We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Transport Committee. Ruth Cadbury will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement.

These should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair, not to the relevant Minister. Front Benchers may take part in the questioning.

I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for the report, which is most welcome. I will read it with interest. She referenced the Access for All programme, which hit the buffers during the previous Parliament with fewer than half the promised projects coming to fruition.

She said much about what went wrong. How confident is she that we can avoid such problems happening in future?

The report has 29 recommendations, but the last one is the most important: an overarching body with responsibility for standards enforcement across transport modes, which would replace the hotchpotch of laws, policies and processes that disabled people must navigate with a more effective approach to asserting the rights of disabled travellers.

I thank my hon. Friend for such a brilliant report. I welcome the commitment to an accessible road map as part of Labour’s transformational Great British Railways reform. What positive role does my hon. Friend see this road map playing in improving accessible travel across the country?

Order. We have several minutes only, so questions and answers must be short.

I compliment the Transport Committee and its Chair on this report, which, from what I have read so far, is absolutely excellent. I have two very short points for the hon. Lady. In London, ticket offices were closed by Transport for London some time ago.

Does the report include anything about the possibility of reopening those ticket offices or having better information available for people, particularly those with sight or hearing difficulties, going to stations?

Secondly, there are still a large number of underground stations with no lift access whatsoever. What evidence has she had that Transport for London will bring forward a programme to make all underground stations fully accessible for everyone?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Under our proposal, TfL would need to be part of that new process. Take the example of Vienna’s 100-year-old U-Bahn system, where there is a programme to make every station accessible within 30 years.

London is bigger, and it is a bigger challenge, but it is not impossible.

I call Transport Committee member Laurence Turner.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose determination as Chair has meant that this important report from the previous Committee has seen the light of day.

Does she agree that the reasonable adjustments framework under the Equality Act is the right one, and that the problem is the lack of implementation and awareness? If we had clearer statutory guidance, as exists in some areas, disabled passengers and other transport users would face fewer barriers.

I thank my hon. Friend for the support he gave me in drafting the final parts of the report. He is absolutely right.

Disabled people and operators currently use a system that is a hotchpotch of sometimes conflicting and very complex bits of legislation, some of which was brought over from EU law and some from the Equality Act.

When that is addressed, it will be much clearer to bring forward more specific regulations.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. In addition, thanks to digital technology, we now have real-time knowledge of when a lift is working or not.

I call Transport Committee member Alex Mayer.

Our report highlights that the understanding of disabilities has changed since many of the relevant laws and regulations were put in place. This issue is about not only ramps for wheelchairs, for example, but conditions such as neurodiversity. Does my hon.

Friend agree that making transport more accessible for those with hidden disabilities is important, not least because, for economic growth, we must use the talents of all?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

As I said, Claire opened my eyes to her needs, with things like having to find an access information point outside the station where she can summon Passenger Assist so that she does not have to go through the confusion, noise and crowds of a station, as well as the design of the walls in tube stations, which impact her ability to move through a station.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: hidden disabilities are as important as those we can see with a wheelchair or a white stick.

Londoners often complain about their train service, but actually it is pretty good, with the overground, the underground and Network Rail.

However, it is barred to many disabled travellers—taking an example at random, Kew Bridge and Gunnersbury stations, which serve my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Select Committee Chair, need step-free access. What can we do to change feasibility studies into actuality in such places?

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for raising the issue of the two stations where both of our constituents need step-free access. I have not yet had an answer from the Rail Minister on the Access for All programme for those two stations, but I will keep chasing.

I thank my colleagues on the Transport Committee for their work on this important report. I have been campaigning to make Atherstone station in my constituency more accessible, and I will be using this report to help achieve that goal.

The previous Government recklessly overpromised on Access for All, misleading disabled passengers who have been left stranded for too long. Does my hon.

Friend agree that disabled people have been let down over the past decade, and that this Government are right to tackle the situation now and improve services for the future?

I commend the Chair for this excellent report and for shining the light on such an important issue.

I can think of numerous times when I have been on a bus and have had to be very curt with the driver to argue on behalf of a disabled person in a wheelchair who wants to use the space, after the driver has blatantly told them to wait for the next bus. That sort of thing is unacceptable.

Does she agree that we need to look at the enforcement of the equality legislation as it stands and at better training and awareness so that disabled people in wheelchairs can use public transport?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who chairs of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

As I said, the culture change goes from the top to the frontline, and staff need both to be trained and to have the confidence that they will be supported if they do assert the rights of disabled people.

As the parent of a wheelchair user with a severe sight impairment, I see many of the issues the report highlights on a daily basis.

The report highlights the issues with aviation and the difficulties the Civil Aviation Authority has faced in enforcing regulations on behalf of wheelchair users and people with a severe sight impairment. Will my hon.

Friend join me in asking the Government to fully consider the recommendations of the aviation accessibility task and finish group when it reports in the summer, along with the principles of my Aviation (Accessibility) Bill, to finally make changes for disabled people on airlines?

I was happy to be a co-sponsor of my hon. Friend’s Bill on aviation accessibility. I fear that one of our findings was that the CAA puts too much emphasis on what it calls “reputational enforcement”, rather than proper enforcement.

The relevant Minister in the previous Parliament said that the CAA needs additional powers, and I hope this Government will support those words.

I thank my hon. Friend and her Committee for a fantastic report. Will she join me in congratulating disability rights activists such as my former constituent, Sam Jennings, who I know is thrilled by the report, which I hope my hon. Friend would be happy to hear?

It is important that we congratulate these activists, who have been looking for a report like this for a long time. Sam certainly opened my eyes to a number of different issues. If the Government accept these recommendations, which they should, it will be due to their fantastic activism.

People such as Sam are amazing activists. As I have said, they were major contributors to our inquiry, but they also need to be major contributors to the solutions.

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty has signified his Royal Assent to the following Act: Finance Act 2025.