fantastic, so I am not tempted to look at any of these other services. Are they not just a function of the current dysfunctional system, which is what we are trying to get rid of?

I am sure colleagues will want to talk about this in more detail than I probably can at this point. It seems to me that the independent retailers have found commercially sensible ways to provide a really good service to users—you may not be one of them. It seems to me that as this hopefully less complex system—it will still be quite a complex system—evolves, we will understand whether and how independent retailers can add value to the market alongside GBR retail. In the end, that will be determined by whether they go on being able to sell tickets successfully in the new system.

Do you think there is the potential that they will bring more people on to the trains? Obviously, it is not in GBR’s interest if they are simply giving someone else a cut of their profit. Do you think more people will come into rail because of these third-party retailers and the way they operate?

I think if it is as easy as possible to buy the best value ticket, then that ought logically to lead to more people travelling by rail, or certainly to the current level of rail demand being maintained.

We will now go back to accessibility per se, as opposed to the voice of people with disabilities.

Promoting the needs of disabled passengers is only one of several matters GBR will have to take into account, and we have heard concerns about how accessibility will be prioritised. What guidance do you think will be needed on how to balance these considerations against each other?

We have already seen throughout rail that accessibility gets deprioritised in favour of other priorities, which is something I am very much hoping will not happen. On this specific section, we feel that the requirement to “have regard” to the interests of disabled people is not sufficient when it comes to accountability. As I mentioned, it does not give any action that we can point to and say, “This is upholding” or “This is having regard to”. It is almost purposely vague, so that it can be subject to what various actors think is promoting or having regard to, as opposed to what disabled people may think.

Ultimately, there is a double meaning to accessibility, isn’t there? There is access to the actual trains, and then accessibility to the system as a whole. Is that something you think needs to be made more explicit on the face of the Bill?

It absolutely does. The more explicit, the better. I appreciate that not everything can be put into primary legislation. However, the lack of enforceable standards and enforceable actions is why disabled people feel so excluded from the rail network at the moment, and why many of us face so many barriers. Quite a lot of tick-box exercises have been done in the past to show that they are consulting or doing things with disabled people, or looking at the views of disabled passengers, but where is the action on that? Where is the evidence that they are taking the feedback meaningfully and the turning it into changes that will improve the accessibility of the network? We have not seen that, and the vague wording in the Bill is just going to perpetuate that.

Ben or Sue, is there anything you want to add?

I know that it is not necessarily a popular provision, but GBR will also be subject to the public sector equality duty, which does not exist at the minute among the TOCs. That is an important part. Of course, the EHRC have identified transport as one of their priority areas, so we have that going on in the background as well. With all of this, as Ben said earlier, we have to look at the suite of documents around the licence—the guidance, the directions that the Secretary of State can give—and the very clear commitment we have seen thus far that people, and in particular disabled people, are at the core of the rail network. All of that needs to be in play, but at this stage we will have to wait and see how that actually plays out.

On that detail, there is all of the nice aspirational policy—and let us not forget that good, accessible policy benefits everyone, both indirectly and directly—but then there is the practical reality: “Can I get from here to there if I’m wheeling?” At the moment, the detail around that is often in accessible travel policies. Where in the new framework do you expect to see that detail? Is it in the guidance? Is it in the standards? Is it part of the licence? If that is not yet known, where should it sit? I will ask you first, Sue, because you mentioned the detail.

As ever, the devil is in the detail, and we have not seen that yet. What we do know is that the ATPs will be with the watchdog. We as DPTAC have always taken a very close look at ATPs as they have been developed, I suppose, with hindsight, in preparation for the new regime. I think that standards will be really important, and the watchdog has the ability to introduce those standards, particularly around accessibility. With GBR being able to bring together the procurement power as well, I think that has the potential to make a big difference in the accessibility area, where we see such inconsistencies in terms of lift provision and so on at stations, and maintenance regimes. As has been outlined in the road map, there are already measures moving forward ahead of the legislation to bring some of that together so that we do not get the situations we have at the moment, where we may have lifts in place that would allow wheelchair users to access the service but they are out of order, and we do not quite know when they are going to come back in and what information disabled people can have. There are all sorts of areas around those standards in terms of the hardware as well as some of the softer measures, particularly around customer information and its reliability when it comes to whether or not a particular facility is working on a particular day.

Ben, where should the details sit and who should be writing them down?

It seems to me that how the network is made increasingly accessible needs to flow from the long-term rail strategy, through the GBR business plan, through to the operating and investment decisions of the operating regions, through the guidance that the passenger watchdog will issue, and then into real technical detail of what a station being accessible means in practice in terms of how you design it—and, critically, to Sue’s point, how you maintain the infrastructure. If the lift is broken or the ramp is not there when I get to the station, it is not actually accessible, even though in theory it might be. You want to ensure a clear line of sight from the Secretary of State’s intentions regarding accessibility through GBR’s intentions and right the way down to what a passenger experiences every day on the network. Can they get to the network? Do they understand the network? Can they move around the network in a way that gives them exactly the same level of accessibility as everybody else?

It sounds like we need some station managers and a good complaints process. Emma, would you agree with that?

I absolutely would. With the replacement of each TOC having its own ATP, we have a chance to set standards, but standards are not helpful to disabled people unless they are enforceable. This Committee and others have acknowledged that even under the public sector equality duty, phrases like having “due regard” and so on are just not enough. On who should be setting those standards, the current proposal for the passenger watchdog to set them is in itself a good idea, because they can get into that level of detail. However, without that enforcement power or that regulatory power, those standards could quite easily be missed, as we are seeing every single day with the ATPs that are already in place.

Emma, you have recommended statutory requirements for things like level boarding, accessible rolling stock and station staffing. How do you think that that should be implemented in practice?

That is a really difficult question to answer. Ensuring that rolling stock and station refurbishments meet clear, accessible, enforceable specs is incredibly important, but at the moment rolling stock procurement and other aspects of infrastructure are not joined up. We hear quite a lot that level boarding is not possible because of the need for freight trains to use the same network, so it is very difficult to align the competing needs. What we really need is a long-term plan for rolling stock procurement and how that will be invested in, to make sure that there is continuous improvement of the stock and the infrastructure and that they marry up.

Would there be a risk in putting into the Bill some of the things you have asked for, given the pace of technological change?

That is a fair question. When we talk about staffing, however, I do not think that technology is ever going to be able to replace the assistance that only a human can provide. It is not as basic as the only assistance that stations provide being to put out a ramp for a wheelchair; they provide a huge amount of other support, such as being at a station to be able to unlock the toilet facility or the waiting room, both of which can have huge impacts on disabled people’s ability to travel. They also provide sighted guidance for individuals who need that, and a lot of wayfinding support for not just disabled passengers, but all passengers who require that for various reasons. We cannot wait for technology to catch up to the needs of disabled passengers, but I do not think that it will ever be able to fully meet those needs.

Olly, is there anything still to pick up on representation and consultation?

Shall we see, Chair? Emma, clearly it is important to make sure that there is really good consultation and listening with people who have disabilities, particularly as, generally speaking, people running such organisations often do not. What should be specified in the Bill about consultation, particularly on mechanisms such as the licence and standards that should be worked to?

One thing I would love to see, which is very inconsistent now, is good consultation practices, so making sure that from the very beginning of every consultation there are alternate formats for people with different information-accessibility needs to be able to receive the information that is being proposed, and then to have accessible ways to respond and to have sufficient time to do that. What I think is needed in consultation is that follow-up piece. It is great to have a fully accessible consultation—people submit lots of really important evidence or feedback—but the missing piece is where it gets published and acted on. I would like to see reasonable timeframes for reporting back on consultations and a requirement for any improvements or plans that are made off the back of the consultation, so that people can see their feedback acted on and what is actually going to change. Otherwise, we will have more and more instances of people—at least, I know, disabled people—giving their experiences on the railway, which are sometimes really traumatic experiences, and sharing them again and again, but to no avail. I think that is a reason why we have seen a real drop in the amount of disabled people who make complaints: because disabled people feel that if they make even a formal complaint, there will not be either a satisfactory response, or systemic change, which is ultimately what disabled people have identified as their main reason for making a complaint—to avoid that issue happening to them or to other disabled people going forward. That feedback loop is incredibly important when we are talking about consultation.

Does anyone have any thoughts to add to what Emma said?

The point about having accessible formats for all the consultations is a really important one. We have seen some examples of that recently from the Department, particularly on the aviation side. The report of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group was one of those documents that was produced in a variety of formats at the same time—that is also important—and not three weeks later. On consultation with stakeholders, the Government said in their response to the consultation on the Railways Bill that the licence would include a requirement to engage with stakeholders. Emma is absolutely right that how that engagement is delivered is really important. It should be not just paying lip service to engagement, but—someone coined this phrase the other day—participative engagement, which is difficult to say but gives the idea that it is a two-way street and that people need to get feedback, in terms of how their voices have been heard and whether they can be acted on. It is difficult to imagine how GBR and Transport Focus would be able to exercise their duties without having effective engagement with disabled people, so we certainly hope to see that.

We have covered consultation and communication with disabled people, but what do you think should be specified in the Bill in respect of the representation of disabled people, such as on the passenger watchdog board?

I am happy to jump in on that. As I mentioned, Transport for All recommends a proportion required on the passengers’ council so as to have that representation of lived experience. That is incredibly crucial. What the percentage is remains to be seen, in terms of what is feasible, but that lived-experience representation is absolutely needed in the legislation, otherwise we will continue to see disabled people shut out of the new rail network.

The line that has been taken thus far is that Transport Focus, as Emma mentioned, has always had good engagement with the disability community. The Government would expect that to continue. It is probably a point that will be revisited, no doubt, as the Bill proceeds. It is particularly welcome that GBR will have someone on the board with the role of championing accessibility. That is very important as we move forward.

Finally for this panel, we have a couple of questions on network access.

I will ask Ben about this first and then open it up, if that is okay. Why is ensuring an open playing field through open access important for passengers? Why not, for example, just ensure that GBR can run the network as best it can?

It is a bit like ticket retailing. We think that the services offered by open-access operators proved beneficial to passengers. They increased capacity, provided a broader range of services and connected new places to the network. The Government seem to be saying that they want open-access operators to continue to have the opportunity to provide services. We think it is important that that opportunity is there, because it is possible that in future open-access operators will spot opportunities that GBR has not and will provide services that will meet demand that is currently not being met.

Are you not concerned at all that we could see discrepancies in the quality of service under GBR, compared with those operating under open access?

I do not think so. Again, the question might be about how the overall regulatory and oversight process works, in terms of GBR operations and other operators’ services. We would want to make sure that there was consistency in how those services were monitored and action taken if performance targets were not met, for example.

That is helpful. Emma and Sue, is there anything else you would like to draw the Committee’s attention to on the interests of passengers?

As I have mentioned, the particular interest in the needs of disabled passengers is extremely welcome. Lots of great things in the Bill present a starting point, but I would like to see that strengthened more in explicit legislation.

Anything from you, Sue, perhaps on network access?

Yes. I was just going to clarify whether this was on network access. Again, I am no expert on the provisions on network access, but would only add that in exercising its decision making around that, GBR will have to have regard to the needs of disabled passengers, along with other passengers. That duty does not go away just because it is looking at network access. I suppose, at one extreme, if GBR were to allow an inaccessible service to have access, it could be challenged as not having exercised that duty to the letter. Again, it will all very much depend on what the entire framework looks like. In an ideal world, where it works as intended, it should ensure that the whole network is accessible, regardless of whether it is subject to open access or not, but I am not an expert on that.

We now bring our first panel to an end. I thank our panellists very much for their evidence and the time that they have spent preparing for us today. As ever, if you have anything you feel you need to add, please do so. I am going to suspend the sitting for a few minutes while our next witnesses take their places.