Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to Part One of the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, (a) what work his Department has done to date to work closely with rail companies to further develop the Passenger Assist Programme for disabled passengers and (b) whether it introduced a passenger assist app in 2021 as planned.

The Department continues to work closely with the Rail Delivery Group on the Passenger Assist Improvement programme. The Department provided £700k from the ‘First of a Kind’ fund in 2018 and 2019 and made a further contribution of £250k in May 2020. We have also agreed an allowable cost of £770k for the further development of the Passenger Assist programme.

The passenger assist app was successfully introduced in May 2021.