Ruth Cadbury
MP for Brentford and Isleworth · Labour · United Kingdom
“I supported this legislation first in 2015 and will do so again as it goes through its processes. I am truly grateful for all the work that so many hon. Members here and in the other House have done on the detail of the Bill.”
“His brother was diagnosed with cancer, and after an operation that proved unsuccessful, he was admitted to a hospice for end-of-life care. About his brother, he said: “He was very philosophical about what was going to happen. His one request and hope was that his death was not going to be prolonged and painful.”
“If he could only have received a life-ending intervention 5 days before he died, as he wanted, he would not have had to suffer the indignity and agony of a painful and long, drawn-out, horrific death.” The second experience is that described on several occasions in the House by Paul Blomfield, the former MP for Sheffield Central, about hi…”
“In Paul’s words, “He had had his share of health problems, but he faced them all positively, until a terminal diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer clearly led to his decision to take his life. He could not talk to me or his partner about it, because he would have made us complicit.”
“I will not. The many people who have shared their experiences of facing death soon have told us that they want to die on their own terms. We also know, through various credible polls, that the majority of people in this country want that choice for themselves. I do not want to deny them the right to be able to make that choice.”
“231WH.] Those potentially facing unimaginable pain or suffering after their terminal diagnosis, despite the best palliative care, currently have options that are unbearably lonely—like for Paul’s father—or involve an arduous and costly journey by going to Switzerland; or they have no choice, like my constituent’s brother.”
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“I hope that the Minister will address the issue of minimum standards for managing agents when he responds to this debate. When my constituents try to sell their flats, they often find out the major problems with leasehold: either the asking price has decreased due to the ground rent or service charges or—even worse—banks will not lend on their flats. When one of my constituents inherited a property, they found out that there was only 40 years left on the lease. They can extend the lease, but they have been told that doing so would cost a six-figure sum. They told me that “the only future I can see is that of a bleak one.” Another constituent wrote to tell me how, despite paying a record-high service charge, their lift is constantly broken down. At one point, excrement fell from a broken pipe through the lift shaft for a rather long time.”
“They continue: “The service charges increase each year with little transparency, covering inflated management fees, audit fees, and security charges, with no consultation with leaseholders on providers or costs. This imbalance of control leaves us vulnerable to arbitrary charges without accountability.” On top of ever-rising service charges, many people have also faced sky-high building insurance costs since the Grenfell tragedy. In one case, council leaseholders saw an increase in their costs of more than 500%. People who get the right to manage by setting up resident management organisations have the right to hire and fire managing agents, and to get rid of companies such as FirstPort, but that has not always been plain sailing.”
“There is also the specific problem that many constituents are frankly outgunned when they get into legal disputes. Another constituent faces a legal bill in the thousands because they have to represent themselves. One Hounslow resident who lives in a badly converted office block summarises the issue well: “Our building’s service charges and insurance costs average just over £2,000 per flat annually”— which sounds all right— “yet the quality of service is alarmingly poor. We have regular incidents of theft, with leaseholders having to rely on personal security measures”. They say that is because the management company are not interested.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am sure that the Minister is noting these points and will address how we can ensure transparency and a minimum quality of standards in the billing of service charges and the other activities of management companies. I now want to get to the end of my speech. Given the popularity—sadly—of this debate, I hope that there will be many more debates on it in this place where everybody will be able to make a strong speech about these issues that are so important to many of our constituents. I will give some examples from constituents. In one case, a constituent was rightly concerned about the costs they faced and asked for a breakdown of them, but was refused. They issued the necessary legal action to get the breakdown, but six months later they are still waiting for it.”
“Whether Members’ constituencies are rural, mid-sized cities, suburban or in the London commuter belt, the interest in this issue is significant. In England outside London, there has been an overall decline in bus use of 63% since 2002. Car travel is now not only the main form of travel, but in many places it is the only way to get around, particularly early, late and at weekends. For those who are unable to drive or access a car, the lack of decent, or indeed any, bus services means that they are stuck at home or at the mercy of family, neighbours or expensive taxis.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the first Commons debate on the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, which I welcome. The new Transport Committee decided that its first inquiry would be on “Buses connecting communities” to address the rural and non-city services across England outside London. We have completed our evidence gathering and our report will be published before too long. The oral and written evidence we received is tagged to today’s Order Paper and is available via a link on the Committee website. Poor bus services affect the constituents of almost every constituency in England outside London, judging by the interest in the issue during the election of the Chair of the Committee last September and in the attendance today.”
“I therefore welcome the focus on enhanced partnerships and franchising powers for local authorities. The franchising model has long been used in London, and it has been seen more recently in Greater Manchester through the Bee Network. Franchising and even enhanced partnerships should make for co-ordinated timetables, simplified fare structures and greater accountability in service delivery so that passengers no longer have to navigate a confusing web of different operators, routes and fare structures.”
“We heard that the future of many services remains “precarious”. From a local authority perspective, the situation was described as “challenging”. We also heard about the economic hit to many town centres from fewer buses; if people cannot travel, they do not spend in local shops and businesses. This Bill is not a magic wand, however. For instance, the Local Government Association told us that “successful implementation will require practical support and local flexibility from central government.” I will address four key areas, the first of which is improved integration and co-ordination. Passenger groups told us that they need a system that works together as a whole, rather than the patchwork of disconnected services that they see at present.”
“I will come on to that, but yes. For a Labour Government with a focus on growth, opportunity and clean energy, it is essential to transform bus services across England to make them more reliable, more accessible and better integrated into the fabric of local communities. That is important to ensure that residents of rural areas are not left behind, to support the growth and regeneration aspirations of our towns away from major conurbations, and to make sure that the most vulnerable have equal access and ability to travel. In its inquiry, the Committee has received valuable evidence from a wide range of stakeholders. When we looked at the impact of declining bus services, we heard evidence that described local bus services in 2025 as a “barrier” to opportunity rather than an “enabler”.”
“We went to Ireland, where Government policy provides that the vast majority in rural Ireland are linked to their nearest town by at least three return bus journeys per day. Even London’s buses survive on cross-subsidy from the tube system. Unless and until we have a robust economy where local authorities have the funding to deliver an Ireland level of bus provision, this Bill is the start and not the magic bullet in delivering the affordable, accessible and comprehensive bus network across England that we all aspire to.”
“It must be of a guaranteed minimum standard and proven effectiveness, not a tick-box exercise that enables people to say that they have done the training. The Bill does not appear to address the accessibility barriers that prevent most people who use class 3 mobility scooters from travelling on bus services. Furthermore, will it make reference to the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000? As has been mentioned, it is also unclear whether express coaches and closed-door school services are covered by the Bill. On amendments passed in the other place, will the Secretary of State have another chance to look at implementing a “Vision Zero” deaths and injuries goal for the bus sector? The elephant in the room is funding. There is not a country in the world that has a self-funding bus service.”
“That is welcome, but in their evidence to us, operators and local authorities had questions about how that would play out. Having defined those services, will local authorities be held to ransom for their continuation, regardless of cost? Accessibility means more than the design of buses and bus stops; it includes the usability of digital information, maps and timetables, without excluding those who do not have a smartphone or cannot get a mobile signal. We were told that guidance on accessibility must encourage rather than discourage innovation. Although clauses relating to staff training in accessibility are welcome, we were told that guidance must set out clearer expectations about the nature of training that is to be provided.”
“A not insignificant proportion of the population are left out, yet they need to get to work, to college, to the shops, to services and to doctors’ appointments, and they have to have a social and family life. Even if a local area is served by reliable bus services, that is no use if people cannot get on or off them, if they do not feel safe or if they cannot afford the fare. Although I welcome references to affordability and accessibility, I have some questions based on our buses inquiry and the evidence to it, and on our “Access denied” report, the work on which was mainly completed by our predecessor Committee. Clause 14 requires local transport authorities operating in enhanced partnerships to identify socially necessary services.”
“The Transport Secretary reiterated just now that buses have a vital role to play in the transition to greener and more sustainable transport, as well as in cutting pollution in busy streets and reducing car dependency. If my constituency experience is anything to go by, getting adequate EV charging capacity to bus depots must be a priority. Although that is perhaps not a feature of the Bill, I use this opportunity to ask whether the Minister will work with bus operators and power networks to address that challenge for bus depots. On affordability and accessibility, if there is to be transformational change to the bus system in England, buses have to be there for those who cannot drive or cannot afford to own and run a car.”
“I will press on, because I will be frowned at if I take too many interventions. On community engagement and local needs, our inquiry was told that services should be shaped by the voices of those who rely on them, ensuring that routes are designed to connect communities, not just city centres, and that they connect rural and isolated communities. I welcome the inclusion in the Bill of local bus service improvement plans, which will ensure that local authorities can work with operators to tailor services to the unique needs of the communities they serve. Will the Bill ensure that service user groups are an integral part of both the design and the review of local services? I move on to sustainability and green transport.”
“At yesterday’s Transport Committee hearing, the Minister for Local Transport outlined the measures that the Government are taking to reverse the 15-year decline in bus services. The measures will protect many at-risk bus routes and may deliver a few more, but as they deliver growth and reduce congestion, do the Government have a wider ambition to ensure that all rural and non-city areas in England have at least a basic level of bus service so that everyone can get to school, work and the shops, and use public services without needing to drive a car?”
“The people of Gaza are being starved deliberately, and they need full, immediate, unimpeded delivery of adequate aid. Will the UK Government insist that Israel ensures that aid is distributed not by private military contractors, but by the UN and international agencies, according to the UN’s recognised humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, independence and impartiality?”
“My issue with the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) is that she has knocked me off my place as the second-fastest woman MP marathon runner—but I will be back. While thousands of airline passengers were impacted by Monday’s outage across Spain and Portugal, only 500 flights were grounded out of a possible 6,000, the rest managing to fly. That is because there were no airport closures. Is there a lesson here for UK airports?”
“T7. Electric vehicle sales growth is at risk of slowing down. Many private car and fleet owners would transition to EVs, but patchy provision of public charging for those unable to charge at home and inadequate power capacity for rapid charging on our strategic road network for long-distance drivers are two key reasons for reluctance to buy EVs. What discussions are DESNZ Ministers having with power networks, charging providers and the Department for Transport to address this?”
“The scheme works using an automatic number plate recognition system. Finally, I reinforce the request that the Minister introduce a default pavement parking ban, as we have in London, that allows exceptions when there is no other option and that focuses on national targets for increasing walking, cycling and wheeling.”
“The school streets initiative is an important measure, but it can also support wider ambitions to improve air quality and reduce collisions. Hounslow has monitored the implementation of the initiative at three schools. It has seen an increase in walking, wheeling and cycling of almost 10% in the morning peak and almost 12% in the afternoon peak. There has been no displacement of traffic on to boundary roads as a result of the schemes, and there has been an increase in overall pedestrian movements, which shows that, as a travel behaviour policy, it has benefits beyond the school. I heard from a headteacher who really welcomed the scheme’s implementation outside her school. She said that many more families now feel safe to walk towards the school gates, and she no longer has to speak to parents numerous times about safely driving to school.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing the debate and on his excellent speech. I will focus on the school streets initiative, which has already got many more families in Hounslow walking, cycling and scooting to school, and it will have a similar effect elsewhere. The school streets initiative protects those who already walk, scoot and cycle. Being in an urban area, the majority of our schoolchildren and their families do walk, but there is some very selfish behaviour from some parents who want to drive all the way to the school gates and back out again if it is in a cul-de-sac. I have seen some very dangerous behaviour, as I am sure other Members have. In Hounslow, there are about 30 school streets. Around 25% of car trips in the morning peak seem to be related to families on the school run.”
“How can we ensure that this does not happen again? It became the norm that groups serving vulnerable constituents would not know until right at the end of the financial year whether they would get continuation funding. How can we guarantee that that does not happen again for these groups and others serving vulnerable constituents?”
“I congratulate my neighbouring MP and the Liberal Democrat leader on education, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), on being granted this urgent question. Her constituents and mine benefit from the Purple Elephant Project, through which more than 50 families get much-needed therapy that ensures that children stay out of higher-cost services. Like other groups that MPs have been hearing from in their constituencies, those families have been devastated by the delay; not knowing whether this important therapy would continue was already having an impact on them. I therefore also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for listening—I know this issue is close to her heart, too—and for the work she has been doing with Treasury Ministers, which I assume has enabled her to make this announcement.”
“Yesterday, the all-party parliamentary group on cycling and walking published its report on social justice as it impacts on vulnerable road users. Injuries to pedestrians could be cut significantly with simple side road zebra crossings without Belisha beacons. That would align with the 2022 highway code changes. Such crossings are common across the world, and they are being trialled around the corner from this building at the Department for Transport. Will the Government consider amending the guidance for highways authorities so that these crossings can be rolled out across the country?”
“I also congratulate the Chancellor on her excellent statement, which addresses the challenge the previous Government left her with. In order to drive growth across the UK, new heavy and light rail infrastructure is badly needed. What work is the Chancellor doing to develop new models of funding to deliver those important projects?”
“I am told that the next airports national policy statement, like the last one, will cover only Heathrow. Is it not time that we had a national airports strategy to include what happens when any one of our airports is taken out of action?”
“I thank the Transport Secretary for her statement. I also thank the fire services and the airport and airline staff who did so much over the weekend to address and support the situation and ensure that it did not get any worse. We will have a Committee session next week with the chief exec of Heathrow airport and others. We also look forward to asking the Secretary of State more questions when she comes to us after the Easter recess, by which time I hope that she and I will be better genned up on electrical engineering. There has been talk this weekend about the single point of failure. In this case, that is about not just a particular electricity substation but what happens when our busiest airport closes. All our airports—critical national infrastructure—have an impact when they are at risk.”
“The Bill and the excellent national planning policy framework enable new housing developments to no longer be designed with entrenched car dependence. The Bill is an excellent opportunity to ensure that new housing and other developments can be concentrated in locations with good public transport, so that schools, shops, health centres, parks and open spaces are easily reachable without the need to drive. This ensures access for all, not only those who have a car. It ensures access to jobs, education, training and shops—all essential building blocks for growth across the country.”
“It fosters more certainty for critical national infrastructure such as electricity—that is so important, as we heard earlier in the Heathrow statement—clean energy, roads, public transport, water and sewerage. I welcome the certainty of decision making for planning applications, more effective land assembly through improving the compulsory purchase orders process and bringing back development corporations, and the return of effective spatial development strategies. The Bill will enable the Government to reform the planning system to deliver on growth, new housing, cutting carbon emissions and climate change resilience—all of which the UK badly needs. As an MP in London where buying a home or even renting is out of reach to most young people, I welcome the Government’s focus on delivering the 1.5 million new homes that are needed.”
“I welcome the Bill. When I studied for my planning diploma, I learned that since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, the power of national strategic policy versus the challenge of local politics in planning approvals has waxed and waned. It felt under the previous Government as though national powers over significant development decisions almost disappeared, and MPs of the Government party effectively pressured the then Secretary of State to refuse much-needed infrastructure developments that included new housing developments, prisons and more. There has to be a balance. The national Government have to be able to deliver on their national strategies. This is what the Bill does. I particularly welcome specific parts of the Bill.”
“The legislation itself may not be the problem, but the building safety regulator processes certainly are. A development of more than 400 homes in my constituency has been stuck for over a year, with no certainty about if and when they will go ahead. Obviously, my last three points are not within the scope of the Bill, but they are relevant to the aspirations of this Labour Government to get Britain building, which the Bill will deliver.”
“It has taken far too long to deliver even half of the original HS2 project. I therefore hope that the Government will come up with a more streamlined process for such major national projects. Thirdly, I hope that the Secretary of State will work with the Chancellor on different public-private funding mechanisms that other equivalent economies have long used to develop transport infrastructure, social and affordable housing and other public services, so that they are no longer held back due to historic Treasury orthodoxies on capital expenditure. Fourthly, the Housing Minister will be aware of the additional delays faced by developers of tall blocks of flats. They have planning permission but are being delayed in gateways 2 and 3 of the Building Safety Act 2022.”
“The community infrastructure levy and section 106 agreements on, say, new bus routes, must be adequate, timely and sustainable, so that people are not moving into estates to then become dependent on having a car. Providing two buses a day for a couple of years, some time after tens or even hundreds of homes have been occupied, is not building in sustainable transport. My second point is about new joint public-private developments. The hybrid Bill process, as was used for High Speed 2, took years and still did not deliver detailed plans for the routes. It then got mired in lengthy legal processes over the details. The chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission told our Transport Committee how France and Spain delivered new high-speed rail in a fraction of the time, without it being mired in public opposition and legal challenges.”
“My constituency neighbour makes a good point, but she must remember that due to 15 years of austerity, many of those sales were the only way that public sector institutions could deliver the new services that were so badly needed. The Mayor of London and councils such as Hounslow are working with the Labour Government on several key transport links, including the west London orbital, which will unlock thousands of new homes. However, the Bill alone will not unlock the housing and infrastructure projects that the country so urgently needs, so I ask the Secretary of State—or the Minister for Housing and Planning, who is still present—to address the other causes of delay and uncertainty that we are seeing in the system.”
“Our Committee will hold the Government to account for doing so, and for bringing reality in line with rights. I commend our report to the House, and we look forward to receiving a considered response from the Government in due course.”
“To conclude, I thank not only our predecessor Committee for taking the evidence on which this report is based, and the Committee staff who worked so hard on the inquiry and the report, but, more important, those who gave evidence, especially about their own experiences of travelling as a disabled person and their expert analysis of what is going wrong. I particularly thank Claire Lindsey, and Alan Benson, a champion for disabled people’s rights on transport who sadly passed away last year. Alan and Claire took me through London at the start of the inquiry and opened my eyes to the issues that affect people with autism, and those with restricted mobility, when travelling. The words of disabled people, quoted throughout our report, are a call to action that we expect the Government to heed.”
“We recommend a unified service to receive and triage accessibility complaints, to ensure they reach the relevant operator or authority, to follow them up if not resolved and ensure that systemic issues are identified. We also ask for a review of the legal framework to replace the patchwork that has grown up ad hoc over time. Users find it difficult to know what they are entitled to, operators find it difficult to know what they have to provide, and changes in technology and travel trends leave gaps in the law. In our report we invite the Government to consider whether a framework based on more explicit standards would be more effective, and that the framework’s design and outcome must include disabled people at every stage.”
“Only long-standing, organisation-wide failures tend to be pursued, and only then when informal measures have been exhausted. As a result, while individual disabled people often lose count of the number of occasions on which they have been failed, regulators can generally count on the fingers of one or two hands the number of formal enforcement actions that have been taken. We must bring that into balance. There have to be consequences for failure. That is why our report asks Ministers to move towards a more robust active enforcement regime. We invite Government to consider whether a single body, with expertise in and responsibility for accessibility across transport modes, would be a more effective model.”
“Concrete plans and real resources need to be put behind a new inclusive transport strategy, one that sets out a realistic pathway to achieving that goal of equal access. The routine, everyday nature of access failures stood out in our inquiry, but it is punishingly hard to hold anyone to account for failures. Seeking redress, or even just reporting them to the responsible body, is a huge, exhausting and often thankless burden. In theory, individuals can take legal action under the Equality Act, but it is costly, risky and time-consuming, so few cases are brought. Even when cases are successful, lasting systemic change does not happen. More of the heavy lifting needs to be done by regulators and enforcement bodies. They currently often have neither the mandate nor the resources to involve themselves at a low enough threshold.”
“We argue that a certain level of failure seems to be deemed acceptable by transport providers, such as when providing Passenger Assist services. We describe how accessibility is not taken into account early enough in the process of policy development, such as when proposals to close railway ticket offices wholesale made it to consultation. The public said no, but they should not have had to. We discuss the vital role of sufficient staff who are well trained in how to support travel needs of people with different needs. A change of mindset throughout the system, from the top down, is needed urgently. Failures should be vanishingly rare, not commonplace. Access to transport must be recognised as a human right, not as a matter of customer service.”
“On policy, in 2018 the Government adopted an inclusive transport strategy that aimed to achieve: “equal access for disabled people using the transport system, with assistance if physical infrastructure remains a barrier, by 2030”. Ministers in the previous Government told the Committee they thought progress towards that goal was on track. The reality seems to be completely at odds with the rights and with policy aspirations. Our report aims to set out why that is and what should be done about it. We set out examples of accessibility being deprioritised, often because it is seen as too impractical or costly to achieve it. Plans for implementing step-free access on the rail network, for example, have been beset by halting progress, and many of us are still awaiting an update on the Access for All step-free projects at our local stations.”
“I’ve been late to important meetings because of this, and it makes me feel like a second class citizen…I barely go to see my mum or friends at home because the transport is so bad for wheelchair users I don’t know how I’d do it. It’s affected my friendships, relationships and working life, and it's embarrassing. I just want to be able to use public transport like everyone else.” In theory, we have laws to promote accessibility and equality, but they are clearly not working. There is a raft of equality legislation and specific regulations about transport that, if implemented consistently, ought to guarantee access and freedom from discrimination. From the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty to the minutiae of vehicle regulations, we have the framework.”
“Perhaps most shocking of all, 60% of disabled people who responded to our survey said that almost every journey was beset with problems. More than a third said that more than once a week they decided not to make a journey because they knew it would be too complicated, too unsafe or that things were likely to go wrong. That is simply an unacceptable infringement of people’s human rights to go to work, to access education, health care and family, to participate in society and just to have fun. Transport is not an end in itself. It is supposed to be an enabler. But far too often it is disabling people. Around one in seven in the UK population have a disability. One respondent to our survey told us: “There’s an assumption that disabled people’s time is less valuable—that it’s okay to make us wait for a rail worker to turn up with a ramp.”
“Members, whose constituents tell us about rail stations that remain stubbornly inaccessible, taxi services that have refused carriage because of assistance dogs, and being left high and dry at airports or on trains when they have booked passenger assistance that just does not arrive on time. No mode of transport is free from problems, despite most notionally having accessible facilities and policies. Those failures affect people with all kinds of disabilities and access needs. The needs of wheelchair users and people with sight loss might seem obvious, but the Committee also heard from people with health conditions who need easy access to toilets and from those with autism, who describe how overcrowded or unpredictable transport affects them.”
“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for me to make a statement to the House to mark the publication of the Transport Committee’s first report of this Parliament. Our report is called “Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to transport”. It brings to a conclusion work done by our predecessor Committee, on which I sat for a while in the previous Parliament, and for which we thank it. The report first sets out the evidence we receive from disabled people about their experiences of using transport networks in this country. Their experiences will come as no surprise to most hon.”
“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 agree that the formation of Great British Railways provides an opportunity to bring together all the players in passenger rail, many of which have different standards, different policies and different training regimes. With a single commanding body, I think we have a real chance of bringing those processes together. However, that does not stop rail operators carrying out their responsibilities day to day. It is not just about policies, but about how it works every day.”
“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 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.”