Speeches by Aquarone.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing a debate on this vital issue. The fact that I previously secured a debate in this place on flooding in Norfolk and our problems with too much water, and now I am complaining about the…”

“My hon. Friend and I both represent rural constituencies that face similar challenges. Businesses in North Norfolk already face extra struggles to stay afloat, including training and retaining staff, finding affordable premises, and even things as simple as getting a strong and reliable phone and internet connection. D…”

“Let us start with the premise that good accessibility design benefits everyone. It obviously particularly benefits people with specific accessibility requirements. We are seeing some changes. The passenger watchdog has statutory powers for the first time, and your role is changing in terms of the enforcement of accessi…”

“Thank you for your candour. Can I ask the same question to you, Steve?”

“That is very helpful. Thank you.”

“Stepping back a little bit, rather than backwards or up—zooming out a little bit—I am conscious that there are various things where we just do not know the detail. That has affected a number of the topics we have discussed this morning, but I am interested in each of your general assessments of the Bill as it is, from …”

“We are going from an advocacy-based approach where, essentially, promoting accessibility is down to advocate groups and specifically tasked duty holders within the ecosystem, to one where, basically the system brings everyone together. That is good, but it is only as good as the direction it is being given from the top…”

“That is great—thank you. Not a duty, but part of your scope has been to promote accessibility. We talked about your new role in enforcement, but whose job is it to promote accessibility? I suppose that builds on some of the comments that we have made so far, in passing, about some colleagues’ worry about where the pass…”

“Pretty much every single element of the railways had to have an accessible travel policy as part of its licence conditions, but presumably what is transferring over to the passenger watchdog is a much broader remit, because there are to be far fewer licences to inspect and presumably far less detail in the travel polic…”

“The ATPs had quite a level of detail in some cases. There is the policy of accessible travel, but then there is, “This lift needs to go from this level to that level at this station,” and I worry that the granularity is what really affects the passenger experience. One bit of that going wrong can make the journey unvia…”

“You do not fear a construction industry blacklist type situation where drivers find themselves unable to work anywhere suddenly because of a complaint that they have had very limited right to respond to, for instance?”

“If there were to be greater access to NR3S—the big list of banned and suspended licences—for operators, what would the downside potentially be?”

“They would not be checking because someone drove across the county border?”

“Is that because you and the local authority have closer access to the communities you are serving and you have relationships with people that mean that you know when something looks or sounds iffy? Or is it a function of that relationship and data-sharing provisions that you have in place?”

“Is it a danger that the statistics you quoted earlier might not be fully representative of the reality if data is not flowing between the operators and the licensing authorities in the same way that you have described it flowing in London?”

“Should operators have access to NR3S? What would the downsides be? Thinking about the driver’s rights in particular, we do not want to get into a situation like the construction industry blacklisting of the last decade.”

“Do you think it is used consistently at the moment?”

“So you can see the whole country but you cannot see whether you feel as though on balance the system is being consistently used by different licensing authorities?”

“You cannot see it—right, understood. Thank you.”

“The real-world experience in North Norfolk is very much like that. It is a struggle to secure the care that people need. We have a shortage of specialist care and Parkinson’s nurses, and those are just some of the things that our rural health system struggles with. Does the hon. Member agree that those living with Park…”