Disabled transport access a “national embarrassment”, MPs warn

Accessibility on public transport for disabled people is a “national embarrassment”, a senior group of MPs has warned.

A report by parliament’s cross-party transport select committee found “systematic” failings across all public transport and says “too great a burden is placed on individual disabled people” to hold operators and authorities to account.

Disabled-led charity Transport for All is urging the government to act on the report’s findings.

Local Transport Minister Simon Lightwood said “there is more to do to ensure everyone can travel easily and with dignity”.

“It’s clear that accessibility has been an afterthought in developing transport services and there is more to do to ensure everyone can travel easily and with dignity,” he added.

The report found nearly seven in 10 disabled people and those travelling with them report experiencing barriers to travel either most or all of the time.

Ruth Cadbury MP, who chairs the transport select committee, told the BBC: “I’m so disappointed that my fellow citizens, my constituents can’t make the kind of choices that I can make about how they live their day to day lives.”

MPs say that the current system is too difficult to navigate. They’re calling on the DFT, which is in charge of transportation policy in England, to simplify the system and to look at possible changes to legislation, which in theory, they say could be implemented in other UK nations.

The report calls for a change in culture, which they say is urgently needed to reframe disability inclusion as “a non-negotiable matter of human rights”

Transport for All said the report findings “paint a damning picture”, highlighting that the disabled community “does not have equal access to any mode of transport.”

Caroline Stickland, the charity’s chief executive, told the BBC: “We really welcome this clear call to action that the current state of transport inaccessibility in this country can not continue.”

“This report is a wakeup call for the government to address transport accessibility and make sure the UK is a place for all of us.”

The report makes 29 conclusions and recommendations – including one that the Government should produce a new inclusive transport strategy within 12 months.

The report also recommends that ministers look at simplifying the current regulatory and enforcement which they say is “far too fragmented and complex”.